Superpaige's Pad

The Trials of a Busy Mom

Category: Family Fun (Page 8 of 25)

One of my favorite gifts

January 8, 2012 / / 8 Comments

While I did not inherit much artistic talent from my dad, the artist, I have been blessed to be part of an artistic family. My sister, Amy, has done many portraits of my kids throughout the years. In fact, every three years when it’s her turn to give to me for Christmas, she’s drawn for me. This year (actually last year if you want to get technical) I asked if she could paint something of them all together, instead of single portraits. Originally I thought it would be a portrait of the whole family, but then I didn’t really have a family picture I liked, yadda, yadda. I settled on pictures from our excursion to the church family history museum. The kids had so much fun dressing up in costumes.

I decided to use this picture.

So for Christmas, Amy presented me with this beautiful painting of my kids.

She did a little editing to get the kids closer together, and even changed the colors a bit.

Of course, she added a neutral background so you can’t tell exactly where the picture was taken.

I LOVE that we now have an original painting of my children. I feel so lucky to have such talent in my own family so that I can just ask my sister to paint something for me…and she does! If someone asked me to paint their children for them, I think I would panic, then eventually I’d have to just say no.

Now I need to frame it up and decide where to hang this beauty in my home!
Thanks, Amy! I love it!

Christmas memories

December 28, 2011 / / 3 Comments

Christmas this year has been wonderful! I loved the concerts, the decorations, the music, the shopping, the wrapping, the gingerbread house making, the anticipation, the live nativity, visiting Santa. All of it. Seriously. I asked the kids if it would be ok if we didn’t have Christmas on Sunday but waited a few days just to keep the magic going, but they didn’t go for that.

For months I had been planning on an early Christmas morning trip to the Conference Center for Music and the Spoken Word. I planned on dragging my family along. But about two weeks before Christmas, I got the message that they were going to record that on Thursday night, instead of having everyone come for a live Christmas broadcast. Hooray! It was wonderful to be there with the choir, especially when they did the Hallelujah Chorus. It’s one thing to hear it on a recording, but to be there, live, and to be sitting up on stage with the orchestra and the choir is behind you…that’s a once in a life time experience.

Saturday we began our celebrating.


We had our Coleman family Christmas party at Grandma and Grandpa’s house, and all but my brother and his family were there. As you can tell, it’s a big crowd, with 21 grandkids in attendance. We had wonderful food, then Grandma did some games, ending with a pinata in the garage. Instead of gifts, each of the kids and grandkids got an envelope with some cash in it (the kids were excited that it wasn’t just regular money, but the cash was in $2 bills, which is even MORE special!) Yes, it’s chaotic, but it was a wonderful party with my family.

We came home before too late, and we had time to watch Mr. Kruger’s Christmas, and tell the story of Jesus’ birth and act out the nativity with our puppets.

The kids eventually went to bed, and soon Ryan and I were in bed, too. We had agreed on “no earlier than 7 am” for a wake-up time.

It was the usual excitement and flurry of present opening. The family was excited to receive a Kinnect for the x-box from Santa, and quite a few movies. Cole got an MP3 player that he had wanted, Jenna and John got games for the Nintendo DS, Natalie a new coat, and Megan got a Kindle. I gave Ryan some clothes and a remote control helicopter. He surprised and spoiled me with a new Kindle Fire. I kept saying that it was too expensive and I didn’t need it, but he told me to just be quiet and enjoy it.


Our church isn’t until 1:00, so we had time to watch the Music and the Spoken Word, play with some of the new stuff, eat a nice breakfast, and then get ready for church. Our sacrament meeting was really lovely. The choir sang, the primary sang, there was a beautiful musical number, and two great speakers. And there were no other meetings!
Nice.
After dinner, my parents came over to play some games. For the past several years, we’ve invited both sets of Grandparents over for dinner and games on Christmas eve, but since we ended up doing the family party on Christmas eve, we opted for a last minute invite. It was fun to have them come over, and we learned a new game. Ryan even made the treats (cheeseball and Brazilian cheesbread). So, that was a fun way to end the evening.

Monday came, and the partying continued. The Ericksons had planned their family Christmas party for the day after Christmas, as that’s when we could get everyone together. We decided to get everyone together earlier in the day to take a big family picture. The last one we took was when John was a baby and my other kids looked about like this.

Oh, they were so cute, I want to just EAT THEM UP!
I looked just a bit younger, then, too. Sigh.
Anyway, I had suggested the photographer who had done our recent family photo shoot, Julie Taggert. She did such a great job making us look good, that I thought she could handle the challenge of our large extended family. And a challenge it was. One of Ryan’s nephews was hospitalized recently with pancreatitis, and he is still not back to full strength. He’s also got a feeding tube that we want photoshopped out, but she said she could do it. Getting 40 people to show up all at the same time in the same place and looking nice is also a challenge. I worried that it would be too cold, or raining or snowing, but the day was nice, bright, and above freezing. I wish I had thought to bring my camera with me to the shoot and the party, but I left it at home. I’ll have to wait for the official pictures. Megan woke up that day feeling crummy, with sneezing and runny nose galore. I tried to make her up a little bit, but she was stuck with a red nose and a bad attitude. Hopefully Julie can photo shop THAT, too. It only took about one hour to get all the shots we needed, and then we were on to Julene’s house to party. We took Megan home first, as she wasn’t feeling up to a party, sadly. We ate and ate and ate, had a small white elephant game present exchange, and Grandma and Grandpa gave everyone their presents. I was excited about the Ninja blender and chopper Ryan’s parents gave us, in fact I’ve make smoothies two days in a row now. Today’s was even a GREEN smootie. Yum.

Now all the parties are over, and it’s time to start taking the decorations down. At least some of them. It was a wonderful Christmas. We have spent a lot of time together as a family, and made some precious memories. The kids seem happy with their presents.

I hope you also had a wonderful Christmas, and that we can welcome in a bright new year.

Fabulous Friday Frivolities

October 28, 2011 / / 1 Comment

I have a few random thoughts to share with you today. Not enough for their own posts, so I’ll just combine them in a random fashion.

—We’ll start with the chickens. The new chickens seem fine in our backyard. I can’t really tell if they are happy with their new arrangement or not, but I’ll assume they are. But they are so much LOUDER than our last group. The first day we got them, I kept thinking something was wrong or that the nasty dogs had wandered in and were terrorizing them. I would run to the back door to check on them, or go out and see. Their previous owner had said that they were very proud when they laid an egg and that they got pretty loud in sharing with the world about their accomplishments. So, I would hear them cackling and think there must be an egg waiting. Nope. They are just loud. I looked them up online and think that they are New Hamshire Reds

In the description it says they are “Friendly,Easily handled,Bears confinement well, Noisy, Docile” Loud. Great. Thankfully our neighbor’s houses aren’t right next to ours, and there’s only one neighbor that I’m worried about hearing them, but now it’s getting cold so our windows will be closed. Won’t have to deal with the loudness till spring. Hopefully. And hopefully I won’t worry about them constantly. And about dogs.

I am a little concerned about keeping them warm enough. We’ve got to get their windows covered with plexiglass or plastic (or make them some cute shutters or curtains…wouldn’t that be cute?) and I’m going to look for a heated water dish and maybe hook up a light in there to keep them a little warmer. The forums are split on heating their coops, though. Some say they need to get used to the cold, others mention that they can get frostbite, so… But we definitely can’t have them out there with open windows.

—Our Japanese exchange student experience is going well. Except that all the fun things I have planned have not worked out. Thanks, FAMILY. “I have volleyball”, “Basketball starts tonight”, “Don’t forget about pack meeting,” “I have to work late to take a conference call”, “My friend is having a party, can I go?” Even my plan for Saturday’s outing isn’t going to work unless we flake on two volleyball games and a basketball game. Ugh. But we have managed to take him to the Dinosaur museum, to OraNGE lEaf for some yummy frozen yogurt, and to Wendy’s for fast food.
We’ve taken him to basketball and played Wii. Tonight is our ward party, and we’ve told him we are all dressing up in Halloween costumes. I think he’s excited about it (or maybe nervous, now that I think about it) because this morning he asked, “Is today Halloween?” and I told him that yes, it was the Halloween party. Let’s hope we don’t scar him too badly.

–I’ve entered a contest (of course I have) and would appreciate your votes. I could possibly win an I-pad. Wouldn’t THAT be cool?! You don’t have to register or anything, just go to this website HERE and vote for my picture

There’s only 15 pictures entered, but I think you can only vote once per computer, because I keep voting, and my status isn’t changing. Maybe I need to go to the Library and vote from there. Or YOU could vote, right? Thanks!

–Halloween decor. Megan and Ryan (mostly Megan) made these cool window monsters that look really cool at night.

If you were to come trick-or-treating at our house, you would see them in their full glory. Fun! And free!

I’m trying to decide what to dress up as for Halloween. My parents came over and took some costumes for their party. I was surprised that they chose a devil and Nemo costumes. Don’t I have fun parents?

What are YOU going to be for Halloween?

There’s a new coop in town

October 22, 2011 / / 3 Comments

Not to dwell on the bad, but last week a dog got the last of my chickens. The worst part was that I looked out one morning and saw the dog with my chicken in her mouth. I ran out there in bare feet to try to rescue her, but it was too late. I screamed at the dog and she slunk off. I broke down and cried. Actually, I cried a whole lot. She was my favorite chicken. My only chicken left, and I couldn’t get the image of the dog killing her out of my mind. I think because I had not cried when the other ones were killed, but this time the kids were gone and wouldn’t see me crying.

I did contact the dog owner, though. (Not right then, but a day later, when I could speak of it calmly without crying.) They were very sorry and offered to pay for chickens and punish the dog and keep her in their own yard. I can’t say it won’t happen again, but we will reinforce the dog run so that chickens can’t fly out the top when a dog comes barking. We will try again. Even if we are in a neighborhood full of dogs and our yard is not fenced. I don’t want to be the girl who had chickens once. That day I started looking on the internet for “dog proof chicken runs” and “How to keep chickens safe from predators” and looking on KSL.com for chickens for sale.

Because now that we’re all into this chicken project, I was authorized to spend some money instead of just relying on things I could get for free. And I had been complaining about the coop and how it needed this modification and that fixing. Ryan wasn’t thrilled about fixing up what he called a piece of junk coop. Somehow one of the kids suggested I should call my ‘friend’ Nate Berkus
 and ask him to design a chicken coop for us. While that’s not a bad idea, and I am certain that any chicken coop designed and/or built by Nate would be FABULOUS, I don’t really think he’d jump at the chance to do that for his show. But I might just send him an email anyway.

When I started looking, I found that there are a lot of chicken coops for sale! Fancy ones, HUGE ones, little ones, etc. Wow.
I found this ad that had just been put up, and I called.

It seemed sturdy, safe, and oh, so cute! I arranged to come and pick up the coop and his three chickens on Friday. Ryan was off work, so he and I took the truck up to Riverton to pick up this coop. The bad thing was that this coop built out of an old playhouse was wider than the gate, so we had to lift the whole thing up OVER the 5 ft fence. Somehow we managed with the three of us. The coop barely fit in our small truck. It had to sit on top of the wheel wells and was hanging out the back. But we used the trusty tie downs and took it slowly back home. I had the three chickens in a rubbermaid box on my lap. They did not enjoy the ride, I tell you.

We got home and had to muscle it out of the truck and put it in the garden area by the other coop.

Look at that metal roof! No rain or snow dripping on the chickens in that little house.

The little run is quite short, and we still have this dog run, so we want to figure out a way to attach that and give them a little more room to run around in, and still be safe from dogs.

But it makes me happy to have chickens again. And who doesn’t love a coop built from a cute pink play house?! (Ryan says we should paint it barn red, which would also be cute. We’ll see about that.) On their first day here they laid three eggs for us, so I’m pleased with their work, as well. We are returning the loaner chicken to her rightful owner, and going with these three. They came prenamed, so I guess we’ll stick with that, even though I don’t think that Lexi, Juliette and Violet are great chicken names. They even have little colored bands on their legs and a key written on the inside wall of the little house that says which color means which name (Violet is the blue one, etc.) Cute. So we’ll just go with that. If you’d like to come and visit our new little family of chickens, feel free to come on over. We’ll even give you a fresh brown egg if you’d like.

It’s like an Easter Egg hunt every day

October 5, 2011 / / 1 Comment

My chickens, who I love & am not tired of talking about, have finally started laying eggs!

Not a TON of eggs, but they average two a day. And it’s always a surprise, too. You don’t know if you are going to find a brown egg or a white egg, a really really small egg, or a big egg with double yolks! On Sunday Ryan made omelets with our very own eggs from our chickens and our home grown tomatoes. We didn’t make our own cheese (no cow, but maybe that’s next year), but we still felt very farm-y eating our omelets.

So each day when we go out to feed the chickens or let them out to play or to put them to bed, we check to see if there are any eggs. And they aren’t all in the upstairs of the coop like you would think they would be. One chicken, probably Gabby, lays her eggs in the same place every day, but the others are in random places. You have to watch your step because there might be an egg sitting in the dirt or the grass. It’s like an Easter egg hunt EVERY single day!

Oh, and speaking of eggs, check out THESE eggs!

Really big check?

September 27, 2011 / / 8 Comments

On Wed I was searching for safety pins at Wal-mart. I ended up buying ALL that they had, and I had to go to another store to get more. You’d think that they would carry more than 600 safety pins, wouldn’t you? Anyway…. as I was looking at the Halloween stuff, I got a text from my friend and fellow primary presidency member that said, “Call 97.9 if you haven’t already.”

I thought of the current contests and ongoing things I have signed up for, and remembered that 97.9 is awarding $500 a day to a listener when they call back if they hear their name. I hurriedly texted back, “Did they call my name?” and then looked through my phone for their phone number. It’s not one of the regulars that is the call sign in their phone number, it’s like 877-551…etc… Thankfully I had the number in my phone, and I called them. It rang a bit, and then the DJ answered. I said, “This is Paige Erickson. I’m supposed to call you?”
“Only if you want to collect $500,” he said. “Did you hear your name?”

I didn’t want to lie, so I told him that I was actually inside Walmart right then, but a friend heard my name and sent me a text. He said that was good enough.

Woo Hoo! $500 bucks!

The best part was that I got to hold a VERY BIG check!

Haven’t you always wanted to win a very big check! I know I have! Even Michael Scott from the office had dreams of presenting their fun run money to the hospital in the form of a really big check. The kids all wanted to hold it, too. My apologies to the secretary up there at the radio station, but we all had to hold the check.

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.

We have worn ourselves out

August 4, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Some of our activities with the Chinese students have been…

We went to the rodeo, ate at Glade’s in Spanish Fork.
They went to youth activities where they sculpted out of ice cream.

Go carts, video games and miniature golfing.

Went to see Music and the Spoken word at the conference center

spent some time at the Church history museum

where the kids enjoyed dressing up and dancing. We couldn’t get our Chinese girls, Phoebe and Coco, to dress up, but they enjoyed laughing at us.

We made bracelets

We ate out

We made our own pizzas.
We played in the backyard with the chickens.


We worked on puzzles.
We went to a family barbeque and swimming party.
We went bowling.


We made them watch the best movie ever–Dispicable me.
We’ve driven through POURING rain, watched fireworks, and went swimming.

We took them to Walmart (they WANTED to go there.)

They have also hiked Timp caves, gone to the Dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving point, visited a farm, gone to Temple Square and this is the place state park, done a ropes course day, gone to the Utah Olympic Park, 7 peaks, and other adventures.

Yes, it has been a LOT of driving. I won’t even try to sugar coat it there. From our house to the school where they are going in Provo, google maps tells me it’s 17 miles. ONLY 17 FREAKING miles? Are you kidding me? Well, with construction (ARGGGH!!!!) and traffic, it’s about a 35 minute drive. A 35 minute drive that I’ve made once, sometimes twice a day for almost 3 weeks. I don’t even want to calculate it. The thing that’s saved me was that my two girls, who are acting as “buddies” have only had to go twice a week. Last year, they went every day, only they are supposed to arrive two hours after the students arrive in the am. That’s THREE trips to Provo on some days. And carpools have been scarce this time around, due to an A and B schedule, and most everyone else who is in North Utah County is on a different schedule. If I’d had to get them there every single day, I would have truly gone insane.

We still have a baseball game to go to tonight, and they have a closing social tomorrow. Then it’s a weekend full of activities for our Highland Fling. We have the 5K, breakfast, parade, activities in the park, art show, dance contest, and fireworks to attend. Then Sunday morning we will say goodbye. (and have a nap) It’s been a good experience. A fun experience, but a tiring experience.

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!

Hey, Chicken!

June 25, 2011 / / 3 Comments

If you are anything like me, you’ve probably been wondering a few things. Questions like: ‘Is Jimmer going to stay and play in Utah, or go somewhere else?’ or ‘What will Katy Perry be wearing in her next music video?’ or ‘What the heck is up with these gas prices, and when are they going to come down?’ Oh, you’ve got questions, allright.

But I’m here to answer the more importantly, the burning question…what’s up with Paige’s chickens?

After the little gal was attacked by a dog and had her near death experience, We realized we had to beef up security around those chicks. Since that’s not really something I can do (without about three trips to the hardware store and 4 hours of frustration that would probably end in injury or swearing), I was ultra thankful that Ryan took over and reinforced the coop.

When I was talking about the dog dangers in the neighborhood, a friend offered up a dog run. Seems they had an extra one in their backyard after having a relative live with them for a year. Cole and Megan went over and dismantled the run, loaded it into the truck and brought it over here (have I mentioned how much I enjoy having a child that can DRIVE and run errands for me Holla!!), and even set it up for me. At first we set the run up around the coop, but that was problematic. The footprint of the run is about a foot wider than the base of the chicken coop. Although that added to the security, it made it hard to open the coop and feed them.

We decided it would be better to have the dog/chicken run next to the coop, so that the little ladies could have a safe outdoor space to wander, scratch the ground, and look for bugs and weeds to eat. Ryan took over the remodel project, and figured out how to make a little sliding door for them. How awesome is that? And all this from the man who supposedly didn’t even want chickens!

I figure these chickens are now about 8-9 weeks old, and they are growing bigger every day! I like to let them out when I am changing their water and getting them food. They especially like to wander through the garden boxes–Don’t eat THOSE plants, chickens, eat the weeds. I am hoping that they will eat squash bugs and slugs, too.

The kids all love the chickens. Almost as much as I love them! It’s actually quite irrational how much I love those chickens. I mean, they are just chickens, but I really do love them! We try to hold and pet them just about every day so they will not get all mean on us. Nobody wants a mean chicken around, especially when they get bigger. This is not the best picture of John, but you get the idea that the kids are having fun with our new little pets.

They have starting eating some fruit and veggie scraps, as well. I never know what they are going to eat and not going to eat, but I give them food just in case. They do like stale bread, so they’ve had some of that for the past couple of days. They will also eat lettuce and some weeds, and cleaned off a corn cob like it was candy. I just took out the strawberry tops, some cabbage, and celery tops that I would have thrown away, but giving them to the chickens is much better than throwing them away, right? (The CIRCLE of LIFE….(sing it with me, now)
And it moves us all
Through despair and hope
Through faith and love
Till we find our place
On the path unwinding
In the Circle
The Circle of Life)

Don’t think I’m talking about THAT circle of life. These little poultry are not going to be put into a casserole anytime soon (or ever), but I am looking forward to getting some eggs from them in the early fall.

Oh, and they aren’t going to be FRIES, either.

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