Thanksgiving recap and back to the grindstone

Well, I kind of failed in my NaBloPoMo attempt at a blog-post-a-day, but I got close! Yesterday we left our hotel first thing in the morning, but didn't get home until after midnight, so I had no chance!
We are home from our quick trip to St. Louis.
It was awesome seeing Rosalynde and John and their kids. All the cousins played together well. Going swimming at our hotel was a particular hit. Elena cried when she had to say goodbye on Saturday night, so I guess that meant she had a good time.
Wednesday was spent driving.
Thursday was Thanksgiving.
On Friday we met Rosalynde and her kids at the Magic House, which was every bit as magical as the first time. I wish we had one of those in Austin! We ate dinner at Steak and Shake, played at Rosalynde's for a while, and then took the kids to swim at our hotel.
Saturday morning Rosalynde and I took the kids to a holiday play put on by a children's theater group. It was extremely cheesy, but cute and the kids really liked it. They had all the kids participating. At one point, all the kids went up on stage to sing Jingle Bells. Everyone except Joseph. He doesn't get into performances at all. Sigh... I wish he would just give it a try! Anyway, Elena was the star of Jingle Bells (she is the exact opposite of Joseph and is a natural performer). Later on, Brigham went up to help turn the key in a toy soldier, and then went along with the little dance afterward. I was so impressed with him! He was very serious and watched the other actors to get the dance just right. Go Brigham! I so wished I had my camera with me. I debated bringing it, but decided to leave it in the car at the last minute. Mistake!!!! It was a once-in-a-lifetime moment for him. I'll just have to try to remember it.
After the play we drove downtown and took the Tom Sawyer riverboat out on the Mississippi River for an hour cruise which was pretty fun and interesting. Although we parked in the MOST handicapped inaccessible place that we possibly could have. Ben ended up carrying me down about 100 stairs, with John toting the wheelchair behind us. Oh well.
I took pictures of Rosalynde's family after we got back, and then had a Thanksgiving-leftovers dinner and another swim session at the hotel.
Yesterday we headed back, after a brief detour back to Rosalynde's house to claim a missing jacket. Ben was not in favor of going back to get it, thinking the cost of the Walmart jacket wasn't worth the added time to our trip. He said it would be more than an hour before we passed our hotel again heading back down the freeway. It was actually about 18 minutes. So there! :-) Shorter than it would have been to drive to Walmart to buy a new jacket.
The drive back was loooong. We drove through a lot of rain, and then made a poor decision in getting off the turnpike too soon. And then when we got through Dallas we hit traffic. Bad traffic until nearly Waco! It took us almost 3 hours just to get from south of Dallas to 10-15 miles north of Waco. It was a bad combination of freeways merging, and 2 disabled vehicles several miles apart.
We also passed a record number of highway patrol cars up to St. Louis and back. We decided to count them on the way back. We passed 21!!! And that is not counting the several additional cop cars helping with the 3 accidents we passed. But we did not get pulled over. All the cop cars certainly did the job in keeping us from speeding, that's for sure.
Now we're home. The dog is happy to see us. The fish are alive. Spots is back home.
Joseph isn't feeling too well, I haven't unpacked much of anything, and all-in-all it is a bit of a let-down to have to plunge back into real life.

Thanksgiving snaps

Rosalynde made this pretty fall window hanging in her front room. The leaves are cut out of corn husks and dyed red. She is so creative!



Ben goes nowhere with his little laptop. I think John has a little laptop envy. :-)



The cook and hostess extraordinaire. Thank you for EVERYTHING, Rosalynde!



I caught John by surprise, dishing up the mashed potatoes. Thank you, too!!



Mosey is thankful for Orange Crush this Thanksgiving.



And Miley is thankful for his bobby. He is the cutest 9 month old EVER!!



I am thankful for the end of No-Sugar-November. We had apple pie, sweet potato pie, and pumpkin pie. Yes, I had all three.



Joseph is thankful for whipped cream.



Ben is thankful for 3 silly boys. And so am I.

We leave for home tomorrow morning. The holiday went by way too fast, as usual.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Brigham (and the rest of us) had an awesome Thanksgiving! We hope you did too!

Backseat boys (All right!)

We drove from Austin to St. Louis to be with my sister's family for Thanksgiving. We love road trips! We listened to (almost all of) The Hunger Games on the way up. Intense.

Smart alec

Joseph got his daddy's smart alec tendencies.
He was typing his science report yesterday morning and I came to check up on him. Here's what I saw:

Egg Membrane Experiment

Purpose:
To see if the membrane of an egg is permeable to water.
Method:
1. We measured the whatever it was 67m. so now we can do the experiment so we put the blue mixture into water and it blew up the house and the house blowing up killed mom isn't that awesome? Well me Brigham and Mosey ran out of the house just in time and we jumped on are bikes and ran away.

Hmmm... I'm just a little offended that he thought it was awesome that I got killed by the exploding blue mixture!

Because our lives are not *quite* busy enough...

Yesterday right after Sacrament meeting, one of our high councilmen came and nabbed Ben, telling him he needed to talk with him for a few minutes, and then with me. We knew what that meant-- a new calling!
Ben's been the primary pianist for the past year, and was a primary teacher for 2 years before that. 3 years is pretty long to be in the primary!
He has been called to be the 2nd counselor in the Elders quorum, which makes our respective callings nicely symmetrical. It's funny because the R.S. 1st couselor's husband is also the Elders Quorum 1st counselor!
So we'll be juggling meeting schedules, that's for sure. At least our R.S. and E.Q. presidency meetings won't be double-booked, with 2 sets of spouses in each! But I do think it means that we'll pretty much never have Sunday evenings with both of us at home, and that probably 3 weeks out of the month we'll be taking separate cars.
Ben's already talking about buying a small trailer to help with all the moves that are inevitably in his future. :-)
I'm excited for him, though. It will be great for him to be able to interact with adults for a change. And I think he'll do a great job.

Weekend warrior

We're trying (not entirely successfully) to get ready for our trip to St. Louis this coming week. This involves laundry, straightening up the house, and cleaning up the back yard. Yesterday I put the boys to work attacking the back yard. It was pretty bad.
Anyway, Brigham needed to dress appropriately for the job, and this is what he came up with. Pretty good, huh?
I wonder if I would be a better housekeeper if I bought a maid's uniform to work in every once in a while? :-)

painting faces and throwing punches

I got another email today from a prospective HALT-MS trial candidate, also fighting insurance. It's really good to be able to be in contact with other people in this clinical trial. I wish that there was a way for all the past, current, and future patients to get in contact with each other. We need to start a stem cell transplant multiple sclerosis support group! It's funny, 16 months out, I'm starting to feel like a veteran!

I have to write about something that happened with Mosey a few weeks ago. It was during his 2nd to last soccer game, during the few minutes of practice that they do before the game. There was another boy on his team, "Miguel" who was quite a handful. Very energetic, shall we say. I was watching from the sideline and see Mosey and Miguel start getting into an argument.
Miguel: "Yes!"
Mosey: "No!"
Miguel: "Yes!"
Mosey: "No!"
Miguel: "Yes!"
Mosey: "No!"
Miguel: "Yes!"
Mosey: "No!"
Miguel: "Yes!"
Mosey: "No!"
Miguel: "Yes!"
Mosey: "No!"
Miguel: "Yes!"
Mosey: "No!"
At first I thought they were just playing, because it was so ridiculous. But then Miguel got right up into Mosey's face and yelled, "AAAAAAHHHH!!" And what did Mosey do? Exactly what he has been trained to do as the youngest of 3 brothers-- he punched him. He punched him in the chest, so it could have been worse (visions of black eyes, bloody noses, and split lips flashed before my eyes), but I was horrified. Miguel started crying and ran to his mom. I yelled at Mosey to get off the field. He came to me, almost in tears himself. He began, "Mom, he was yelling at me and--" but I cut him off and said, "I know, Mosey, I know, I saw him. But it doesn't matter that he was yelling, you NEVER hit another person, no matter what they say to you! It's never ok to hit like that!" We had a quick, extremely serious talk and I told him he had to go over and apologize to Miguel or he wouldn't be allowed to play. Mosey was good and walked over there with his head down and said, "I'm sorry for hitting you," and then ran back.
Afterward, I asked what they had been fighting about. I didn't ask him right away, because I didn't want him to get the idea that it *mattered* what they had been fighting about. Mosey said, "He said that after the game he was going to come and paint my face!!"
Ha! Can you believe it? I had to try not to laugh. I told Mosey that he needed to stop and think about things before getting into an argument. Was there any way that Miguel could paint his face? Would Miguel's mom let him? Would I let someone do that to Mosey? If not, then the best thing to do would have been to ignore him and walk away.
Mosey was pretty upset and defensive for the next few minutes, and almost got into another altercation. A few of the kids on his team were running around and "tagging" each other. Another little boy ran up behind Mosey and "tagged" him, and Mosey whirled around and I was very worried he was going to attack again! But he got control of himself and didn't do it. Good boy.
It's always interesting to me to see how differently my boys react in certain situations compared to how I would have acted. When I was 5, if another little girl had come up and started yelling at me like that, I would have started crying and run away, not hit her! Still, I don't want to entirely squash any instinct that Mosey has to protect himself. If Miguel had started hitting Mosey, I would have been ok with Mosey throwing a punch as well.

Duel of the Turner boys

This is what the boys did today on a gloomy drizzly gray November afternoon. Looks like fun, huh?
My boys really want it to be fall. And it has been a little cool the past few days, so the boys excitedly pulled out sweaters and jackets. But don't let that fool you-- look at Mosey's bare feet! This is one of the reasons I love Austin.
Sometimes I'm just amazed at how *boy like* my boys are! :-)

Favorite

My brilliant boy Brigham is a very... creative speller. He's been working on the word "favorite." He missed it a couple of days in a row, and so he tried hard to memorize the way it looks like it ought to be pronounced. So yesterday on his 3rd attempt with this spelling word, here's what he came up with:
faverright
That's just awesome, I say! Brigham is nothing if not creative.
He did get it right today, and I daresay he will never forget how to spell favorite again. :-)

Rope Swing

Mosey is a lot like Joseph. I think that he and Joseph may be more alike in personality (and certainly appearance) than Joseph and Brigham! (A fact that does not go unnoticed by Brigham, who tells me sometimes he feels left out. This is why I always thought that an ideal family size would be 4 or more children. 1 is lonely, 2 will fight, with 3 one will be left out, but with 4, everyone will probably have an ally.)
Anyway, one of the ways in which Mosey and Joseph are alike is their mutual obsession with the rope swing. I believe we are on swing #3 in that tree in the back yard. My boys swing on it until the plastic literally falls apart. If I can't find Joseph or Moses, 90% of the time I just need to look out the back door and there he is. Brigham likes it too, but if I can't find him, 90% of the time he'll be tucked away somewhere drawing.
I read somewhere that swinging is actually considered therapy for certain types of childhood behavioral disorders. I don't think my kids are particularly disordered (at least, no more than normal!), but the swing really calms them down. And our swing is in the perfect location-- just off the edge of the deck, so the boys can grab the swing and jump off the side of the deck and go swinging through the air. It looks fun, I wish I could try it!

No-sugar November

My younger sister Naomi has been doing "No-sugar November" for a few years now. I've always thought she was nuts (and I still kind of do), but this year I decided to join her. I have very few ways in which to really physically challenge myself. I used to run and work out, and those were great ways of developing physical self-discipline. But now I can't do that and I realized I missed having a physical challenge. So I decided to try it.
I'm not being very strict. Maybe next year I'll be more strict. I've banned myself from all "gratuitous" sugar (desserts, candy, sugary cereal, etc.), but not from other natural forms of sugar like fruit and grains. I did sprinkle sugar on grapefruit last week and felt like I should call my sister to confess. :-)
I hoped I'd be able to report how great I feel cutting out gratuitous sugar, but sadly I cannot. I'd probably have to eliminate all refined carbohydrates and I really have zero desire to do that.
I haven't lost any weight (I haven't been trying to, but I'm too female to ever get to the point where I wouldn't be a little happy about losing a pound or two), and I think it's probably because when I get that sugar craving, I'll try to fill it with something else. But really, I just want something sweet, so I'll end up eating more of the non-sweet thing to satisfy (Weight Watchers says that when you have a craving, you should fill it, but in moderation, because otherwise you will eat "around" your craving and end up eating more points than if you just ate what you wanted in the first place, and I think it is true!). I guess avoiding this trap ought to have been part of the discipline I've been trying to exercise!
My sister gives herself Thanksgiving as a vacation day, and then goes back to no-sugar for the rest of the month. But Thanksgiving is close enough to the end of the month, that I'm calling it quits then. It's one thing to forego all your kids leftover Halloween candy, but leftover Thanksgiving pie? I don't think so! I'll try not to go too crazy, though.
I read somewhere that the average weight-gain over the holidays is 7 pounds. Wow! So even if I have not lost weight, at least I have eliminated the post-Halloween candy gorge from my holiday caloric total.
I admit to being pretty freaked out about gaining weight. It used to not be such a huge deal, because I could just add a 2 or 3 miles to my daily run and in a couple of weeks I could lose a couple of pounds. But now? A pound of fat is something like 3500 calories. So if I want to lose even 1 pound, I can't do it by running for an hour 5 days a week (roughly 3500 calories at my weight), something that used to be no big deal. Now I have to eliminate 3500 calories only by cutting out food, which would be about 1/3 of the calories I eat in a whole week. It's hard to cut down what you're eating by 1/3, and maintain that for any length of time. I'd much, much rather exercise.
I keep reminding myself that it is easier to stay the weight I am than to try to lose it later so I'm trying very hard to stay disciplined.
Ben's lost about 20 pounds in the past year-- impressive, huh? He wants to lose about 5 more, I think, and he's started jogging at night. I'm jealous. Very, very, very jealous.
When I got home from the hospital last year, the reality of my future life began to settle in a little bit. The 2 years previous had been filled with one change after another, and I never got a chance to really adjust and accept my new realities. So after the transplant was over and my life was settling down into something slightly resembling normalcy and stability, my new limitations had a chance to sink in.
Ben took me on some walks in the wheelchair around our neighborhood. We live near a beautiful golf course that meanders around through our neighborhood. There are walking and jogging trails through the golf course, and even just on the streets, the big old shady oak trees and quiet windy roads in our area are ideal for running. It was hard for me to accept that I will never go running again. It still is.
Ok, that is quite enough self-pity for one night! I'm going to go to bed and wake up tomorrow and be incredibly grateful for everything that I *can* do and forget about the things I can't.
And I'm looking forward to one week from tomorrow!!! Freedom!!! Pumpkin pie!!!

Recent snapshots

Here's the gigantic pile of leaves the boys decided to and actually did rake by themselves. Impressive, huh?


We have a lot of these critters up in the trees behind our house. Whenever Mister sees one he goes crazy. Joseph sat out on the back deck with a flashlight (turned off) and waited until he saw movement along the fence. Then he shined the light at it, making it freeze up there long enough for Brigham to run outside with a camera and take this picture.




The boys decided to dress up the dog last weekend. He was wearing my Rice University T-shirt, a dracula cape, Brigham's solider cap, and a pair of 3-d glasses. What a patient dog.



Here are the boys and Ben tonight at dinner, watching Youtube videos while their soup cooled. (I believe this was a Paul Shanklin video).

challenge vs competition

I've been thinking recently about how best to instill in the boys how to have pride in their work-- to gain satisfaction in a goal accomplished, a job well done. So much of the pride people feel in their accomplishments is not necessarily in the accomplishment itself, but in how it measured up to everyone else around them. I'm constantly trying to find ways to drive home to the boys the importance of taking pride in their work and taking satisfaction in a job they did really well.
Did I write last week about how the boys went outside and very spontaneously and secretly decided to rake up the leaves in the back yard? It was very cute. They were extremely proud of themselves, and rightfully so. It was a good moment for them, but I need to find more opportunities to teach them these concepts.
We had a family home evening tonight about not being afraid of hard work, and not letting your feelings get in the way of doing the right thing (i.e. not letting the feeling of boredom get in the way of finishing your math assignment! LOL).
Mosey said, "One thing that made it more fun to rake the leaves was pretending to fight invisible guys!" Maybe I'll use that as a tactic next time I'm tackling a load of laundry. Think it'll work? :-)
So part of the trick with the boys is to make a less pleasant task as fun as possible so that they can get to completion and then experience those feelings of satisfaction.
The boys started a gymnastics class last week. Today was their 2nd class. I'd taken them to a couple of other trial classes, but had been disappointed in the gym and coaches, and the boys had been less than enthusiastic. But soccer is over and I wanted them to be in another sport, specifically one with a male coach because I am always looking for opportunities for my boys to have male mentors. So I found out about this homeschool gymnastics class and took them last week for a trial class. I was very happy with the gym and with the coaches, and the boys seemed to have a good time and were happy to go back today.
We're not a very sports-oriented family, but I do think that sports can play a really valuable role in developing character in that it provides a natural (and hopefully fun) way to work through difficulty to achieve a goal.
(On a side note, it is a little frustrating watching the boys out there and seeing them having trouble with one thing or another and knowing that I could so easily teach them how to do it if I could only show them myself. Hmph.)
I really loved gymnastics when I was a kid, even though I never was that great at it. That's something I really hope to be able to teach the boys-- to love something even though it is very hard and you're not that great! I know that the fact that it was hard for me and I wasn't naturally that gifted were actually the very reasons (or at least 2 of them) why I liked gymnastics so much-- it was a challenge and the triumphs were therefore all the sweeter. I hope the boys will be able to experience some of that in the sports that they try.
It's tricky teaching kids the joy of conquering a challenge. They have to be willing to stick with it even when it's not very fun in order to get the payoff at the end. Hopefully with enough experience they'll learn to take the long view.
I tried to tie in their feelings of pride (the good kind, right?) in raking all those leaves, with the feelings of pride they will have as they accomplish longer term goals. I hope they got a little of it. One of the downsides to homeschooling is that they don't get the payoff of getting the highest grade in the class, or beating their friend on the mad-minute math sheet, or any of the other countless small competitive triumphs that can be experienced in a classroom setting. Teaching the boys to be proud of their work for itself, and not being proud of their work in comparison with someone else's isn't easy. It's probably healthier, though.
Anyway, there are some random musings for a Monday night.

meh

No Torty yet... :-(
We spent a long time looking for him, and Ben and Joseph crawled under the deck and got unbelievably dirty. I really like that little guy and hope he turns up. Joseph asked if I thought he was just in a really long bad dream and he would wake up and Torty wouldn't be lost. That broke my heart a little.
We had stake conference today. Our stake broadcast the meeting to our ward building because there just isn't enough room in the Stake Center for everybody. 2 hours watching a grainy broadcast in a darkened chapel isn't that fun for little boys, but they did well anyway. Afterward, an older lady a couple of rows back complimented the boys on their good behavior. She went on to complain about all the other kids who were not so reverent (it was kind of loud, but I mostly tune that stuff out), and how it showed a lack of respect to God and the failure of parents to discipline their kids. She was nice to compliment my boys, but I thought she was pretty unfair to all the other families who made the effort to go to Stake Conference, which many families take as a "free pass." It's not easy for little kids to be still and quiet for *that* long. Why do people get judgmental like that? Shouldn't church be the one place we have compassion for others and forgive them their weaknesses? Then I have to hold the mirror up to my own face and wonder why I'm being so uncharitable to that poor woman who just wanted to feel the spirit and was distracted by all the kid-noises.
Anyway.
I totally forgot about a presidency meeting tonight. I had my phone off and was in my room folding clothes and listening to my iPod when the RS President knocked on my door to pick me up. Ben was in the front room, but was sleeping and didn't wake up to her knocks. Oops. I hate dropping the ball like that. I really, really hate feeling irresponsible. I constantly have this dread that deep down I really am irresponsible and pretty soon the truth will come out and everyone else will realize it too.
Yesterday I went to the memorial service for a woman in my ward who just died of colon cancer. She was only 2 years older than me and left 3 little kids and a husband who adored her. The service was so beautiful, but so, so sad. She and I had talked a few times about chemotherapy and how hard chronic illness can be for kids (this was her 2nd bout with cancer after having first been diagnosed 5 years ago). I've felt some weird form of survivor's guilt-- just as I was recovering from my stem cell transplant which will hopefully put me in permanent remission, she was finding out about her recurrence, which she knew would be terminal. I've thought about her so much over the past year. During those times when I've felt discouraged or pessimistic or depressed, I've thought about how if she allowed herself to think about it (which she probably did not), she would have traded places with me in an instant and felt like the luckiest person in the world to do so. She was a very brave person. She had 5 younger brothers, and they were all there with their families yesterday, and 3 of her sisters-in-law sang the song I want sung at my funeral, and the whole thing was very emotional for me. I wanted to say something meaningful to her husband on my way out, but barely choked out, "That was beautiful and I'm so glad I got to attend." And then felt like an idiot because what kind of moron would be "glad" to attend someone's memorial? I doubt he registered my idiocy, but I still felt bad. I guess there's nothing good to say in those circumstances.
Anyway, it's been one of those "meh" weekends for me, I guess.

Bound to happen...

A sad thing happened today.
Joseph took Torty outside for a few minutes late this afternoon to walk around and eat some grass. He's only taken him outside a couple of other times because I'm paranoid about him getting lost.
Well, Joseph got distracted and forgot to keep his eye on him, and now we can't find him.
Ben and the boys went in back with a 200 W bulb on a work light searching through the bushes and under the deck, but no luck. They'll have to keep trying tomorrow when it's light.
Torty *is* back there. It's just that he could be under the deck, and if he is, it could be very hard to find him. The boys are all praying that they'll find him. And so am I. Joseph was extremely sad and feels just terrible.
Will you offer a quick prayer that Torty will turn up?

We took the boys to see "Where the Wild Things Are" tonight. I'm not sure what to think of it. It held the boys' rapt attention, though, and Mosey said at the end, "I think that movie was good enough that we should buy it." That's pretty high-praise! He was a little scared in some parts, but over all not as scared as I thought he might be. When we watched "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs," during the climax scene when the dam holding back all the leftover food is about to burst and crush everyone on the island, Mosey got really scared and said to me, "I thought this movie was supposed to be funny! It isn't funny, it's scary!!!"
But, going back to "Wild Things," Max sure reminded me of Joseph. Joseph has never been as angry as Max, thank goodness, but there were places in the movie that hit close to home. The closing scene with the mother watching Max as he eats his supper (that was still hot) was very powerful to me.

3 teeth less

Bright and early this morning, Joseph and I headed to the dentist's office.
We were there last week for our 6 month cleaning, and I asked the dentist about what our plan of action should be with Joseph's teeth. The orthodontist took a look and saw that 3 of his canines have not fallen out, and based on x-rays, were nowhere near falling out. This was causing a lot of crowding with his other teeth and could result in impaction.
So this morning those 3 teeth came out! The doctor gave him versed in a syrup, and pretty soon he was very drowsy and loopy, although the cartoons still held his attention. (The doctor said that most pediatric dentists put more stock into their TV systems than their anesthetics! LOL!)
2 of the teeth came right out, but the third was stubborn and broke off at the root and it took the doctor quite a while (well, it seemed quite a while to me, but he assured me it was very common and not a problem) to get it out. I could never be a dentist-- the whole thing just made me shiver!
The hygienist put in some temporary spacers and next week we'll go back in to get molds made so he can get permanent spacers. These are small devices that will keep his teeth from moving into the space now made by the extracted teeth.
He probably won't get braces for a couple of years yet, but this stuff will make the braces process shorter and easier.
Joseph did really great! It was funny to see him so out of it. And he was pretty dizzy when he got up from the chair. The hygienist helped him out and into the car (I wasn't much help there, I'm busy just trying to keep myself from falling over!). He came home and watched movies for a couple of hours and has been fine ever since. He doesn't remember much from the procedure now.
It's weird to see the baby teeth with the root still intact. The doctor told me that when the adult teeth start descending, they release osteoclasts which break down the root of the baby tooth which is what makes it start to get loose, and is why there is no root attached when the baby tooth finally falls out. Interesting, huh? Anyway, the doctor gave him his teeth in a tiny yellow treasure box and he was pretty proud to show his brother when he got home.

Reason #7,392 why I love the Internet

My mom just sent this to me. Isn't it awesomely amazing? Merry Christmas!

Photography 101

These photos are apropos of nothing. I just didn't want to post without pictures! These are from a couple of months ago when we went to see the bats fly out from the Congress Street bridge.


Brigham is giving me bat ears.


Here are the bats! Slower shutter speed...


...and faster shutter speed. They are very cool animals.

I taught a Basic Photography workshop tonight for a Relief Society activity. I hope I was coherent! I spent quite a bit of time writing the outline, and then choosing and printing photos to illustrate the points I was making. Someday when I have time I'll integrate the photos into the text. But for now, I uploaded my handout to Google Documents and you can find it here, in case anyone is interested! The format is a bit wonky, but the text is all there.

Today was a pretty good day, despite the 3.5 hours of sleep I got last night. I am DONE with staying up too late. The last few weeks with Halloween costumes, and massive desk reorganizations and Relief Society activities, etc., have been pretty bad on my sleep schedule. However, it's kind of cool that I still *can* do it, because a couple of years ago I never would have been able to. M.S. flares made me so exhausted, 9 or even 10 hours of sleep still wouldn't be enough. So even though I know it's not good for me, it is so nice to be free of that aspect of M.S.

I took the boys to McDonalds for lunch to play at the play place, something we haven't done for a very long time-- more than a year at least. I used to take them more often, when they were little and I was always looking for places to take them out of the house where they could burn off energy without destroying my house. It's so amazing to me how big they are all getting, now. In another year or two, the twins probably won't even be much interested in the McDonald's play place.

Well, time to put this disjointed blog post to bed, which is where I'll be going in about 30 seconds!

Jackpot!

I've been trying to participate in NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month, I think), and post at least once a day. I haven't been able to make it before midnight every night, but I'm posting at least once every day Pacific Standard Time!
I'm teaching a photography workshop at my house tomorrow night (well, I guess tonight), so I took the boys out today to get some examples of do's and don't's in photography, and you know what? That was the BEST ruse I've ever used to get great pictures of my boys! They all cooperated, I was totally shocked. S-H-O-C-K-E-D. And extremely happy because I got some great shots of the three of my boys together, which is very rare.
Here are a few of them:
















I also got some really great pictures during our family picture photo shoot on Saturday, but I'm saving those. :-)

I should have taken before and after pictures of my desk. It's been piling up and I got to the breaking point yesterday evening and spent 4 (yes FOUR) hours cleaning and organizing and putting away and taking care of all the things that have been waiting for me. Whew!! How long will it last? That is the question...

Brigham's "Duel of the Fates"

Over the past few months, my boys have become just a *little* obsessed with Star Wars. You'd never guess by the 14 light sabers in our play room. :-)
The first thing the boys do when they come downstairs is get on YouTube and play "Imperial March" as loud as possible. It's a charming way to start the day, really!
Mosey's favorite piece on the Star Wars soundtrack is Duel of the Fates. He will play it over and over and over and over...
We got a John Williams piano book a few months ago, and Brigham learned Imperial March right off. Joseph learned Hedwig's Theme from Harry Potter (the movie's main theme). I neglected to video them playing those pieces, and they're not too interested in polishing them up again just so I can record it for posterity. Oh well.
Anyway, Brigham learned Duel of the Fates next. He's nearly got it finished, so I decided to record it before I forgot. Joseph is learning Qui Gon's Funeral and I'll record him when he gets it all down.

Ugh.

Three things I'm saying "Ugh!" about these days (No, not the three boys above, at least, not too much! Those pictures are just for fun.):

1. We discovered that the hall bathroom sink has been leaking. Specifically the U-pipe under the sink. The water dripped onto the bottom of the cabinet, and instead of leaking out the front of the cabinet, somehow made it's way down under the cabinet to the concrete slab below. From there, it seeped under the wall into my closet. We didn't realize this until I realized the carpet on the floor of my closet was inexplicably wet. Anyway, the bottom of the cabinet was totally soaked, and the particle board was just crumbling away. Ben removed it and set up a bunch of fans in my closet to hopefully dry out the water. However, I have a feeling this might end up being a little more involved than all of that...
I'm reminded of when Brigham and Joseph were about 2.5. Brigham flushed a whole bunch of things down the master bathroom toilet (medicine bottles, bandaids, basically anything he could grab from the bathroom drawers). I fished as much as I could out, and hired a couple of plumbers to try to snake the rest out. However they were ultimately unsuccessful, and water ended up backing up from the shower and soaking the carpet in the bedroom and hall. The plumbing guys ended up having to jackhammer a hole through our concrete patio on the side of our house, down underneath our house, and up through the slab to get access to the pipes under the bathroom floor. It was a very expensive little plumbing mishap.
The insurance company sent out "Service Master Pros" to pull up the carpet, take out the baseboards, and set up industrial fans to dry everything out. Last year, Ben started getting harassing phone calls from a collection agency trying to collect $1800 from us. It was bogus, though, since we never got a bill from them, and didn't even hire them. The insurance company set the whole thing up when the repairs were made, and we paid our deductible, and that was that. Not only that, but the statue of limitations has already passed, so these guys were pretty much out of luck.
Anyway, hopefully this will be a little less traumatic than that.

2. I lost 51 pictures. I apparently neglected to upload all the photos that Ben took on my birthday. He took a bunch of pictures of me and my boys as part of their gift to me. (His approach to photography is the shotgun approach-- take enough pictures and hopefully a few of them will turn out-- hence the 51 shots). Anyway, I uploaded all the pictures before and after those birthday shots, but not the birthday shots. On Saturday I took some family pictures for some friends, and when I filled up my card, I popped in another one. I quickly checked to make sure I could delete anything on it, and saw the pictures before and after the birthday shots, which I knew for sure I had uploaded, so I blithely deleted all of them. Then I came home and searched and searched for those lost birthday pictures with no luck. Ugh. I'm glad there were no other pictures lost, but darn it, I have precious few pictures of me with my boys!!!

3. Ben cut his foot a couple of weeks ago when he was outside staining our fence. He stepped on a piece of brick and made a small puncture in the arch of his foot. He thought nothing of it until the next day at church when it started to really throb. After Sacrament meeting, he took off his shoe and sock so I could take a look. It was swollen and pussy (sorry), and there were red streaks running up his foot. I knew that was bad news. After a quick consult with our R.S. President who is also a physician, I sent him off to the Urgent Care. They lanced it, cleaned it all up, and sent him home with a prescription for Bactrim. Then at church yesterday Ben leaned over during Sacrament meeting and told me his foot was hurting again. I asked him if he had been taking the medicine, and he said, "Sort of..." Ugh! Men! Anyway, I looked at it, and it's not infected again, luckily, but still! Ugh! :-)

Oh, yeah, just thought of a 4th "ugh."
4. I have 5 loads of clean laundry getting wrinkled in laundry baskets in my room, and no time in the foreseeable future to actually fold and put it all away. It's gonna have to be sometime in the next day or two, because the laundry never stops... Putting away laundry is my nemesis. Ugh!

soccer season 2009

Here are my backyard soccer pictures of the boys. I didn't feel like shelling out the $12 for pictures I could take myself! Remember Joseph's soccer picture from last year? What a difference a year makes, that's all I can say about that! He's come a long way in a year, and I am proud of him.

Mosey ended up having fun in soccer. There were 3 little boys on his team who were very good, so his team ended up winning by a very large margin every game (although they don't officially keep score at that young age level), and Mosey got so excited every time a goal was scored. He'd turn toward me immediately and put both fists in the air. It was pretty cute. He was happy to kick the ball and got more into it each game. I think he'll be happy to play again.

Joseph and Brigham had a tough last few games. After winning the first few games handily, the last four were not so great. One of those games Joseph and Brigham weren't even there (because of the Halloween recital), so I'm not surprised at the loss. The two of them were pretty key players on their team. One of the other losses, the opposing team had 3 extremely good, fast, tall players who just couldn't be stopped. (At this age, height is everything, it seems. Those tall boys with long legs can just outrun everybody on the field.) And the other loss was to a team that was extremely well-organized and who had 4 more players than the boys' team. So while disappointing, they were legitimate losses and the boys were fairly philosophical about it.
But this last game was just painful. The teams were pretty well matched. Both teams scored a goal in the first half. Then Brigham scored a goal putting them ahead. Then the other team scored again tying it up. Then Joseph scored (yay Joseph! His first goal, he was so happy) putting them ahead again. Joseph had been playing goal keeper for a lot of the game, and never let a goal in (actually he never let one in all season which is pretty impressive considering the number of goals that obviously did go into their team's goal-- just not on Joseph's watch). For a while, Brigham was goalie (he never let a goal in either), and it was really funny to watch him. He actually probably wouldn't make a great goalie, because he's way too distracted by what's going on with the rest of his team. He kept on yelling out instructions like he was the coach, and his coach had to remind him a few times to get back in front of the net. LOL! Joseph is extremely focused as goalie, and never lets his eyes off the ball. But before the last quarter another little boy asked the coach if he could be goalie, so the coach put him in and put Joseph on defense. Well, the other team immediately scored 2 goals which would NEVER have gone in had Joseph been goalie. The boys' team almost scored again, but the ball literally went right into the face of the other team's goalie. He caught it only by reflex, and ended up hurting his eye and leaving the field in tears (poor little guy, but what a great save!). It was bad luck. It was a fast, high ball, and if it had been 5 inches to the left or right, it would have gone in for sure. Finally, it was the end of the game, and the boys' team had the ball up near the other team's goal. They had a couple of really great plays and were seriously ABOUT to score, when the game ended. So they lost 4-3.
Joseph was really upset. He wanted to win so badly, and he was so incredibly frustrated because he knew the last 2 goals wouldn't have gone in if he had been playing goalie. He started crying and refused to go over with his team when the coach gave out certificates and medals. I just held him on my lap and tried to console him. He finally calmed down enough to go shake the coach's hand and tell him thank you (at my insistence). Brigham, who had been far more upset by the other losses, seemed okay, and voluntarily thanked the coach like the gentleman he is.
I think Brigham was humiliated by the other losses (which were 5:1 and 5:0), and so they were more upsetting to him. But this game was very close and he felt good about his efforts so he was ok. But Joseph knew his team didn't really have a chance in those other games, and had already withdrawn emotionally long before the game was over. But he really thought they were going to pull this last game out, and his disappointment was acute.
Anyway, we had a good talk about playing on a team and being a good sport and after a celebratory/consolatory lunch at Burger King, Joseph was ok. Still, a tough end. I wanted so badly for them to win that last game.
So, that wraps up the 2009 season. They want to play winter soccer. I'll have to think about whether I can handle having soccer dominate our weekend schedule for another few months. Or whether I can handle the mommy-nerves that plague me when I'm watching them. I always suffered from nerves terribly when I was competing in sports in high school, and it's just as bad now that it's my kids playing! We have a few weeks to decide.

Whoa, whoa, whoah, hold on there just a minute!

Look who lost his first tooth!
He is so, so excited. I am so, so not.
Moses is my baby. I am not ready for him to grow up. He is simply not allowed to get any bigger! I want to hear NO MORE of this losing teeth business, and I mean it!
(he is so cute, though, huh?)

Halloween recital

Brigham played "Notorious Pirate" for his Halloween recital. Here he is, dressed up in his costume, even!


And here's Joseph, playing "Cat on the Prowl." He played it perfectly at the recital, but it's been a week or so. He played it once and messed up the final chord, and wanted to do it again, but the 2nd time he messed up the middle. So anyway, imagine him playing it perfectly!

666

This is my 666th post. But I got nothin' scary to say.
It is a sad day in Texas, though. Ft. Hood is about an hour north of us.

Here are a few pictures from when we went to Sweet Berry Farms a few weeks ago for their Halloween activities. I believe this clears my cache of Halloween pictures.


There was a fun corn field maze. Ben pushed me in my wheelchair a while, but with the recent rain, it was not at all wheelchair accessible, so he eventually pushed me out to wait at the entrance/exit. The boys had a good time. I kept thinking of the cute pictures I could have taken (little boys running down the long aisle of corn stalks) if it weren't for my stupid legs. Oh well, this was the best I got. Joseph was thrilled about taking pictures, as usual. I really prefer not to take posed pictures like this, but my ability to take good candids is severely limited. I just can't be in the right place at the right time. Boo.


The boys painted pumpkins. Joseph loves to give bunny ears to whomever he is standing next to in photos. Pumpkin heads are no exception, I guess.



All three boys in another boring posed shot. Well, at least I documented that we were there, so I can prove to the boys when they are older that I really *was* a fun mom! :-)

It was a pretty fun day, although it was cold!!!! We had a few days of chilly weather in October, but so far November has been beautiful. 75 degrees and sunny. No complaints from me! I've been taking the boys to the park every day so I can enjoy sitting outside and getting some sunshine.

Pumpkin bread

I've made this recipe for pumpkin bread 3 times over the past couple of weeks. I used this recipe, but modified it to make it a little less guilty.

Pumpkin bread:
1 15-oz. can of pumpkin
4 eggs (I use 4 Tbsp. egg powder + 4 Tbsp. water)
1/2 C. canola oil
1/2 C. applesauce
2/3 C. water
2 C. Splenda
1 C. sugar
2 1/2 C. whole wheat flour
1 C. all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. cloves
1/4 tsp. ginger
1/2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
1/2-1 C. raisins

Mix wet ingredients and dry ingredients separately, then blend together until just mixed.
Pour into 2 loaf pans and bake at 350 for 1 hour (more or less).

I also put these into mini-muffin tins and they were done in 20 minutes. They are also really good with cream cheese frosting, although that kind of defeats the purpose of the healthy modifications.

full moon

Wasn't it fun to have a full moon (almost) on Halloween?
I recently got a 200mm zoom lens and had fun photographing the moon. I can see it way better with my camera than with my eye because it is so bright.

The costumes

Yes, it is 3 days after Halloween. It's going to take me a while to get through my pictures. It's kind of like making the Halloween candy last until Thanksgiving, right? :-)

Here is Mosey. He had foot coverings, too, but didn't wear them to the park that day. You can't see his tail, but it is cute!



And here's Joseph.



And finally Brigham: