08/16/2012

1.  I woke up a little later than I wanted this morning (due to being up a little too late last night-- oops, same problem tonight), and so we were finishing up breakfast and getting started on lessons when I looked at my watch, saw that it was 10:00, and realized with a start that our Cub Scout summer swim party was starting RIGHT THEN.  Aargh!!  I HATE forgetting things!  The kids ran around like crazy men looking for swimming suits, and I yelled like a crazy woman when they started fighting and bickering over who hid whose swimming suits (no one hid anyone's swimming suit, it's just that when my kids can't find something, it's obviously because one of their brothers hid it, right?), and then drove like a crazy person out to Steiner Ranch where I had to convince poor Brigham to get out of the car-- he doesn't like being yelled at...  Bad mommy. 
But once I convinced them all to get in the pool, they had a good time.  A kid from our ward who is a swimmer on the high school team came and gave them instruction on safety and water rescue and a few strokes, and all the boys earned their swimming belt loop and sports pin.  Yay!
Joseph found a giant toad and practiced being the pied piper for a while until he decided he wanted to swim again, at which point I became the keeper of the toad.  So fun!  :-)  I was able to successfully persuade Joseph to let the toad stay at the park instead of taking it back to our house. 
After swimming, Brigham found a tree and climbed up really, really high.  He promises me he is totally safe.  If he falls and breaks his arm, he's paying the medical bills.  :-)

2.  We didn't get home until after 1:00 PM, so our lessons were fairly abbreviated, and no one finished all their practicing.  I don't think Joseph did any of his practicing.  I think he came the closest to finishing his schoolwork, though, so I guess it all evens out.

3.  Joseph and Brigham (I'm thinking mostly Brigham?) helped Ben this evening by spraying the stone around the base of our house with a chlorine solution to try and get rid of some of the water stains.  Worked pretty well, too.  It's interesting for me to see the differences in what Ben and I notice in preparation for readying our house for a potential renter.  Me?  I don't care too much about discolored stone around the base of the house.  The holes in the walls upstairs, the peeling paint on the kitchen wall, the state of the carpet on the stairs are a lot more problematic.  Or maybe Ben just realizes that the boys aren't going to be particularly helpful in remedying those problems...  :-)

4.  And here is a picture of my handsome Brigham.