06/16/2013

OK, I'm waiting for my long, unscheduled summer days when I can sit down and read a book for a couple of hours at a time.  It's not happening yet.
This morning I got Mosey up at 6:15 so he could eat breakfast, get dressed, and head off to Cub Scout camp at 6:50.  Then I was off to the grocery store, then home again to get the big boys ready for their tennis camp.  They had tennis from 8:30-10:00.  After dropping them off I did the watering outside and then some chores inside.  I did practice my violin for about 15 minutes or so before the boys came home, the only personal thing I did all day.  Then I helped Brigham with his practicing and schoolwork, and tried to supervise Joseph with his, only to find him collapsed on his bed, sound asleep.  I found out he stayed up ALL NIGHT last night!  Aargh!  Then I cleaned the kitchen, got the dishwasher going, installed two battery charger/vacuum holders so I can hang up our Quick-up vacuums in the rooms in which they will be used, instead of stashing them in the laundry room. And then Brigham helped me make a batch of mini cheesecakes for my seminary students.  After that I took Brigham to the library, and then to the grocery store again for a few more items I had forgotten this morning. Then home again to wake up Joseph, make one more batch of mini cheesecakes, and supervise Joseph getting dinner ready.  After the boys ate they came with me to deliver the cheesecakes and my Book of Mormon reading challenge (I'm challenging all the kids to read the whole Book of Mormon this summer-- I will take anyone who completes it out to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory-- hence the cheesecakes) to my seminary students.  Then home again to watch Lost before getting the kids in bed again, the kitchen cleaned (again), the lizards fed and medicated (T-Rex is still on antibiotics), and my computer de-bugged.  Well, Ben did that part and I helped watched.  And now it is 12:04 AM and I have to wake up early again to get Mosey off to Cub Scout camp.
Tomorrow we've got piano lessons in the morning for Brigham and Joseph, and flute for Joseph in the afternoon.  I hope it feels a little less busy!
Other notes from the day:
Mosey loved Cub Scout camp.  BB guns, archery, and canoeing-- what boy could ask for anything more?
When Joseph told me he stayed up all night, I responded exactly in the wrong way.  Man, I wish I had a rewind button sometimes.  He told me he laid in bed for a really long time-- until 2:00 AM, and then gave up and got up to work on the story/book he is writing.  I immediately got upset and told him how bad staying up all night is for his body and how he MUST get more sleep and how he ought to have done this and that and the other thing instead of what he did.  Which is going to do nothing except make him less likely to tell me anything.  I should have instead asked myself *why* he was even telling me.  Was it so that I could get on his case about it?  Probably not.  I should have been sympathetic and told him how sorry I was that he had trouble sleeping, how I have insomnia sometimes, too, and know how frustrating it is.  I should have told him I was glad he worked on his story instead of playing computer games.  I should have asked him what I can do to help him sleep better, instead of jumping all over him and telling him what he should have done.  Ugh.
Joseph, if you're reading this, I'm sorry.  I shouldn't have gotten mad at you.  And I'm certainly the pot calling the kettle black when I get annoyed with my children for staying up too late.  :-)
OK, I'll end with a picture of Brigham that I took Sunday afternoon.  I enjoyed hanging out with just him this afternoon.  He is a cool kid.

06/16/2013-- Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to the two best dads I know-- my own, and my kids'.
It wasn't too spectacular of a Father's Day for Ben, but I hope he liked it anyway.  Regular church day-- he even had meetings before church-- no breaks for the dads on Father's Day.  But after church I made him a variation his favorite meal, meat loaf, baked potatoes, and corn.  At least, it used to be his favorite, I haven't asked him recently if it still is.  In any case, it was what we had on hand, so I'll stick with it still being his favorite meal.  :-)  We had meat loaf, roasted potatoes, corn on the cob, salad, and watermelon.   And roasted bananas for desert.  I am going to make a blog post on its own about roasted bananas.  It has become my family's favorite treat.
I also managed to get some pictures of Ben and the boys, which I realize are more for my benefit than his, but someday he'll like looking at them.  :-)

The boys look particularly thrilled to be there, don't they?  :-)  They were wanting me to hurry up because the mosquitoes were biting them, and they wanted to get back inside to finish a computer game before they "died."  Priorities, right?  :-)

I talked to my dad on the phone as well, and spent an hour or so looking back through old pictures of my childhood finding ones with my dad in them.  There aren't a whole lot because he was almost always the one taking the pictures.  It reminds me to ask Ben to take pictures sometimes, and not just posed I-set-up-the-shot-Ben-snaps-the-picture shots.  I don't think he has ever picked up a camera on purpose to take pictures just because he wanted to in our whole marriage!  I really need to work on that.  :-)
But my dad did, and I'm glad, because I so love looking back on those pictures.  Here are a few of my dad.

 Daddy with his 1st baby, Rosalynde.

 Daddy with his 2 babies, Rosalynde and Gabrielle.

Daddy with his 3 babies, Rosalynde, Gabrielle, and Naomi.

 Daddy with his 4 babies, Rosalynde, Gabrielle, Naomi, and Brigham.

From here on out I could no longer find any with just Daddy and all of his kids.  I think it took at least 2 adults to manage all of us in a single picture.  :-)  Anyway, this is Daddy with his 6 babies, Rosalynde, Gabrielle, Naomi, Brigham, Rachel, and Jacob!

One of my favorite pictures of our family of all time.  This was the 4th of July in 1988.  Daddy and his 7 babies, Rosalynde, Gabrielle, Naomi, Brigham, Rachel, Jacob, and Benjamin (right to left).

Daddy with his 8th baby, Abraham.  This was just a couple of months before my brother Jacob died, and a hard time for our family.  We did get some family pictures with all 8 of us kids before Jacob died, but I don't have those scanned in.

And here is Daddy with his Rachel on her baptism day, and his 9th baby, Christian.  I love little Abraham looking on from the edge of the frame.  I couldn't find any pictures of our entire family with Christian before Eva was born.  That was the year Rosalynde left for college, so occasions for all of us being in a picture at the same time were limited.

And here is Daddy with his 10th baby, Eva!  This picture is a little blurry, and I'm sure Mama loves pictures of herself minutes after giving birth, but I do love Daddy's expression in this picture.

And, one of the last pictures of our entire family all together in our scanned slides.  This was when I was being dropped off at Rice for my freshman year.  Not a great look for me that year, but we were still a pretty impressive-looking family, I think.  I'm not sure what the other freshmen families there that day made of us, but I was always pretty proud of my family, and took special enjoyment out of listing all of my siblings to my new college friends-- Rosalynde, Gabrielle, Naomi, Brigham, Rachel, Jacob (we all wish he were in this picture), Benjamin, Abraham, Christian, and Eva!  :-)
Isaac was born 2 years later, and now he has the honor of bringing up the rear in the litany of Frandsen names: Rosalynde, Gabrielle, Naomi, Brigham, Rachel, Jacob, Benjamin, Abraham, Christian, Eva, and Isaac.
Thank you for all of my siblings, Daddy!

06/15/2013

Last night at around 10:00 I had one of those especially serendipitous moments where you suddenly, from out of absolutely nowhere, remember something very important.  I was on the computer, editing some photos when I suddenly remembered that I was supposed to be putting on a brunch for the ladies I visit teach this morning.  My visiting teaching companion had scheduled it, and had been reminding me periodically, but for some reason it dropped utterly off of my radar until last night.  Oh, my, it would have been so extremely embarrassing to have people knocking on my door at 9:30 this morning, to find no one here but Mosey and Brigham.  Ben was going to help with a move, and I was going to take Joseph to archery this morning.  So, I said a quick prayer of thanks for making me remember this, and scoured the refrigerator and pantry for food to make a brunch this morning.
As it was, two of the three ladies we visit teach bailed on us at the last minute, but it was still a nice brunch with just the three of us.  I made blueberry muffins and quiche, with strawberries and grapes and orange juice.  And the fact that 2 of the 3 couldn't make it meant that there were enough leftovers to feed my family afterward!
The rest of the day was spent doing yardwork and housework.  Ben took the boys to play tennis again, while Kandis and I finally got our grades done for seminary.  I took the boys to get some fathers' day presents, and afterward we had a barbecue in the backyard and then watched a couple of episodes of Lost. A pretty good day!

Here is Joseph mowing the lawn.  He did the whole thing himself today, and did a great job.  He was not excited about me taking a picture of him.  However, it seems to me like it should be a mother's right to take pictures of her children whenever she wants (within reason).  After all, I gave birth to you!  And I pretty much spend my life right now devoted to you.  So I'm not going to feel about about taking this picture or putting it on my blog. This is the record of my life-- what I will look back on years from now to bring back the best memories of my life.
Joseph, someday you will be a father and you will understand the breathtaking swiftness of your children's childhood.  I need these pictures as anchor points so I can look back and remember where I've come from.  To transport myself back, just for an instant, to this one moment in time.  You look like such a big boy to me here, but I know in a few years I will look at this picture and my heart will ache a little for that almost-12-year-old who right now is still a boy.  I need to remember you like this (scowling face, and all).  Pictures are the only things I get to keep of your childhood.

After all, it feels like only a couple of weekends ago that we were spending another Saturday afternoon mowing the lawn at another house of ours.  Only you were 2 years old.  You look almost as scowling in this picture as you do in the one above.  :-)  Do you remember that plastic play lawn mower that Brigham is holding?  We had two of them, and you and Brigham both liked to go out and "help" Dad mow the lawn on Saturday afternoons.  And look at that-- you and Brigham are holding tennis balls.  How is that for coincidences?  You spent that Saturday nine years ago doing exactly what you spent this Saturday doing-- mowing the lawn and playing tennis!

In another 9 years you will be a man, perhaps almost ready to come home from your mission.  Your childhood will be over, and all I will have left are photographs.
I love you and your brothers so much, it physically hurts sometimes.  You were all I ever wanted.  The hourglass of my time with you here with me in my home is more than half empty, and it is emptying faster and faster every day.  I'll never get these two year olds back, ever again.  And I'll never get this wonderful afternoon back, either.  So don't begrudge me my pictures, and I won't begrudge you growing up way too fast.  :-)

06/13/2013

Summer so far:
I'm mostly happy with the schedule my kids have got going.  I had started with everyone needing to finish their chores/practicing/schoolwork by 12:00, but was met with universal protests by the 3rd day.  So now they have to get all their stuff done before they get any screen time.  If that works, fine.  I just can't handle having practicing and schoolwork spread out through the whole day.  As of now, I think only one child has done his piano practicing, and it is 12:24, so I may say practicing all has to get done by 12:00, I don't know.
I'm also letting the boys practice by themselves.  This is really hard for me!  It's liberating not to be tied to the violin or piano or cello or flute for 3 hours a day, but also very hard for my control streak.   We'll see how that goes this summer.  Brigham was doing most of his practicing by himself before, so it's not so much a new thing for him.  I told the boys I reserve the right to yell out corrections from the other room, or come in and request that they play some part again, but that mostly they're on their own.
Yesterday my car refused to start and we were stranded at the piano teacher's house.  Wonderful.  My car had done this on Saturday night/Sunday morning as well, but then "fixed itself" by Monday morning.  Well, it was not fixed, apparently, and I was just glad we were somewhere safe where we could wait inside for Ben to come rescue us.  He ended up calling a mobile mechanic, which was awesome.  They were there within an hour and a half, and within 2 and a half hours, the problem was fixed!  We needed a new fuel pump, apparently.  I'm never again going to drop my car off at the mechanics and have them keep it hostage until they feel like getting around to it!
But it wasn't done on time for me to take Brigham to violin lessons, so he walked.  He didn't want to take his bike because he doesn't know where his bike lock is, and Joseph's bike lock is really hard to use, so he put his violin case on his back, his music bag over his shoulder, and walked through the blazing hot 90+ afternoon sun.  But it was done in time for me to go pick him up, and we stopped by Burger King to get him a frozen lemonade as a treat.  He told me he'd rather walk to violin 10 times and get a frozen lemonade, than be driven.  Hey, this kid must be mine-- highly motivated by treats.  :-)
I went to a Relief Society activity in the evening-- a swim party with the young women in the ward.  I actually did get in to "swim" (if you can call what I do swimming :-)), although most of the women did not.  It was fun and I'm glad I went, even though I really don't love those kinds of social scenes.  Too many people, and yet somehow not really anyone to talk to.  The dilemma of the introvert, I guess.  I did have a good conversation with one of the young women about good YA books I can look into for our road trip this summer, so that was something.
OK, here's a cute picture of Mosey in the pool yesterday.

06/10/2013

First full day of summer vacation.
It went pretty well, I think.
The deal I made with the boys is that if they finish their chores/practicing/schoolwork (we're doing just an hour's worth each day) by 12:00, they can have 1 hour of entertainment screen time and up to an hour of non-entertainment screen time (writing stories, designing buildings on Home Designer, composing music on MixCraft).  They were able to finish mostly by noon, with not too much whining.  Now I need to set up controls on the computers so that they can only stay on for an hour at a time.
We went swimming in the afternoon, and I got sunburned!  It's the first time I've gotten sunburned in more than 5 years.  I normally can't stay out in the sun long enough to burn.  We have 3 pool floats that the boys decided were ships.  I was on the U.S.S. Lazybones and the boys basically pushed and pulled me around the pool in the game they were playing.  It was so great lying there in the cool water, looking up at the trees and the blue sky.  But I got sunburned.
The boys are pretty creative in the pool.  The strung a long rope from the diving board to the railing by the step, using it as a barge line and barrier and whatever else they need it to be for their games.  And they rigged up a big bucket that they filled up with bricks and rocks and tied with a rope to the diving board.  One kid stands up on the diving board with the bucket, and another child is down in the water hanging onto the rope attached to the bucket.  Then the kid on the diving board drops the bucket of bricks down into the water, and it sinks "like a rock" to the bottom of the pool, dragging the kid hanging onto the rope along with it.  Apparently this is very fun for the boys, and they took turns sinking to the bottom over and over again.
I am loving the pool so far this summer!

Weekend report

We had a great weekend.  Friday was our last official day of school.  We crossed the finish line sort of gasping and staggering, but we crossed it.  :-)  It was also the last day of the boys' lego camp.  They ended up having a fun time-- their battle bot won!  I spent the rest of my kid-free hours over those days cleaning the house, going grocery shopping, and giving my friend a Photoshop tutoring session.  It was fun!  On Friday afternoon we went swimming with Natasha and Desiree to celebrate the last day of school, and then after taking them home, Joseph and I swung by Little Caesars to get pizza for the boys, and I drove as fast as I could down to the movie theater to see "Gatsby" with Ben.  We liked it!  I had serendipitously just finished listening to The Great Gatsby on audible, and that made the movie that much  more enjoyable to me.  The movie followed the plotline of the book very closely (except for the whole premise of Nick Carraway writing his memories as part of a psychological treatment regimen-- but it was an effective way to establish the narrative voice of the character, so I can forgive).  It was well cast and had a really interesting soundtrack that added a lot to the movie.
Saturday was a beautiful day.  We all did yardwork, Ben and I went to Red Barn and bought some plants to hopefully finish out the half-circle flower bed at the very front of our house.  Ben took a huge load of junk to the dump, since our area hasn't had any bulk pickup for 9 months-- what is going on??  And we got the rest of our moving boxes out of the carport, broken down, loaded into the van, and taken down to the recycling center downtown.
Around 6:00, Brigham and Mosey and I drove down to San Marcos to Texas State University where we had tickets to a live taping of "From the Top," one of my favorite NPR shows.  It was really fantastic.  The show will air on September 2.  There was a wonderful trio-- 13 year old pianist, 11 year old violinist, and 11 year old cellist, and I could almost see my boys up there!  :-)  There was also another piano duo, a 16 year old piano soloist-- such an impressive piece!! (Which I can't remember the name of now...), a 13 year old composer who wrote 3 vocal pieces with piano accompaniment-- also just so impressive, and great fun for Brigham, my budding composer, to hear, and a finale of 5 pianists playing an arrangement of John Philip Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever."  The program was heavy on the pianists since it was taking place during the international piano festival happening that week at the university.
Ben took Joseph to the Elders Quorum video game party, so my boys all got a good dose of "culture" that evening.  :-)
On Sunday we had the missionaries over for dinner.  We're getting sister missionaries in our ward this week, and the elders will be working only in the Cypress Creek ward, so that is a little sad-- I like my boys to see and know the elders in the area.  I was once again astonished at how much teenage/early adult boys/men can eat.  The two of them ate as much as the five of us put together.  But it won't be long before my boys will be there!  Mosey impressed them by giving the dinner prayer in German.  We had a good discussion about the Book of Mormon musical that is coming to Austin.  They will probably be going down to hand out Book of Mormons (Books of Mormon?) to people as they come out of the theater.  :-)
So, that was the weekend!

06/05/2013

Brigham and Mosey did a surprise dinner tonight.  This is my genius plan-- I am so, so sick of making dinners.  Sometimes I try to pass it off to Ben, but his solution is always to make peanut butter sandwiches or eat cereal.  So instead I asked the boys if they wanted to be in charge of a mystery dinner that they could plan for, shop, and prepare all themselves.  And they did it!  Joseph was finishing schoolwork, so Mosey and Brigham huddled in the playroom making their game plan.  Then I took them to the grocery store where I went around and did my normal shopping, and they went around and did theirs.  I gave them cash so I couldn't see what they were buying.  Then we went home, and the boys unloaded and put away ALL the groceries by THEMSELVES so that I wouldn't see what they purchased.  I lay on my bed for 20 minutes until they hollered for everyone to come and eat, and here is what we found:

The bought two different kinds of freshly baked bakery bread which they sliced themselves, roast beef, ham, cheese slices, sausage, pepperoni, and lettuce for sandwiches.  They had plates laid out nicely, and then an ice cream sundae bar on the other side of the island:  Oreos ("Double-stuffed, mom, they were the same price as the regular!"), cherries, strawberries, rasberries, skittles, Reeces Pieces, strawberry sauce, hot fudge sauce, and chocolate shell sauce.  Now that is quite a spread.
I happened to see their shopping list as I was cleaning up after dinner.  They told me as they were shopping they decided not to get a lot of things on their list, and I could see that was true.  Items for sandwiches they did not buy:  bacon, chicken, peppers, onions.  Items for ice cream bar they did not buy: sprinkles, cookie dough, yogurt, marshmallows, m&ms, jelly bellies, and "what's it called" cookies (I'll have to ask them about that one).  You can tell my kids take their desserts very seriously around here.
I think I'm going to make mystery dinners a regular occurrence around here!