Superpaige's Pad

The Trials of a Busy Mom

Month: October 2007 (Page 2 of 3)

I’m sorry, but I honestly have no idea who you are

October 17, 2007 / / 1 Comment

There I was, walking out of a store with a lovely diet coke and a chicken ceasar salad for later. Yum. Up drives a silver van, and the lady driving is waving. Oh, maybe I know her, I think. I wave back. She stops. She rolls down the window and leans over to say, “Hi, Paige! How are you!?”

“Fine! How are you?” I ask. She knows my name. I MUST know her. How do I know her?

“Are you still in the Bells on Temple Square?” she asks.

“Yes, I am,” I reply. Still wracking the brain. Come on, brain. Who is this? Is she from my ward in Lehi? PTA? High School? Where do I know her from?

“Oh, I watched that concert when it was on tv, and saw you. That must be fun,” she says.

Who IS THIS PERSON? I am trying to figure it out. She knows I’m in bells, she recognized me on tv… “Oh, it is so much fun. This year’s guest artist is going to be the King’s singers,” I say trying to figure it all out.

“The nurse practitioner in our pediatrician’s office’s brother is in that choir with you,” she says. She told me that name, and sure enough, I know the nurse’s brother. He stands behind me every week. But heck if I can figure out who this nice and friendly woman is.

We wrap up our conversation and I walk away. “Who was that?” Megan asks me.

“I honestly have no idea,” I told her.

In driving home, I was waiting for it to click in. You know, that light bulb moment that you sometimes get AFTER the moment when you need the information has past? It didn’t come. I’m still wondering. So, if that was you, and you were talking to me in the parking lot the other day, I am so sorry I didn’t remember your name. Why don’t you e-mail me and remind me, because it’s really bugging me that I can’t figure it out.

A Disney Recap

October 16, 2007 / / 10 Comments

We are back from our vacation! We had a great time.  We did some things right and some things wrong on this trip, and to share what I’ve learned and enlighten you so that you don’t make the same mistakes, here we have our list.

Good things

**I bought lots of snacks from Costco before we went. The most helpful were the Sunny Delight bottles. They have the little pop up drink tops, and the kids could keep them in their fanny packs and have a drink when they wanted. They also enjoyed the granola bites, ritz bits packages, and the fruit snacks. Plus, then we didn’t have to spend as much money in the park on snacks.

**I packed extra socks and at least two pairs of shoes for each child, so that if one pair made their feet hurt one day (or got soaking wet) they had another pair to wear the next day.

**We stayed with some friends of ours in St. George on the way down. The kids LOVED playing with friends, it was a free place to stay (with breakfast included), and it was fun to see them again. They also invited us to ditch our hotel and stay with them on the way back, but we didn’t want to impose TOO much. When they insisted we come for dinner, though, we readily agreed.

**Birthday badges. Always a fun thing, and then you can get those free tortillas from the tortilla factory in California Adventure.

**Fast passes. Because there was a mix-up when we were entering and they wouldn’t let us use the tickets I had bought on line and sent us to guest services and then guest services told us we didn’t need to come to them, but should be able to use those passes at the main gate and it was a general pain and a run around (whoo–long run on sentence, isn’t it?), the lovely Jen at guest services gave me a fast pass for any ride we wanted for the whole party. It wasn’t the magical fast pass by any means (which I tried and was SO close to getting TWICE, but no go on that one), but it saved us some time going on Space Mountain (and by “us”, I mean everyone ELSE who went on space mountain. Although I did brave quite a few yucky rides this time, that isn’t one of them). We also used fast passes on lots of other rides, saving us lots of time, I’m sure.

**Meeting friends! I have a roommate from college who lives about 3 hours away from Disneyland, and they have annual passes. So, when I ask if they’d like to meet us, their answer has always been yes. I guess they go about once a month to Disneyland, and they don’t get tired of it–imagine that! So, they met us there on Friday, and their two kids are the same ages as Cole and Megan. They had a BLAST together, and it really gave them something extra to look forward to. On Saturday night, when John was asleep and Jenna had been begging to just go back to the hotel for about an hour and a half, we decided to call it quits for the day (we’d only been there for 11 hours, I can’t believe they would be tired!). Our friends were nice enough to keep Cole and Megan with them for another 3 hours. Then they didn’t have to be slowed down by “the little kids” and could go on all the fun rides they wanted (at least until California Adventure closed. Then they realized that we had taken their passes with us, so they could not go over to Disneyland without those passes and just made their way out of the park). I’m glad that our kids can be such good friends, even if it’s just for those couple of days at Disneyland.

**We rode three rides that I had never ridden before. The finding Nemo ride, which is new, of course, was one. We ONLY had to wait an hour for that one, and apparently that was a “short” wait. Everytime we saw the line or talked to anyone else who had waited, they had to wait longer. Another ride was Peter Pan. I don’t know why I’ve never ridden that ride before. There were probably long lines and we didn’t think it was worth it. But that was a fun ride! Same thing with Pinnochio’s Daring adventure, or whatever that one is called. First time for that one, too.

**And the Block Party Bash. I just LOVE that parade! There was no one in front of us, so John and his little cousin, and all the little kids were just dancing the night away with Boo and Sulley. It was so much fun! If you’ve never watched that one, it’s one to catch. And I love those army guys!
**Earplugs. With seven people in a hotel room, it’s nice to have a set of earplugs to drown out the noise of everyone breathing. Not that I want them to stop breathing, I just want them to be quiet about it.
**Ziplock bags. Helpful for keeping your stuff dry when you ride the Grizzly rapids ride, and also great for all those snacks.

**Character breakfast. We splurged on a fancy character breakfast on Sunday at the PCH grill. Lilo and Stitch and Minnie and Max were there to take pictures with (the only character pictures we have, by the way, since they all had extremely long lines). It was also a fabulous buffet, with everything imaginable to eat for breakfast, even chicken nuggets! I don’t really consider chicken nuggets to be a breakfast food, but there were some members of our party who enjoyed them for breakfast. After making the kids skip meals and living only on snacks for a few meals of our trip, it was nice to be able to say, “Sure, have more bacon if you’d like,” for once. And eat they did. I think Jenna had about four pieces of sausage, Cole had about a pound of bacon, and lots and lots of Mickey waffles and pancakes. Even though it was a LOT of money to spend on breakfast, it was fun, and I’m glad we did it once. Besides, then we could skip lunch, since we were all so very full.

Some Not so Good things

**I bought some “Sparkling Rain” flavored carbonated water (a whole case of it) and NOBODY liked it. Yuck. I still have most of a case of it, if anyone’s interested.

**Jackets. Or the lack of them. For some reason one of the kids didn’t end up packing a jacket, even though I’m pretty sure I put it in the bag for them. So on the cold or rainy days, it was not good for her. She had to wear just a long sleeved shirt over her t-shirt, and then on the rainy day, she had to wear a jacket of John’s that was too small for her. I wish I had made sure that every single person had a sweatshirt, a jacket AND a hat.

**Lines. As I said before, we took 1/2 of Utah with us to the park, and the lines were long and obnoxious. Enough said.

**Traffic Jams. We hit some kind of traffic jam on the freeway going through Las Vegas, and we should have just gotten off. Thinking it would clear up any minute, we stayed on the freeway. For an hour. Dumb. We should have just gotten off right then, drove through the city, and then gotten back on.

**Stroller rental. Even if you can get a free stroller rental in the park, you really should just bring your own from home, anyway. My brother-in-law, who we were traveling with (he won a trip, too!), told me that he could get two free stroller rentals each day with his Disney Visa, so we wouldn’t need to bring a stroller. Great, I thought. Less to pack. But you can’t get that stroller until you are inside the park, so what do you do with all the snacks, jackets, and general crapola that you schlep into the park with you until then? You carry it, that’s what. And what do you do with the child when he falls asleep in the park and you can’t take the stroller out of the park? You carry him, that’s what. So, even if you CAN get a free stroller rental, you really should just bring your own if you have a child 4 or younger. I should have thought that one out better.

Overall it was a fabulous trip! We had so much fun with our kids, and I am so glad we were lucky enough to go. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a date with the washing machine.

Disney Mania

October 15, 2007 / / 2 Comments

That whole family togetherness thing?  I’m going on day 7 and I think it’s highly overrated.  We’re in St. George, and I think we’ll let the kids swim, play a bit, then see some church history sites and head home. 

We did have a great time at Disneyland, and there are a few things I’d like to point out before I get to posting pictures and all that fun stuff.

–No one can resist the call of the Churros.  Even if you have snacks, the siren’s song that is the Churro is just too powerful, and dad will invariably cave.  Even at $3 each. 

–Going to Disneyland over “Fall break” it’s just going to be too crowded.  End of story.  We took 1/2 of Utah with us, and ran into several more families along the way.  CROWDED, folks.

–Rain happens.   Even at the happiest place on earth.  The good thing about rain, though, is that it keeps a lot of people away.  Saturday was our early entry day, so even in the rain, we were there in the park at 7 am.  Since there was no line for the Matterhorn (and one of the children had been complaining that we didn’t ride that one the day before), we hopped on that one first thing.  The nice Disney employee squeegeed off the seats for us, but there was still a big puddle of water in the bottom of the car.  So we carefully placed our feet to avoid the water, and off we went.  But at the first turn, that water sloshed up over our shoes, so that everyone’s shoes and socks were sufficiently soaked.  Oh well.  Half of the group rode that ride again.  We were also able to walk right onto every single ride in Fantasyland, since it was wet and sloshy.

–While it’s fun to be with friends, 15 people is too large of a group.  It seemed like after every ride someone had to use the bathroom.  But the kids loved being with cousins and friends, and it was nice to have someone to chat with while waiting for the rest of the group to go on rides that make me sick.

 –“You so totally rock!”  “Dude!”

More later, when I can type in the comfort of my own home and not have children jumping on the bed behind me.

October 9, 2007 / / 2 Comments

I don’t usually read Intermountain Catholic, but there’s a nice mention of our performance for their fundraising dinner the other week. Check it out.

(No, that’s not me in the picture, but everyone looks pleasant and is smiling, so that’s a good thing.)

It’s a good thing

October 9, 2007 / / 1 Comment

It’s a good thing to find out that the car has a dead battery BEFORE you drive it across three states, right?

I took the car to fill it up at Costco and run a few errands.  I stopped at the Library, stopped at Lowes, stopped to fill it up at Costco, stopped at Costco.  But when I came out with my groceries, the car wouldn’t start.  Not even try to turn over.  What the ….?  Not knowing what to do, I called Ryan at work, who used that as a nice excuse to leave for the day.  He says he’s learned that when his wife is in distress, he should leave work IMMEDIATELY.  Maybe I’ll tell the story of the time he Didn’t some other time.  Anyway, he came, we jump started the car, which he then took to a service place and found out that the battery was defective and needed to be replaced.  Which is weird, because it worked great every other time I started it.  Huh.

But I’m glad we found that out in the safety of the Costco parking lot, rather that in some fast food place halfway to California.  It’s all good, right?

Monday Musings

October 8, 2007 / / 4 Comments

**I should never have told the kids we were going to Disneyland. Now I’m bombarded by questions about a thousand times a day. “When are we leaving?” “How much school are we going to miss?” “Am I going to have to miss my fieldtrip?” “Where’s my suitcase?” And then they all proceed to “Pack”. But if they pack, that just means I’m going to have to unpack, make sure they have the right stuff, and then pack AGAIN. I asked them to please put the clothes they wanted to take on their beds, but that didn’t happen. So, today, I will be packing, buying snacks, finding a home for our pets while we are gone, etc.

**General Conference was Awesome. Great talks, and great music. If it weren’t for my kids constantly making too much noise, it would have been perfect. But they listened to some of it, too, and hopefully they learned something. My favorite talk? President Eyring’s Sunday morning talk. And Sister Beck’s.

**Did I mention that we had a very large TV in our family room? Well, we do. A broken, unwanted 60 something inch tv that weighs 300 pounds. It’s been in our family room for a few weeks, now, and this weekend Ryan got it working well enough (he says it’s not quite right, yet, but it looked ok to me), and so we moved the old tv out, disrupting our entertainment center. We had to take EVERYTHING out of the shelves, putting it all on the kitchen table. I’m amazed at how much stuff that thing holds. Well, with the big old tv there in the middle, that eliminates the middle section of the entertainment center. So, I spent the weekend rearranging and trying to find other homes for all the photo albums, videos, scrapbooks, and ‘stuff’ that used to occupy those shelves. I’m not quite done. But now the old tv is up in our bedroom (wa-hoo! The channels don’t end at 35–how exciting!) and that tv is going down to the basement. Poor Ryan, he had to do all the hauling, and now his back is sore.
**This morning as I was putting in my time on the treadmill, I turned on the tv and AMC was playing “Pretty in Pink”. Who doesn’t love that movie?

**The winner of my book give away is Cynthia.  Congratulations, Cynthia!

Holiday Cooking

October 6, 2007 / / 2 Comments

Overwhelmed with Joy is hosting a Holiday Cooking Carnival, where everyone submits their tried and true recipes. Well, I’ve got one for you. I stole this recipe from my friend Amber, who made it for book club a few years back, and she got it from Allrecipes.com and Eagle brand. But since then I’ve made this ONCE a year for Thanksgiving. I can’t make it more often than that, or I would eat it all myself, and that would be a bad thing. So, if you enjoy pumpkin and you enjoy cheesecake, this is the one for you. Maple Pumpkin Cheesecake INGREDIENTS

  • 1 1/4 cups graham cracker crumbs
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1/4 cup butter or margarine, melted
  • 3 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
  • 1 (14 ounce) can EAGLE BRAND® Sweetened Condensed Milk (NOT evaporated milk)
  • 1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin
  • 3 eggs
  • 1/4 cup maple syrup
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • Maple Pecan Glaze:
  • 1 cup whipping cream
  • 3/4 cup pure maple syrup
  • 1/2 cup chopped pecans
  • whipped cream (optional)
  • pecan halves (optional)

DIRECTIONS

  1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
  2. Combine graham cracker crumbs, sugar and butter; press firmly on bottom of 9-inch springform pan.
  3. With mixer, beat cream cheese until fluffy. Gradually beat in EAGLE BRAND® until smooth. Add pumpkin, eggs, syrup, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt; mix well. Pour into prepared pan.
  4. Bake 1 1/4 hours or until center appears nearly set when shaken. Cool 1 hour. Cover and chill at least 4 hours.
  5. To serve, spoon some Maple Pecan Sauce over cheesecake. Garnish with whipped cream and pecans (optional). Pass remaining sauce. Store leftovers covered in refrigerator.
  6. Maple Pecan Glaze: In medium-sized saucepan, combine 1 cup (1/2 pint) whipping cream and 3/4 cup pure maple syrup; bring to a boil. Boil rapidly 15 to 20 minutes or until slightly thickened; stir occasionally. Stir in 1/2 cup chopped pecans. Cover and chill until served. Stir before serving.

It’s his decision

October 5, 2007 / / 5 Comments

3:30 the phone rings.  It’s Cole’s friend, asking for him.  When I told him he had gone to a different friend to play, he mumbled something about the campout.

Campout?  I ask, What campout?

He mumbles something about a campout and that it’s probably too late, since they are supposed to be at the scout master’s house at 4:00.  Then he tells me to hold on just a minute, and he puts his mom on.  She asks me didn’t I know about the campout to Camp Floyd?  You know, the one they signed up for in the spring?  I’m wondering how I would know that.  Probably on that note from the scout master in the middle of the summer that outlined a few months worth of things.  Things I should have written on the calendar, but for some reason did not.

So, I called Cole at his friend’s house, to see if he wanted me to rush over and get him and help him pack for this campout.

No.  He said.  It’s too late, and I didn’t remember about it.  He gives me all the reasons why he didn’t know, and that I didn’t tell him about it.

I kind of lost it a tiny bit there in telling him that I can’t be responsible for telling him about every single SCOUT activity that he has.

But he decided that he would rather not go this time.

So, I need to let it be his decision, and let it be all right to miss out on this one thing.  It’s his decision, right, and if he doesn’t want to do it, I can’t force him to do it.  Even though I know it will be tons of fun, and every scout activity is always a good thing for them to do.

But it’s not my decision.

Ugh.  Letting them grow up is hard.

Natalie’s birthday

October 4, 2007 / / 11 Comments

Natalie had a birthday party over the weekend, and it was quite a lot of fun. She wanted to do a “late night”, so her friends came from 7-10 pm. We played an American Girl Mystery game, did a craft, ate some pizza, played some games, ate cake and ice cream, and broke a pinata. I almost forgot about the pinata, however. I bought it about a month ago when I bought one for John’s birthday. I had stashed this one away and then forgot about it. One of Natalie’s friends said, “Do you really have a shoe pinata?” Oh Good Heavens, I do! I had to find some candy and have Ryan stuff the thing while we played a game (luckily I HAD some candy) and then the girls had a great time whacking the heck out of it.

Here’s the cake, which I made myself.

Here’s John painting the craft.

And Natalie and friends painting.

She was thrilled to receive TWO Webkinz! for her birthday! and even John and Dad had fun. And Natalie enjoyed trying on her large SHOE. and then hitting it until it gave up the candy stash it was so cleverly hiding! I hope it was a WONDERFUL 9th birthday for you, Natalie. You are my sweet drama queen and I can’t imagine life without you in our family!

If you were in my house today

October 2, 2007 / / 3 Comments

If you were in my house today…You would have heard me singing out latest version of the the song “Poop goes in the potty, not in pants! Where does the poop go? In the Pott-eeeeee!” It’s a lovely rendition that was sung with such enthusiasm and joy. Totally lost on the child, though, who instead of getting the message of the song, just says, “Mom, don’t sing.”

If you were in my house today…You would have heard me grumbling and complaining about the ticket I got yesterday for not coming to a full stop at a stop sign. Do they even GIVE tickets for That?! Nobody on the street, yet somehow this nice motorcycle cop appears OUT OF NOWHERE to pull me over for not coming to a complete stop at the stop sign before turning right onto an empty street. WHERE IS THE LOGIC IN THAT, people. I’ll have you know that I have not received even a warning in over 11 years, and now to be pulled over! I’m NOT HAPPY! The only good thing is that I had already dropped off the three little boys at preschool and was exiting the neighborhood, so neither the boys, the preschool teacher or any other parents saw my embarrassing slip up.

If you were in my house today…You could see me come home with sticky hands from scooping 5 gallons of vanilla ice cream into little bowls for the kids at school. They earned the ice cream sundaes by walking so many miles in their walk-a-thon. Their good natured principal also got made into a human sundae. They put ice cream, chocolate sauce, whipped cream and sprinkles on him. Poor man. It was fun, but now I’m sticky.

If you were in my house today…You would hear me groaning in pain from the torturous workout I was put through this morning. My friend is starting up an exercise class at our church, and she was the teacher this morning. Tons of crunches and ab work, lunges, squats and cardio, all with our big, but underinflated exercise balls. And our little boys were in the gym pointing at laughing at all the funny mommies sweating it out. It hurts to laugh, people.

If you were outside my house today…You might have seen me outside like a crazy person attacking the weeds, overgrown perennials and annuals with a vengeance. I only got three of the flower beds cleaned out, but we also planted 60 tulip bulbs. Why did it have to be done today? I have no idea. It was a nice day, and it’s got to be done. Who knows how many more nice days we’re going to have before we have (gasp) snow around here, so I overdid it today.

But if you were in my house today, I would have offered you a piece of the yummy European chocolate that Ryan’s parent’s brought us back from their vacation. No, not a whole bar, are you crazy? I wouldn’t want you to feel THAT welcome.

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