Month: November 2006 (Page 2 of 3)

After having the usual stress nightmares last night from about 3-5, today was the reflections assembly. The culmination of a couple of months’ work, where we recognize all our winners and showcase the kids’ work. I must say that it went well. Really well. My biggest mistake was that I had Jenna’s 1st place in 3-d art (she was the only entry in her age division) in the 2nd assembly pile of awards, so I forgot to call her up and recognize her win. At the end of the first assembly, after we had taken all the pictures and everything, I looked down and saw her sad little face and realized that she hadn’t gotten her award. Duh! My own daughter! So, I snagged her out of her kindergarten class so she could be recognized and photographed in the 2nd assembly.

I had a friend do a little slide show to music DVD and it turned out so great! I’m so relieved! All the kids were clapping for the different works of art and cheering when they saw their own, it was fun. I hope in the handing out I didn’t give the wrong award to any child, but if I did, I’m sure I’ll hear about it.

Now I just have to get the entries ready to move on to the next level. There’s a bunch of paperwork involved there, but it’s nothing compared to what I’ve already done.

So, it’s time to pat myself on the back, take a deep breath, and move on to the next project….Christmas cards.

What a clown!

I taught another RS lesson on Sunday, and yes, I must say, I rocked. Not because I’m that great of a teacher, but because I don’t take myself too seriously (let’s face it, nobody does), I let the great parts of the lesson come out, and let people share their own great stories and testimonies. And, I bring treats. Treats always make the class more receptive and more willing to share. Really. I try to relate the treats in some way to the lesson, but sometimes it’s hard, and by the time I remember to dig some treats out of my pantry, I’ve run out of creative juices. This time the lesson was on “Faithfully Enduring Trials and Opposistion”. What does leftover Halloween candy have to do with overcoming trials? Well, the best I could come up with was: Here’s some candy for you all, since you know I always like to bring treats. You might see that there’s a Nestle Crunch bar in there, and you really would love a Nestle Crunch bar. But when the basket gets to you, all that is left is a tiny little Jolly Rancher. Well, this a trial for you, my friend, and you’re going to have to suck it up and move on. Yes, I’m so spritual that way, I know.

Now some of you -who will not be named but you know who you are (Robin)- may think that I am not at all qualified to teach a lesson on Enduring trials and adversity. You may be saying to yourself right now, “Oh, Paige has lived a perfect life and has not had to overcome anything–how can she teach that lesson?” Well, without going into the sordid details of the trials of my life, I do HAVE trials. Just yesterday I chipped a nail, right after I had worked for several minutes getting them painted nice and pretty. And earlier this morning I DIDN’T win something. I know. The list goes on and on of the trials I have endured. Once–someone didn’t like me very much, can you believe it? So, don’t think I don’t know about trials, my friend, because I do.

Anyway, I digress from what I really wanted to say. There were some awesome quotes in the lesson, and I wanted to share just one or two with you (in case you didn’t hear that lesson because you were in Primary or don’t go to Releif Society or you aren’t Mormon or ….. were just somewhere else).

–“It appears plain that it is God’s purpose to suffer His Saints to be throroughly tried and tested, so that they may prove their integrity and know the character of the foundation upon which they build.”

And another one which I just love,

“We have been called to pass through trials many times, and I do not think we should complain, because if we had no trials we should hardly feel at home in the other world in the company of the Prophets and Apostles who were sawn asunder, crucified, etc., for the word of God and testimony of Jesus Christ.” –Wilford Woodruff

So, we all have hard times in our lives and trials. Some of them last a day or a month and some of them last years or maybe a lifetime. You are not alone as you go through these trial. You Heavenly Father is there to sustain and build you up and give you strength.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get back to cleaning my perfect house, taking care of my perfect 3 year old and his perfect friend, while preparing for the perfect PTA Reflections assembly I’m going to put on tomorrow…..Ha Ha Ha, I crack myself up!

Today my friend Sherry, who is the only person I know who has a kiln in her garage, called and asked if John and I were coming to the Mommy and Me pottery class. Oh, I had forgotten, since I had talked to her about it a few weeks ago and not written it on my calendar. So, after preschool and a quick trip to the grocery store to get milk, John and I went to our first pottery class together.

Sherry’s got her pottery stuff all set up in the basement, with tables and stools and lots of clay. First the kids just play in a glob of clay while she gets everyone set up. John and I made a snowman, and then some “tornados”. Then came the official class things. We did a set of his handprints, which she will fire and glaze and they will turn out so cute–Not like the homemade ones or the handprints they do at school, these are great. In fact, she did one for me when John was just a tiny baby–it’s so cute! She’ll put his name on it, since he can’t write it himself, but some of the kids wrote their own names. Then we did Christmas ornaments. It’s just like doing playdoh at home. We roll it out, take a cookie cutter (we used a star) and stamp out you shapes. Then I gave John a pen and told him to “write” on his stars to decorate them. He jabbed a few small holes and called it good. I wrote his name on them and punched a hole at the top for a ribbon, and voila–we’re done.

It was a fun little class–for both of us! The best part is, it was free! The reason it’s free (for me), besides that Sherry’s my friend, is that Ryan does many favors for Sherry. Like record her favorite shows for her, or burn a cd of a missing episode, or fix their computer, or help them run wires. Stuff like that. So, if he continues to do favors for her, I get free pottery class. It’s a nice deal–for me, at least.

We invite a lot of people over. Well, not like every week, but we try to invite someone to dinner at least once a month. We have a lot of new people moving into our ward, so it’s given us many opportunities to invite new people. It’s fun! We enjoy getting to know people, or getting together with friends (and it forces us to clean the house.) Well, last week, someone actually invited us! We were quite shocked. Because with all the inviting we do, there are very few people who invite us back, and most of them are Melinda. But this family invited us over for “erapas”, which are Venezualen stuffed sandwich things. It was very fun to get to know them better, the kids played well together and we enjoyed their hospitality.

But yesterday, we had neither invited anyone, nor were we invited anywhere else (not even Grandma’s). Ryan said we should hit someone up at church and try to get a dinner invitation. “Hi, would you like to invite us and our 5 kids to your house for dinner? We’ll bring a salad!” Maybe the sad and lonely approach would be better. Something like: “My wife never fixes anything good for Sunday dinner. Would you mind if I came over to our house? And can I bring the family?” The kids don’t have any tact, I could teach them a line or two to use, such as: “My mommy’s not been feeling well and my dad’s been out of town all week. Do you think we could come to dinner today?” That’s kind of pitiful. Maybe a direct apporoach would be better, like: “We’d love to come to dinner. What time?” Or, maybe, “Congratulations! You win dinner with the Ericksons–at your house!”

We’ll work on those and let you know how it goes.

I know you all are yearning to know how you can get your tickets to the Bells on Temple Square Christmas concert on December 8th. Well, look no further than Lds.org, where you can order your tickets. Since the concert will be in the main hall (seats 20,000) I don’t think there will be ANY problem getting tickets. They will be available on Tuesday.

Tomorrow, however, you might want to jump on the internet or phone so you can try to get tickets to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas Show, which will of course be fabulous. They go on “sale” Saturday at 10:00. They go fast.

I’ve been at the school for the last 3 hours. It’s “PHAT Friday”, which stands for “Parents Help All Teachers”, and it’s just a big cut, colate, and staple day. All the teachers gave projects that they needed done, and we go to the gym and cut and staple, etc. for as much time as we could give. Although I still have a bunch of stuff to do for reflections, I decided it was my duty as a parent of three children at the school to go and do my part. Sadly, there were only about 10 people at a time there. I sincerely hope more people came after I left so that most of the teachers will get something done. How our school needs a copy machine that colates and staples! It would save so much time.

We enjoyed our night at Disney on Ice last night. I should have brought more snacks for the kids–they can’t seem to stop themselves from asking for popcorn or cotton candy or snowcones when they see the kids in front or back of them having those things. Oh well, they had to make do with their pocketfull of halloween candy because their mom and dad won’t spend $10 on a cotton candy for them.

I just LOVE the leaves swirling around. When a big gust of wind comes and blows all those brown and yellow leaves around, it looks a bit like there’s some kind of little critter running around. One of the small joys of fall, I guess. And I love looking out the front door or my office window to see the neighbors 8 beautiful flowering pear trees. They are the perfect fall colors right now–orange mixed with yellow with some red on the south sides. Simply breathtaking to look at. I’ll be so sad when the leaves are all gone and all I have to look at are bare branches.

And I think this is a bit extreme. I mean, if they labeled it simply “food storage” or “emergency preparedness pack” or something a bit less fear inducing, I could handle it, but “bird flu food supply”? Come on.

And I’m really excited to go to Disney on Ice tonight. Hooray!

And, I think that if you have kids and are getting them any kind of electronic devices for Christmas, you’ll be needing batteries. I just ordered me some here, and will therefore be getting a sweet deal on a boatload of batteries. I suggest you do the same.

Checking in on my goals this week, I have refrained from shopping. Until today. I went to Albertsons. Nowhere else.
I have gotten a ton of stuff done on reflections, which is good, since my assembly is next Friday. I still have to get the program organized and call all the parents and do a ton MORE stuff, but I’m getting there.

Since I’ve been working on reflections, I haven’t gotten any tape to prep for painting. I think that will be pushed back a week or so.

I have exercised two days so far, unless you count lugging 4 40 pound bags of salt out of the car. I guess if I actually get them to the basement I could count that. I’ve had some nasty headaches this week, and hence have been a bit slack on the exercise. But I’m not a total slug, so I’ll keep that in mind.

If you spin a 3 year old on a tire swing, chances are he’ll throw up.

And if he has a bath at 4:30 in the afternoon, after a long day of playing, most likely he’ll fall asleep watching tv before dinner.

And if he sleeps from 5 in the afternoon all through the night, he’ll be up very early.

And he’ll want breakfast. And after the Mom gets him his breakfast, chances are she’ll go back to bed.

Natalie was baptized on Saturday, and it was a wonderful day.

I wish I had taken more pictures, but once it was over we hurried back home and had a big family party with lunch for everyone, and I forgot to take more pictures. But the kids all looked great, and were all well behaved, and it was a very special day for Natalie.

I won this CD today, and I’m SO excited to hear it (once I go and pick it up–or better yet, get Ryan to go and pick it up for me.) Nothin’ better than a hot man who can sing, right? And he’s got a sexy Aussie accent, too.