Bits and pieces, odds and ends

I don't have much interesting stuff for the blog recently. Things have been going as usual. Busy, busy, busy. But here are some things:

• We saw Alice in Wonderland last Friday (the new 3D movie). It was amazing and weird. Very weird. But the boys loved it. Mosey informed Ben, sotto voce in the middle of the movie, "This is the best movie I ever saw!"

• I'm getting ready for another Relief Society activity on Thursday. We're doing a sewing basics night, learning how to do some basic mending, and also making these cute pillow cases to help people learn how to use a sewing machine. I spent way too long trying out different patterns for pillow cases before coming across the perfect one here. Easy and cute. So far I've made 7 pillow cases. I guess everyone knows what I'll be giving for gifts in the next few months! :-)

• The boys have been playing Risk games online with Ben and a few other people. They are little strategists. I think that must be a male brain kind of thing, because it holds no interest to me at all. Brigham said to me a couple of nights ago, "Mom, you need to do something for fun! You need to play a Risk game!" I guess he doesn't consider my sweeping the floor fun. Hmm, neither do I, actually. Maybe he has a point.

• Speaking of sweeping, I swept the floors last night at about 11:00 PM (see what I mean about fun?), and by 10:00 AM this morning, here is what I swept up just in the small area in front of our back french doors. Aarrrggghhh.

This is what comes of 3 little boys and 2 dogs going in and out of the house about 30 times between the hours of 8:00 and 10:00 AM. (A note for prospective homeschooling moms-- be prepared for you house to basically never, ever, ever be clean, except for maybe between the hours of 11:30 PM when you finish cleaning up, and 7:30 AM when the kids roll out of bed-- this mess wouldn't have happened if they had all been safely at school! :-))
On a related note, do you have any idea how annoying it is to sweep the floor while in a wheelchair? I want everyone who comes to my house to give it a try, just for the sympathy points. I have cleaners that come once a week to help me clean, but as you can see from above, if that is what happens in 2 hours, you can imagine what things would be like if I did not sweep about 20 times between cleaning sessions.

• The boys ask me to take pictures of the most random things. (Although, really, I'm not one to talk about the weirdness of taking pictures of random things-- yes, I really did take a picture of the pile of dirt I swept up on the floor.) And I comply, with the hopes that they will be more willing to let me take pictures of less random things-- like them. Here are a couple from the last upload of my camera's memory card:

Mosey lined up these three stuffed animals and asked me to take a picture for posterity. So there you go, posterity, I hope you enjoy it!



Brigham "dressed up" this chair in his soldier costume-- complete with boots, sword, gun, belt, shirt, and hat. And then asked me to take a picture of it.

• Finally, Brigham finished "Toccatina," getting it signed off last Thursday. This is the first piece any of my boys have played that I remember playing as a kid. He's way better than I was at his age, I can tell you that right now. Here he is, for your listening enjoyment: