Superpaige's Pad

The Trials of a Busy Mom

Category: school (Page 4 of 4)

Coach Erickson (oh, stop laughing)

January 27, 2012 / / 0 Comments

I had the privilege of subbing for junior high PE today. Even though the though of my own junior high PE experience just about makes me break out in hives (seriously? Climb that rope? Shuttle run? And don’t even get me started on what a JOY it was to traipse over to the Cottonwood spa–excuse me–Rec center–every day for swimming), it was a 1/2 day assignment at my kids’ school, and as a bonus, my daughter would be in that class, so I took it.

My observations:

-Almost everyone loves basketball. Go figure. I never liked basketball, but then again, I have no coordination and trip over my own feet. But even the kids who aren’t that coordinated and aren’t jocks still seemed to have fun.

-Nobody likes that stupid middle court with only one basket. You have to double back to “change sides” and people sometimes forget and shoot when it’s not their basket.

-When subbing for PE, it would be prudent to bring more band-aids. I have band-aids in my substitute bag, but since I wasn’t teaching in a ‘real class’ I didn’t bring that bag, so I only had the band-aids in my purse. I used them all. We also had a girl get clobbered in the chin, and another girl got a wicked bloody nose. With that many girls playing in such close proximity, arms flail and people get hit.

-My girl may not be the most jock like kid there, but she’s not the only one. There are a lot of awkward kids (and if my kids read this, I’m not saying you’re awkward, honey, but you are my daughter, and I didn’t pass on any sporty genes to you because I really don’t have any).

-There are some really young looking 7th graders, and some really old looking 8th graders. Seriously! Some of them were SO short, playing against these giants of girls (taller than me, even). But the short ones are sometimes the best at dribbling and stealing, so it’s not always a disadvantage.

-The best basketball players are not always the tall and thin girls. I observed one girl, who wasn’t fat, but solid. She wasn’t one that I would imagine would be good at basketball. Oh, was I wrong. Swoosh! She carried the whole team! Smooth, and powerful, and a great shot. While some of the skinny tall girls who I thought would be really good, were merely skinny and tall, not necessarily good at basketball.

-And that whistle I bought for myself? Totally came in handy.

So, while I don’t aspire to be a PE teacher, playing one for a day (well, half day, if you want to get technical), wasn’t that bad.

Sayonara Kodai

November 2, 2011 / / 1 Comment

What a week! I had made plans for all the things we were going to do with Kodai, our Japanese student.

Going to see the witches and have dinner at Archibald’s restaurant at Gardner village was so much fun last year, we HAD to do that again. And for Saturday, wouldn’t it be great to go out to the Kennecott Copper mines? We’ve been wanting to do that for years!

But, our family is busy, and we couldn’t just drop everything that we had going on for the week.

Monday night, only Ryan and a few kids went to Provo to pick Kodai up, since the girls had volleyball practice and Cole had mucho homework.
Tuesday night was John’s first basketball game, so we were pretty much obligated to go to that one. We did go together and get frozen yogurt that night.

Wednesday I had bells rehearsal, and John had a pack meeting. Rather than having Kodai go to pack meeting with him, I dropped the kids off at the dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving point. They had a fun time there for a couple of hours, and then Ryan picked them up and brought them home. They especially enjoyed the sand and water table.

Thursday night we didn’t have ANYTHING scheduled (or so I thought), so that was going to be our outing to Gardiner Village. But no…Natalie and Megan just HAD to go to the ward volleyball game at 6. Cole had major stuff to get done before the last day of the term the next day. And then, (here’s the kicker) Ryan had to stay late at work to take not one, but two conference calls. Ok, plans, we’ll see you later! Instead, I decided to let the boys chill at home and play some Wii. They didn’t seem to mind. We also went to dinner at the great and wonderful eating establishment of Wendy’s.

Friday, we had a fun ward party planned, and we didn’t want to miss it. We decorated the trunk, made cornbread, and got everyone (even Kodai) outfitted in costumes, and went to our ward party at the church. There was a chili cook-off with dinner of salads, chili and cornbread, then games by the youth in the ward, and finally a trunk or treat. It was so much fun! I kept losing track of our student, but he seemed to be having fun with these crazy American Halloween festivities.

Saturday was the day to get all that fun in that we hadn’t had time to do during the week. But we still had 2 volleyball games and a basketball game to attend to, so we had to get creative. First, I sent Cole and Megan and Kodai to Trafalga to go do some laser tag. They did have a great time with laser tag and go carts while I went to a basketball game and then a volleyball game. Then we were all going to meet up at Los Hermanos for lunch. Everything was going according to plan–except that I wasn’t feeling well. I had a headache and was feeling kind of queasy, and even my beloved Los Hermanos didn’t make me feel like eating. I decided to opt out of the lunch and the afternoon activities. Luckily, Ryan was there, and he was ok to take them all bowling after lunch. I took his car and drove home, where I laid around a lot feeling bad that I wasn’t there with the family. Not to worry, though, Ryan had things under control, and he took them bowling, then to BYU where they did some down the hill rolling and art museum visiting. THEN they went to Timpview High for the exchange student dinner and closing social (I told you we crammed all the fun in!).

Sunday Morning we went up to the Salt Lake Tabernacle to attend the Music and the Spoken Word with a bunch of kids from his group. Afterward we went over to the church history museum and had a lot of fun up in the children’s exhibits. After that we went to Liberty Park and had a picnic. When we got home we pretty much all crashed, then had dinner, played games, and watched Amazing Race.

Monday morning we had to get him back to BYU by 7:15, so it was an early morning of goodbyes (and costumes, since it was Halloween). Fun, but busy week.

What a success! (I say as I pat myself on the back)

October 21, 2011 / / 2 Comments

This week we had our Hawk Walk awards assembly. It’s the final activity of the fundraiser that I was in charge of for the PTA. If you’d like to read more about our actual walkathon which was held last month, you can read about it HERE. Our theme has been, “We need to raise SUMO money.”
After that we had a lot of lap card counting and tabulating to figure out the top walkers in each grade, the classes who walked the most laps, judge the coloring contest, count money that came in and figure out which classes brought in the most percentage of their envelopes and also the $100 club, or the kids who brought in over one hundred dollars. All of these winners get prizes of some sort. I had planned on treating the class that walked the most laps to lunch from Chick-fil-A WITH the Cow! But we had a little problem with the laps. You see, there were two tracks, and they were both 1/5 mile long. But on one, the track took a slight jog in and out to make it long enough, and come to find out some of the kids just walked straight, which made that lap shorter by about 50 feet. Big deal, right? Oh, the complaints from the teachers! “That track was shorter, and so it’s not fair that my kids were walking on the other track.” Hmmmm, when I look at my schedule, Mrs. We-Have-to-win-at-everything, it shows that you were supposed to walk on that track. If you had only walked on your assigned track, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, would we? (No, of course I didn’t say that! That’s why it’s not in quotes, silly!) I just smiled and said we would take that into account. But then that made me really want that class to NOT win. As I counted the lap totals, I adjusted for the shorter lap, etc. Two classes were neck and neck. Really, it was too close to call it. One was ahead in laps, until I made the adjustment for the cheaters who didn’t walk the actual lap, then the other class was slightly ahead. I wanted to throw out both of those classes (because they ALWAYS win at everything. Overachievers) and say that someone else was the winner. But, even though I am in charge of the event and can really do whatever I want, that would probably be wrong. So, I called those two classes AND the next class that was only a fraction of a lap behind the winners. THREE CLASSES as winners. But then I had a problem. How could I crown three classes the winner, and would I have to change my prize of lunch from Chick-fil-A? ARgh. I called Vern, my super great contact at Chick-fil-A, and we worked something out. I paid as much as I could possibly afford, ($100), and he covered the rest of the cost (which was about $230). They have been SO generous with us!

So, I made certificates, divvied out prizes, stapled the free sandwich and free kids meal gift certificates for every student in the school, distributed all these into the teachers boxes, and was ready for the assembly the next day.

I went Tuesday night to pick up the sumo suits so that I wouldn’t have to rush and get them the morning of. I had asked if that would be ok, but I failed to call the day of and remind her that I was coming to get them. I got there after 7:00, and when I rang the bell, no one was there. This is a home based business, so I could understand that they had stepped out. I called both numbers I had listed, sent a text, did everything I could to contact her, and then came home. I was frustrated and disappointed and kind of mad that I had just wasted an hour (and the gas) driving out there and gotten no sumo suits. I was going to let my kids play around in them that night, too. Darn. As I got home and sent her an email, the horrible thought came to my mind….”What if she’s out of town and I can’t get the suits for tomorrow?!” Then the panic really started to kick in. It had been a really bad day, I was feeling fluish, and just wanted to go to bed, but I was worried about the suits. Thankfully, she called me back at about 8:45 and apologized over and over and over. I understand that these things happen, and I told her I would just come in the morning at about 8:30.

The next morning, I picked up the suits and floor mats without incident, went to the school to do my last certificates, and set things up. The principal even let me drive my car around to the back to set up. I felt like SUCH a rebel!


(Here’s a suit waiting to be worn)

The weather was perfect! I had worried that it might rain, but it was wonderful. Chilly but not too cold (although cold is good if you’re going to be throwing yourself around in a huge sumo suit). The sun was shining, and the kids were excited.


(especially this cute kid!)

We started the assembly, and I got to thank them all for their hard work and tell them how successful our event was. We actually raised more money than we EVER have doing this thing, so I feel pretty good about that. I announced the names of the fastest walkers and the $100 club, but I didn’t call them up. They get their certificate back in class and then we don’t have to deal with a bunch of confusion with kids coming up to get their prizes (yes, I’m brilliant!). I made a big deal about how we had THREE class winners, and there was much cheering when I announced those classes. Then I turned the time over to our principal, and they had a whole schtick worked up.

First came the silly string. There must always be silly string.

Then the office ladies came out as witches to pronounce a hex on the teacher who was wrestling the principal. It was so cute!

Such fun! Such drama! Then they wriggled into the suits and had the actual SUMO part.

I was laughing so hard! It was GREAT!!
We declared the teacher the winner and let them get out of their suits. I thanked the kids again, and sent them back to class. And it was over! Well, not quite over. I had to pack up the suits then get ready for our reward lunch, which was happening in about 45 minutes.

The lunch with the cow was also a big success! The kids got to come down early and eat chicken nuggets and brownies and lemonaide with the fun and friendly cow, and it was a lot of fun.

We were a bit stingy on the chicken nugget distribution, and therefore ended up with quite a bit left over. Looking back, we should have given all the kids one more nugget each, and it would have been about perfect, but we didn’t want to run out at the end. We made up plates for the office lady, the principal, the teacher who wrestled, and the custodians. We also had some. There was still enough for me to bring home and feed my family for dinner.

So now it is over! Me and the cow and the sumo suits, we throw a great party.

And I couldn’t be more pleased with how it turned out! Hooray for me!

My Hawk Walk Extravaganza

September 24, 2011 / / 1 Comment

Our big walk-a-thon was Friday. The weather was PERFECT. Sunny and warm and beautiful. I had spent hours and hours planning and organizing, calling and emailing, and it was to the point that all I could do was hope that everyone actually did what they said they would do. I got there early, lugging three coolers, two bags a box and a backpack. I should have done like our PTA president did and piled everything into a wagon. Only I wasn’t bringing smaller children, and I don’t have a wagon. I gave the cd of carefully selected songs that I had had Cole help me with (Ok, I chose and bought the songs and he downloaded them and burned me a CD) to the principal, and his computer promptly froze up, trapping my one copy in his laptop. Seriously, I thought, this is how the day is going to go? No worries, though. He went and got another CD from inside, and he had a bunch of music from the previous Hawk walks on there, so that wasn’t a catastrophe, merely a glitch. Another glitch in my carefully crafted plan was when Ryan (who was working from home so that he could help me out a bit) went to pick up Megan from the high school and there was an assembly starting, and they could not find her to check her out. Luckily, she looked at her phone and saw that he had sent her a text, and she came to the office. Why did I need Megan, you ask? She was only playing the most important part…that of the MASCOT!

She dressed up as the Hawk (who has no name, as far as I know. Maybe we should name him) and waved, gave high fives, danced, and even hugged the kids. She did GREAT!

I had also arranged to have some other mascots come as well. We had visits from the Chick-fil-A cow,

and even Andy the Armadillo from Texas Roadhouse.

One of my friends came up and said, “This is like DISNEYLAND with all these characters walking around!” Although it was nothing like Disneyland, I think having the mascots added a bunch of fun to our hawk walk.
I had the Cow and the Hawk race each other in the center of one of the tracks, and even though the Cow has longer legs, the Hawk won, which is fitting, don’t you think?

There were a few other little problems, like teachers who don’t read their instructions and take their classes to the wrong tracks, other teachers who complained because one track “was longer” than the other track and those kids are going to get more laps.

Seriously? SERIOUSLY? Come on, teachers.

I won’t go into that one too much, but let’s just say that that class won’t be winning any awards for good sportsmanship, will they?

Tons of parents showed up to help and to walk with their kids, the Armadillo passed out free kids meals tokens, and Chick-fil-a donated a whole bunch of free kids meals certificates, the kids seemed happy to be walking, and no one was injured.

A very sweaty Megan even survived as the Hawk, and I am so glad that she was willing to help out.

After the two hour long walking sessions were over, there was still lots to do to take everything down and then count all those lap cards and record things. Some of my helpers didn’t come, but I had many who did come and helped. We were able to wrap everything up by the time my kids got out of school, which was good. Yes, I still have tons of work to do in calculating the winners and organizing the prize assembly, but the EVENT is over. Now we just have to wait and see how much money the event brings in.

It turned out well. It was a good event. I am still exhausted, but pleased.

On the edge

August 28, 2011 / / 4 Comments

I consider myself a fairly rational and calm person. I do. But really, I’m just one snafu away from an emotional breakdown.

It was a hard week for me. Nothing huge, but a lot of little things adding up to some big stress.
-Megan cut her finger and had to get stitches,
-It was the first week of school and all the back to school stuff with finding classes and meeting teachers and paying fees and more fees,
-I have a very big PTA responsibility this year and I’ve been doing a lot of stuff with that,
-John had his very first pack meeting ever and I couldn’t go because it was the same night as bells rehearsal, and Ryan couldn’t go because he was out of town. I felt terrible that I couldn’t be there for him, but thankfully Megan was available to take him, and I hear she did a good job as stand in parent. She even accepted my Bobcat award mother’s pin for me.
-I’m totally out of shape and sluggish, and need to get back to exercising,
-There’s the primary program coming up, and these things don’t happen spontaneously, unfortunately,
-Ryan was out of town for a week. Not just out of town, but out of the country with something like a 14 hour time difference, so I couldn’t just call if I needed to talk to him,
-My computer crashed, and like I said, my main man was out of town, and my back-up computer guy couldn’t fix it for me. I did have access to the main man’s computer, so I could at least use the internet and access my incoming email, but then when son was doing homework, that computer turned itself off and then we couldn’t get it started up again because it’s all password protected and complicated. So we were forced off the grid.

-Daughter lost her phone at Trafalga in Orem. She didn’t realize she didn’t’ have it until we were back on the freeway heading home. When we got home we called it (maybe she just left it at home, right?), but got no answer. We sent texts that said, “If you find this phone, please call…” and listed our home number. It really irks me when people are not honest. If I found a phone, I would certainly look through the contacts and find “Home” or something like that, or at least call the number that was texted to me. OR, I would turn it into the lost and found. That is not what this person did. The person that picked up her phone immediately called someone in Payson. (I looked it up! Cool that you can do that, huh?) When I tried to call that number, it was forwarding to another number or something, and I couldn’t get ahold of a person. Had to suspend service on that phone. The funniest thing was, in order to call Trafalga to ask if someone had turned in a phone, I had to look up the number, right? I have no computer, Ryan’s computer won’t turn on, I don’t have a phone book. I had to text Cole, who was at a friend’s house, ask him to look up the number, and send it to us. Crippled without technology. Crippled, I tell you.
-I had to go to a 2 hour long orientation at Kelly services to find out more hoops I have to jump through in order to substitute teach. Oh, the joys.
-People, namely my junior high carpool, are flaking on me.

As I was driving and feeling lonely and sorry for myself and started to cry in the car, I wondered WHY in the world I was being such a BABY and letting all of this get to me. Wait. What week is this? Oh. Hormones. Duh. I HATE those hormones and what they do to me approximately one week of every month. I tried to tell myself to buck up and stop getting so emotional, but that wasn’t really helping.

Instead, I made a mental list of the things that were really, really great. A “count your blessings moment”.

+I don’t have to drive my high school kids to school. With early morning seminary and HUGE amounts of road construction, this is TRULY a blessing. I am SO glad that Cole can drive both himself and Megan to school and that we are able to provide him with a vehicle.
+The kids all seem to be happy with their classes and teachers so far. With 5 kids in 3 different schools, that adds up to about 30 teachers, and I am SO thankful that they are treating my children with kindness and respect (so far), and nobody has come home declaring that they hate school and they are never going back again. (It’s early, I know, but so far so good.)
+Cole is nearly done with his Eagle project. He completed his last two merit badges and I can actually feel a tiny glimmer of hope that we may get this thing pulled off before his 18th birthday in 7 months.
+Facebook. Yes, I’m thankful for facebook. Because of facebook, I was in contact with an old friend of mine who is now living in Singapore. I told him that Ryan would be there, got the two of them communicating, and they actually had Ryan over for dinner while he was there. I also have felt less lonely and more connected to friends, even when my computer wasn’t working and I really didn’t have full use of my email. Yes, I know there are a lot of negatives to facebook, but for me, it’s been a positive thing, and this week especially, I’m thankful for it.
+My mother-in-law. I casually mentioned to my MIL that my children wanted a “Grabber” to reach things. Grandma has one (Grandma is pretty short, so it makes sense) and they thought it was so cool. I didn’t ask for one, I just said that Megan, specifically, was wanting one, and on Tuesday, they showed up with some yellow squash and a grabber. How nice is that?
+My house is not being pounded by a hurricane. Or an earthquake. Or any other such natural disasters. Record breaking heat? Yes. Huge thunderstorms & power outages? Yes, but no flooding, and we can put up with that. We have air conditioning and we have water.
+My children are safe and healthy.
+My husband does return to me.
+My car works.
+I live in the most beautiful area. Have you looked around lately at the mountains, the sky, the clouds? It’s gorgeous out there! Flowers are blooming, my sunflowers (even though the horses totally ate the tops off of them) are flowering, my garden is doing well in the heat, I have tons of zucchini, there are peaches and even apples on the trees in the ‘orchard’ in my back yard, and it’s beautiful. I just need to spend a few moments out with the chickens in the backyard to be reminded of the beauty of nature.
+My phone works.
+My family. My parents spent their Saturday with us at the dinosaur museum (actually they were taking my niece and we decided to tag along) and we had such a fun time. I know that if I asked any one of my family to come and help me out they would do whatever they could to help me. I’m very lucky to have that kind of support available to me.
+Visiting teaching. I actually did my visiting teaching this week (yay for me!) and it reminded me of WHY we do visiting teaching. To do some service; to connect with other people; and to remind each other of the importance of the gospel. It’s a good thing.

And the list goes on and on and on. Even as I was in an emotionally fragile state due to some minor inconveniences and some major PMS, I was able to count my blessings and realize how truly blessed I am.

The difference between a bad day and a good day is still 24 hours.

So if life is getting you down, or if you yourself are caught up in some hormonally induced blues, take a few minutes to think about or write down some things that you are thankful for. Even just listing 10 things can really lift you out of that funk.
Or take a few minutes and do some service for someone else.
Or call me and we’ll go to lunch. That always helps.

Summertime and the living is easy?

August 21, 2011 / / 3 Comments

Summer is almost over. Can you believe it? It’s been SUCH a busy summer, and I can hardly believe it’s over. I believe we crammed just about as much fun as we could into our time off. Not quite, but as much as I, as the chief entertainer and transporter of children, could take.

As the kiddos go back to school this week, it’s an exciting time. I have a SENIOR (A SENIOR?! What the heck!? How can Cole be a senior already? I remember when he was starting kindergarten and it seems like it was just a few years ago.) For the first time, I’ll have two kids in High School. It’s also Natalie’s first day of Junior High Monday. She’s so excited. It’s actually a good thing that Natalie and Megan won’t be in the same school ever again. Distance, you know. Jenna and John are still in elementary school, which is where I spend the bulk of my time volunteering.

Natalie goes to school Monday, and then everyone else goes on Tuesday. Natalie and the other 7th graders get Tuesday off. Weird, I know. So, I won’t have the house to myself until Wednesday, and boy am I going to par-tay. Dang, why did I schedule to go visiting teaching on Wednesday? I might have to change that. I plan to sit around the house all day. Not driving anywhere, not picking anyone up. Maybe I’ll watch some nice chick flick on tv, or maybe I’ll just read all day. Whatever it is that I do, I plan to do it ALONE. 7:45 to 2:30 is carved out as ME TIME.

Now don’t get me wrong. I LOVE my family. I think they are the best family EVER and I love to spend time with them. But remember that word “Balance”. I need to have a little alone time to balance all the kid time I’ve been having. And since Ryan’s out of the country right now, it’s just me as the responsible parent, anyway.

So, enjoy your back to school. Enjoy the last day of summer fun that you can with your kids, and then enjoy it when they go back. I’d like to know what you are looking forward to doing when you, too, might catch some alone time.

Actually I think I’ll be getting my pen and signing fingers ready so when they all come home with 25 disclosure documents, I can get them all signed.

Ni How

July 25, 2011 / / 1 Comment

It’s Chinese time here at the house, and we’ve all learned to say “Good job” in Chinese (it’s something like Gun de ha, in case you were wondering). Our girls, “Phoebe” and “Coco” are super cute girls, and we are happy to have them in our households for the next few weeks.

We picked up our girls on Tuesday night, and it’s been fun fun fun ever since. Wednesday they had to turn around and go right to school in the morning, and their buddies went with them. Megan and Natalie are doing the buddy program this year, and thankfully for me, it’s a bit less rigorous than last year’s program. Instead of going every day, I only have to get them there twice a week. Wednesday night they were pretty tired by the time they got home from school, so we just ate dinner and went outside to enjoy the evening a little bit.

Thursday the Chinese students’ activity was a hike to Timpanogos cave. I arranged with the coordinator to pick them up at the visitor’s center, rather than drive all the way to Provo to pick them up and drive all the way back. So they were home early, which was good because they were SO tired. Can you imagine flying to a foreign country, and on day two you do a rigorous hike in 100 degree weather? They are not used to this kind of heat, either. After they rested a bit, it was time for our Cinderella cast party, and the girls came with us. It was a big potluck type of dinner at the park, with some awards and songs from the play. One of the girls asked Megan, “Do you have parties every week?” She said probably. My response? Yep. Pretty much two times a week. Sometimes there is a party of some kind every day. I think that is pretty odd to these girls. They are used to going to school at 6 am and staying there until 10 pm. I am not making this up.

Friday I took them all (girls and buddies) out to the CLAS ropes course facility in west Provo. It looked like it was going to be another fun, yet tiring day. Ryan picked them up from that event and took them straight to his brother Kyle’s house, where we were spending our evening. His whole family was getting together to eat, swim, and help cousin Josh with his Eagle project. So, we ate, then sanded little cars, then the kids swam and played in the pool. Another fun evening.

Saturday, everyone slept in. Or at least tried to. Nobody had to be anywhere early, and everyone is adjusting to these early mornings, and Ryan is getting readjusted to Utah time (trip to Korea last week). So I made breakfast about 9:30 am, and it was nice to let everyone rest. Even though the girls were still tired, we decided to take everyone bowling. Both girls said they had NEVER been bowling before. Can you belive it? I thought Bowling was a universal sport. They did very well for never having bowled before. We came home, had lunch, and let them veg out and watch one of my favorite movies, Despicable Me. And then we geared up to go to the Spanish Fork Rodeo.

Now, the Spanish Fork Rodeo is like a whole different county. Half of my own kids hadn’t been to a rodeo, it had been that long since we had been. They especially liked the mutton busting. Imagine how foreign that all must seem to two young girls from China. We asked them if they liked it, and they said yes, but that it seemed kind of cruel. By the time we left, I seemed to have my y’all down, and wished I had worn a cowboy hat with my jeans. But it was a perfect night for a rodeo, and once the sun went down it was nice weather and not too not. Hopefully it was an experience they will remember.

Sunday was our day of rest. With it being Pioneer day, I made whole wheat bread, and even let them help me with the kneading. We went to church, which was SO long and boring for them, but they survived, and then we played some games and started a puzzle at home.

And now we’re onto week 2! And I am excited because I finally negotiated a carpool. I most days will only have to drive to Provo once a day, in the afternoon. I am VERY happy about that!

So it ends. And let the summer begin.

June 3, 2011 / / 3 Comments

Last day of school! How did the school year come to an end so quickly? It’s not even warm yet! Oh, well, despite our many complaints about the cold and rainy spring we’ve had here in Utah, school is indeed over. How did we get here? One party at a time, my friends. One party at a time.

We started out with our back to school breakfast at the bus stop.

and before we knew it, John’s birthday was upon us.

We had a double birthday party day with John and then Natalie and a big blow up velcro wall.

Megan and I took a little road trip to the Shakespearean festival in October, and came back just in time to celebrate Natalie’s birthday and then Ryan’s birthday.

We had our hawk walk tug of war,

got witchy with some friends,

then welcomed Kazuki into our family for a week at Halloween.

There were school parties, church parties, and work parties, which was a good thing because the actual trick-or-treating was VERY cold and wet.

We made houses of gingerbread and frosting,
null & turkeys of oreos and candycorns.

Trees were decorated, concerts were played,

More concerts, in fact

and recitals.

Plays about gingerbread were produced. Before we knew it, Christmas was here!

January brought a new year and new adventures. A quick family trip to Disneyland was a highlight!

Jenna turned 10,

We went to lots and lots of basketball games.

We formed a band.

Then the roadshow took over our lives.

Valentine’s Parties,

and a big fancy anniversary party for Ryan’s parents.

Ryan and Paige had trip to New York, and that was pretty much a great big par-tay!

Cole had a birthday,
Megan had a birthday, and everyone continues to get older.

Before we knew it, Easter was upon us.

Then it was all a downhill slide toward the end of the year. We had Lagoon days, end of the year class parties, teacher gifts, advancement assemblies, more concerts and recitals, and even some finals.

Yearbooks have been signed and phone numbers exchanged. Today is it. The LAST day of school.

The kids have had some wonderful teachers, and for that I am grateful. John went from a reluctant reader to a “I love to read” kid who does not shy away from chapter books, even. His teacher was organized, firm, loving, and fun. It was great to volunteer in her classroom and also help out with parties. Natalie and Jenna both had men teachers (one of whom is retiring–sad) who, with their relaxed attitudes and love of fun, gave both girls a wonderful experience for the school year. Cole survived two AP classes and did very well in them. He also survived his second year of spanish, and while he certainly doesn’t speak it fluently, he will have at least a base knowledge of the language, should the need arise to learn and speak it later. Megan was the top of the food chain in junior high this year. It’s good to have those “oldest” moments, and I think she really enjoyed her 9th grade year. She loved being on the basketball team and I am proud of her doing so well in her classes as well.

I am very proud of them all and looking forward to spending some lazy days ahead.

We CAN do it

May 27, 2011 / / 3 Comments

Our school is doing a new fundraiser for the summer. And, since I’m the fundraiser chairperson this year, even though I’m not in charge of this particular event, you can say I’ve been heavily involved.

We made up #10 cans for each family in our school. We had to close the cans and put the labels on. My friend MaryAnne (who is heading up this campaign) had her son make ALL the slots in ALL the lids.

Then we put all the labels on them.

And loaded them up into cars to transport to the school.

On to distribution. It took a WHOLE lot of preparation and lists to make sure that every family receives one and only one can. At our school, the youngest child is the family rep, so that meant that every Kindergartener and a lot of the first graders get to take the cans home. We went to each classroom with a big box of cans and explained how we want the kids (and parents) to put all their loose change in the can and bring it back when school starts in the fall. I gave my little speech to one of the kindergarten classes right before they left for the day. Shortly after, my the PTA president elect reads a text on her phone and starts to laugh. She reads it out loud for us, “Tell Paige her motivational speech was just a bit TOO good. My kindergartener came home and immediately put her $60 of birthday money into the can.” We were all just busting up. These cans only have the one slot for money to go in. Good luck getting that $60 out of the can.

John got to bring our can home, and it’s now perched proudly in our home, inviting all to dump their spare change from pockets, purses and wallets.

Let’s hope it’s a successful fund raiser. To find out how successful, you’ll have to tune in in September, when we get to open all those cans and count all the money–Hooray.

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