Family letter: Thanksgiving report

Hi Everyone,

Oh, it is so late, but I've just got to get a letter off tonight.  It's been too long.

Our Thanksgiving week was so great!  The boys had school on Monday and Tuesday.  I wish we could have two-day school weeks every week. :-)  On Wednesday afternoon Christian and Abraham flew in to Austin.  We had the best time with those two boys.  Here are some highlights:

Christian's Hanukkah candle-lighting every night.  We tried in vain to find a place selling menorahs at 5:30 PM the night before Thanksgiving, but strangely didn't find one!  Instead we went to Walmart and Christian came up with a very beautiful non-traditional menorah which we lighted to Christian's Hebrew singing every night. I loved seeing my boys take turns donning the yarmulke that Christian made, to light the candles. On Wednesday evening Christian made latkes (potato pancakes), and a delicious Israeli salad with tomatoes and cucumbers.   At night we played a rousing game of "Would You Rather," and ate my failed attempt at donuts-- converted into scones when I couldn't find the cord to my fryer.  I hate losing things.

Thursday was full of cooking and eating.  I did most of the cooking, with my family keeping me company in the kitchen and cleaning up after me.  Abraham did the honors with the turkey, however, and it turned out great.  Deborah Johnson came for dinner and we had awesome conversation and way too much food.  After dinner, I looked at the leftovers and thought we'd be eating Thanksgiving dinner for a week afterward.  However, in some opposite-of-Hanukkah-miracle, we polished off nearly everything by the next night, and the last piece of the SIX pies I made (six pies for 8 people-- do the math on how much pie we all ate) was consumed tonight.  It sure helps to have two extra grown men to help finish off Thanksgiving leftovers.  :-)  Thursday night we watched Avatar before finally waddling off to bed. 

Friday everyone slept in and had a slow morning.  In the afternoon we went to Ladybird Lake and went kayaking.  We went almost all the way downtown before turning back.  It was perfect-- cool, overcast weather, very few people out on the water.  Abraham and Joseph an Christian and Brigham doubled up in double-kayaks and Ben and I and Mosey were in a triple.  Every time we go down there we wonder why we don't do it more often.  Back and home we ate Thanksgiving leftovers and then went to see Catching Fire.  SO GOOD!  

Saturday was another sleep-in day.  Abraham played through much of our piano songbooks helping to figure out what might be good spring recital pieces.  In the afternoon we went down to the boulder park and climbed around on the boulders and up on the limestone cliffs.  I didn't bring my camera and was sorry for it.  It was so much fun to see my boys hanging with their uncles.  In the evening we went on a walk/jog/bikeride around the old golf course so that Christian could see some deer, of which there were many.  Family walks with great conversations are among my most favorite things in life.  Afterward Christian and I went to Rudy's to pick up some barbecue (because we really hadn't consumed enough calories in the past couple of days), and we watched World War Z (also very entertaining, but not on the same level as Catching Fire, I'd say).

Sunday morning came too soon and I dropped Abe and Christian off at the airport at 5:30 AM, after not enough sleep for either of them.  I hope they slept on the plane.

We loved, loved, loved having Abe and Christian here.  I wish they would both transfer to UT so they could live here.  :-)  I think my boys feel the same way.  

Today marked the first day of our new church time-- I didn't write about this last week, did I?  A new stake was made in Round Rock which necessitated some logistical changes, including putting another ward into our church building while a new building is under construction.  THis means that for the next 13 months, our ward will be meeting from 2:30-5:30 PM.  UGH.  I know we will adapt, but UGH anyway.  It was doubly too bad because today was Brigham and Mosey's winter orchestra concert, which Ben and Joseph would have been able to attend with our old meeting time.  As it was, Brigham, Mosey, and I had to miss church entirely so that we could make it down to the concert hall by Mosey's call-time of 2:00.  The concert didn't end until 5:30, so we got home right about the same time Ben was getting home from his after-church meetings.  Joseph rode with another ward-member.  Anyway, their concert was really good.  It is amazing to hear what these kids can accomplish in so short a time.  I sure wished Ben and Joseph could have come.  

And that brings us up to date!  Now, on to Christmas!

Love,

Gabrielle

This weekend

Ben and the big boys had a scout campout on Friday night, so it was just Mosey and I at home for about 24 hours.  It also happened to be his fall cello recital-- Ben was away at another campout for his last recital!!  Darn it.  But he played wonderfully, and afterward we got sandwiches at KFC and watched The Avengers on the couch.  Mosey snuggled next to me in my room for the night.  How I love that boy.
Here is a video of his recital:


On Saturday Mosey and I got up and did some housework, then he took the dog on a long walk.  She got into some stinky standing water somewhere along the way and Mosey had to give her a bath.

Saturday afternoon we had a Stop the Condos meeting at our house.  Such an interesting process.  Lots of work to do on it.  I only attended 40 minutes of the meeting before I had to go to a rehearsal in Pflugerville-- I'm in an ensemble that will play Autumn from Vivaldi's Four Seasons.  We sound surprisingly OK.  :-)  It's fun to play.

Then Saturday evening Ben and I went to the adult session of Stake Conference, after dropping Brigham and Joseph off at a friend's house to babysit.  Joseph stayed in the apartment for just a few minutes, then abandoned Brigham and went outside the rest of the evening.  I was a bit peeved at him for this, but Brigham held his own against the 3 little kids.  He even changed his very first diaper ever.  Fun times for 12 year old boys.  :-)  He and Mosey are getting to be good little babysitters.  They end up being the ones to babysit little kids that come here with their moms for meetings, etc.  Brigham did a good job, even cleaning up the house after the kids were in bed.

When we got home, we discovered that Mosey had rescued a little vole from the clutches of the kitties.  He put it in a bowl to keep for a day or so, and then this morning we found another one behind a book case.  We think maybe the cats got into a vole burrow, each cat bringing one in to play with, and then one escaped.  They are actually really cute little things-- fuzzier and rounder than mice for example.  Mosey's got them in a small cage for now while we decide what to do with them.

I missed 11/12/13

Why do these silly little things make me happy?  I don't know, but they do.
I didn't actually miss 11/12/13, I just missed marking it on my blog.  Only one more of these chronological dates and then it'll be another 86 years before another one.
This week has been pretty good.  Had a few rough moments at the beginning of the week, but the past couple of days have been great.
Ben was out of town for the past two nights at the Board of Directors retreat for his company.  I used it as an excuse not to make dinner for my kids.  Not that I need any excuse...  I'm currently getting about a C- or a D in the making-healthy-meals-for-my-family department.  Oh well.
Mosey made 2nd chair in his orchestra auditions!  Yay for him.  He really wanted to be first stand.  He was so nervous about it he wanted to skip out on rehearsal on the audition day.  I hope I haven't contributed to his anxiety about things like that.  I probably have.  I know some of it is normal sibling competition.  He is not in competition with Brigham, of course, but it did not go unnoticed by Mosey when Brigham was concert master last year and first chair 2nd violin this year.  I try not to put any pressure on my kids for things like that, but I also think they deserve credit and recognition when they accomplish something that required a lot of hard work.  It's a hard balance to strike-- acknowledging my kids' achievements while at the same time trying not to communicate that my pride and approval of them is at all contingent upon things like that.  I told Mosey I am so proud of him for practicing hard, and for going to rehearsal when he really didn't want to go and face auditions.  I was really excited for him when he got 2nd chair-- it meant a lot to him to experience that kind of recognition.
This evening I took Joseph to practice at the shooting range.  He's getting so tall and grown-up looking.  It was nice to spend some happy one-on-one time with him.  Archery has been great for him.  Joseph I think in particular needs to feel like he's really good at something.  I wish archery had the same fun social component that orchestra has for Brigham and Mosey.  He is in need of more fun in his life.
Speaking of fun, here are some pictures from a couple of fun things we've done recently:

Last Saturday the boys and I drove down to San Antonio so that Brigham and Joseph could go to the temple for the first time and do baptisms.  I still can't believe they are old enough to do that.  Mosey and I hung out at the distribution center and then did a Walmart run while they were inside.  I wanted to make it a really special family experience, but Ben had to work, and in the end I wonder if it might have been a better experience to be able to drive down with the other kids.  Ben thinks it might have.  But I thought that they'd have lots of chances to drive down to SA with friends, but only one chance to go into the Temple for the first time.  I really wish Ben could have been there.
But we still had a fun time, listening to Harry Potter on the way down and back and getting Wendy's frosties on the way home.

Here's a picture of my cute Mosey while we were waiting at the Temple.  He told me all about how he would build a better remote control helicopter.  I hope he always stays my little chatterbox. 

And here are Brigham and Joseph after coming out.  They were anxious to get going and not super thrilled to take a picture.  :-)

 And here's part of a gigantic mess that we made doing a science experiment last week.  We had pink foam EVERYWHERE.  Even on the ceiling.  :-)
I have really loved our chemistry curriculum so far this year.  I hope the boys have as well.

Happy Halloween 2013

Happy Halloween y'all.

Pictures forthcoming if I ever manage to get the kitchen cleaned up from the pumpkin carving/candy bartering extravaganza that was our evening.

OK, 3 days later, here they are:

Brigham was a four-armed, 3-eyed mutant.  His fake arms are attached to his real arms with thread, so he can move them together.  It was pretty freaky looking.  He loved his costume, which made me really happy.  It didn't take me too long to put together-- just an extra black shirt that I cannibalized to make the four-armed shirt.
Brigham loves Halloween-- a kid after my own heart.  He begged me to get new Halloween decorations this year, since the ones we've had since he was a baby were too cutesy for him.  It was a fun project, and he heartily approved the outcome.  He decorated outside with spider webs and gravestones.  
He also pulled out an entire drawer full of candy that he had saved since last Halloween!   That kid takes saving to a whole new level.  Too bad it wasn't good after a year...

Joseph really didn't want to dress up this year.  But I'm not ready to have him grow up entirely, yet.  My last year dressing up was when I was 12, and he was going to dress up this year, gosh darn it!   Anyway, after lots of rejected suggestions, he agreed to be Batman-- as in baseball bat man.  :-)  I made the bat symbol with felt and sewed it onto a Salvation Army black shirt, and made another bat symbol for the back of his dracula cape.  He wore it willingly to the ward trunk-or-treat and got lots of comments.  I thought it was pretty clever.  I still remember the year he was a bat, and the next year when he was bat man.  Where did that cute little boy go??  Anyway, on Halloween night, he did NOT want to go trick-or-treating.  What??  No free candy??  But again, I was bound and determined to make him enjoy his last Halloween, so I MADE him put on his costume (which he strangely couldn't find until Ben picked it up from the floor of his closet), and MADE him go outside with us.  The other boys went to about 2 houses before he finally decided to go ahead and get some candy since he had to be out there anyway.  He and I went home a little early anyway, but I think he had fun.  He certainly got into the candy-bartering and trading afterward, anyway, which is half the fun of trick-or-treating.

Mosey knew what he wanted to be for several weeks before Halloween.  We're studying ancient history this year, and after our Egypt unit, he wanted to be King Tut.  I made the tunic and sash and bought the headpiece from amazon.  He had brown sandals as well but didn't want to go find them when we took the picture after coming home from trick-or-treating.  He is at a really great age for trick-or-treating enthusiasm.  Why can't all my kids stay nine years old forever??  I think it might be my favorite age.

And here are the three hooligans in all their Halloween-glory, right after video-chatting with Grandma Frandsen so she could see their costumes.  

We carved some pumpkins, too.  This is Brigham's.  He drew his out in meticulous detail before hand, and then spent about an hour and a half making it perfect.  I love it!

Mosey made a cat jack-o-lantern, to go along with his Egypt theme.  It was funny that Sola came to check it out right as I was taking pictures.  Wonder what she thought of it.

And anyone who knows Joseph is not surprised that this one is his.  He carved it out all himself, and then used about every knife I have to stab it in the face.  OK, then!  I'm trying not to be worried.  :-)

Here is my watermelon jack-o-lantern.  I bought a pineapple, but didn't have time to carve it because I decided to go trick-or-treating with Ben and the boys instead.  I'll have to do 2 next year.

So that was Halloween!  It was very fun, and now we have an enormous bowl of candy left over since we got exactly 3 knocks on our door with trick-or-treaters...  I left the bowl out on the porch when we went out as a family, but none was taken when we got back.  That's the sad thing about living around the corner on the very end of a small street-- no one even knows we are there!

10/21/2013 update

Going backwards:
1.  Last night we had our friends the Smiths over for dinner.  They are good friends and are moving to Arizona on Thursday.  It's a good thing for them, but sad for us.  Their son Andrew has been a good friend to my boys, and I know Mosey in particular will miss him.  Andrea was my cub scout co-leader, and has been a part of our  homeschooling group for the past year.  I hope all the best for them.

2.  Yesterday afternoon was Brigham's AYO fall concert.  We had to leave early from church (boo), but it was worth it-- great concert!  Brigham's orchestra pulled together 3 very well-done pieces in only 5 weeks of rehearsal.  I'm so glad he's getting this opportunity.

3.  Saturday afternoon we went to see Gravity and then out to eat at MiMi's Cafe.  We really enjoyed Gravity.  I've never seen a movie with only TWO actors (essentially only one).  It made me never, never want to go to space.  :-)  Going out to eat was an adventure.  Mosey hates going out to eat.  How is that possible?  We've spoiled him, that's how.  He thinks it takes too long and would rather eat food at home.  Joseph was a bit of a pill-- when we asked him where he wanted to go, he said, "Where ever Brigham wants to go, I don't want to go."  Nice.  So he didn't get a say.  :-)  As it is, we ended up liking the restaurant, even Mosey and Joseph.

4.  Saturday morning was the boys' Halloween piano recital.  Mosey dressed up as a Pharaoh and looked awesome.  He did a lot of the sewing on his costume by himself.  Brigham dressed up in his Army costume from last year, with the addition of a great pair of sunglasses.  He looked awesome, too.  Joseph didn't want to dress up.  I did manage to get him to wear his monster shirt that we got at Halloween last year, but that was it.  Ben got him to take along a cape and top hat (so he could be a "monster magician"), but apparently he took them off as soon as he got inside.  I am not enjoying this "I'm too cool for anything" version of Joseph these days!!  Where is my excited kid who loves Halloween??  I miss him.  :-(

5.  Friday afternoon the boys played airsoft with some friends.  Joseph and Brigham aren't getting along very well in their airsoft games...  Not sure what to do about that.  I want airsoft to continue to be something fun that they do together-- it is such a great facilitator for social activities with other kids!

6.  Joseph was sick for two days this past week. Boy is it easier to do school with two boys than three.  Ben was sick as well, so I think the two of them were sharing germs.  Joseph basically slept ALL DAY Wednesday and Thursday.  Of course, when I looked at the history of his computer and saw a couple of 3 AM sessions of World of Tanks, my confidence in the veracity of his illness was shaken a bit.  He's now under some fairly stringent computer regulations and under an enforced vacation from World of Tanks...  Man, it is complicated raising kids, especially pre-teens.

7.  A great deal of time this week was spent on the rezoning attempts on "our" forest.  I found out that the developer that bought the four acres on one side of the road is joining in with the owners of the 3 acres on the other side of the road to rezone from SF-1 (single-family large lot residences) to SF-6 (townhouse and condominium residence district), with the stated intention of building a condominium complex there.  It is impossible for me to adequately express how much I do not want this to happen.  It would be awful for our neighborhood, awful for our home values, awful for traffic around this entire area.  There is no upside.  So I took it upon myself to make sure all our neighbors know what is going on so we can organize and protest the rezoning.  In looking at the Austin zoning principles, I think we will have a pretty good case.  I have no idea if we can trust city council at all, but I guess we'll find out.  I made 100 or so flyers to take around to all the homes in our neighborhood, all the homes in the neighborhoods that back up onto the land, and the houses on the streets that connect onto ours that will be affected by increased traffic.  I have gotten to know some of the neighbors in doing this and if we succeed, it will make our neighborhood even closer.  Our whole neighborhood is pretty much up in arms about it.  It will be an interesting process, but I admit I have been kept up at night in horror, thinking about what would happen if they succeed in rezoning...

a few things from last week

Here are a few noteworthy things from last week:

1.  On Friday Brigham and Joseph and Ben went on a scout campout.  It poured here, but they didn't get any rain where they were, so that was good.  Mosey and I had a quiet evening in.  He didn't even want to go get pizza or anything, so we ate cereal and sandwiches at home and just vegged for a while.  Mosey told me ALL about World of Tanks.  Well, not all about, since there is always more to tell.  But over the 18 hours or so that we were together, he probably talked about World of Tanks for about 2 hours straight.  He is so funny.  But I love that he loves to tell me about it, and that's what really matters.  On Saturday morning he came with me to the fabric store to get some fabric for his Halloween costume.  He wants to be King Tut.  I ordered a headpiece off Amazon, but we're sewing the rest of it.  He was extremely excited to help sew it himself, and did a great job Saturday afternoon and Sunday evening sewing all the long straight seams by himself.

2.  Brigham and I went to the symphony on Saturday night.  Couldn't get Mosey to go with us, which was too bad since it was a great concert.  But Brigham is a good date.  :-)  It was also ACL last weekend (Austin City Limits music festival), so downtown was a zoo, and the Long Center parking lot was completely filled up.  We got the last handicapped parking space up on the very top floor of the garage, and consequently spent AN HOUR sitting in a long line waiting to get out of the garage.  Seriously.  Then another 45 minutes getting through the downtown traffic and finally home.  We listened to an entire CD of Harry Potter book 3.  Thank goodness for Jim Dale and JK Rowling.

3.  It was just a musical weekend for Brigham and me.  Sunday afternoon was his Halloween violin recital.  He and I played a duet-- In the Hall of the Mountain King from the Peer Gynt Suite.  It was a really fun piece, and actually required a bit of practice on my part.  Brigham was worried I wouldn't be ready, but I was.  :-)  I thought the recital started at 2:00, so we left church an hour early, hoping to get there in time to run through it once before the recital started.  Well, it started at 1:00.  Oops.  We sneaked in the back, got our violins out, and were ready in time to be the very last performers of the recital.  I'm so glad we got there in time!  I would have felt so, so, so horrible to have missed it!  Anyway, it was fun and we played pretty well for 2 weeks of practice (well, really 2 days of practice for me), and absolutely zero prep time before the performance.  :-)

4.  A sign was posted at the empty lot up the street (our "forest") notifying of a hearing to rezone the property.  This is very bad news.  We're trying to learn more, but the phone number on the sign doesn't work-- it forwards you to another number that only has an answering machine which no one ever returns.  Ugh.  There is a big push to stop the rezoning of a bunch of empty lots around the golf course, too, which were supposed to remain green spaces for the community, but which now the country club wants to sell to developers.  It looks like their protest is going to work, which is great.  I'm not sure we have as much standing to protest, but we'll see.  It makes me sick to think of that beautiful land being plowed under for "garden homes" or apartments.  It would be horrible for traffic, and awful for the feel of our wonderful quiet little neighborhood.  Maybe we can find some endangered animal that lives there?  :-)  Anyway, on Sunday night we went to a neighborhood gathering to sign a petition against the rezoning of the golf course lots, and picked the brain of the lady who is spearheading that effort.  She gave us some good information.  I wish I had more time to devote to that.

a few things.

1.  Brigham has been loving the bunsen burner I got for our chemistry class this year.  Yesterday he spent an hour or so distilling water.  Today he asked if he could boil down his spit in a test tube to see what was left.  Eww.  I said no.  Should I have said yes?  Maybe I'll let him do it tomorrow.

2.  Luna is a little hunter.  Yesterday she caught a lizard outside, brought it inside to show all of us, and proceeded to eat it up with all of us as her audience.  And the night before she brought in a mouse she had caught and was going crazy playing with it.  It was actually super-cute if you could look past the gruesome dead-mouse bit.  At least it wasn't bloody.  Ben took it outside, but she immediately retrieved it and brought it in again.  She was having such a good time that Ben decided to let her play with it a while longer.  Well, she disappeared with it, and now it is MIA.  I don't *think* she ate it, which means that unless she was courteous to bring it back outside, we have a dead mouse somewhere inside the house.  Double ewww.

3.  World of Tanks...  Sigh... How do I hate thee? Let me count the ways.  Joseph and Mosey are obsessed.  They love to talk to (at) me about the game and all the different tanks they have and the pros and cons of each one, and battle strategy and how many more experience points they need to get to the next tier, and should they spend their gold to buy a new tank or to get an upgrade on one they currently have, and on and on and on.  Seriously, those two could talk for HOURS about World of Tanks, barely stopping to take a breath.  It will come up at the most random times.  I'll be doing a quadratic equation with Joseph and he'll be looking studiously at his paper, presumably concentrating on algebra, and he'll suddenly start elaborating on some World of Tanks intricacy and I'll have to reel him back in to the real world of math homework.  :-)  Tonight as I was taking Mosey home from cello lessons, I congratulated him on moving up to Suzuki book 4.  Enthusiastically he responded, "Yeah, I know, it's just like World of Tanks..." and he was off, talking nonstop all the way home..  I never did figure out exactly what the Suzuki tie-in was.  :-)

10/07/2013

All in all a pretty good Monday.  Not nearly enough sleep.  I thought I was in good shape with my lesson, and I was, but I decided at the last minute to give the kids all a copy of the scripture mastery mnemonics that I have been making.  Well, I needed to finish 2 of them on the computer in order to fill up the page (I put 6 on a page) and not waste my card stock, and doing that and then formatting all of the other ones to fit on the page and then printing them out took FOREVER.  I ended up getting to bed well after midnight which meant about 4 1/2 hours of sleep which is just not enough.
But I made it through the day.  The boys were pretty good although I did have to mention 2 or 3 times during the day that if they would simply put HALF the amount of effort into finding ways to be kind and helpful that they expend in finding ways to be annoying to each other, our home would be a far different place.  :-)  Seriously, it's like they plot at night, brainstorming weird things they can do to annoy each other.  Patting each other on the head (hard) every time they pass.  Making high-pitched squealing sounds from the far corners of the house and then claiming it wasn't them.  Sitting as close as possible without actually touching the other person, but invading personal space nonetheless.  Making faces across the table.  The list goes on.  Oh well, as long as they aren't hurting each other I guess I should be grateful.  :-)
Mosey and Joseph have been getting more and more involved in World of Tanks, an online computer game.  Ugh.  All last weekend it was a battle with those two over computer time.  I have such mixed feelings, though, because Joseph has started a "clan" (meaning he formed the group and is in charge of it), which is kind of cool, actually, a way for him to practice leadership skills, and the description he wrote about the clan is really good.  It reads like an adult wrote it, and he says that any bad language will get members kicked off the clan (they can "chat" with each other during battles).  He organizes battles and works on recruiting people to his clan.  It shows quite a bit of initiative on his part, and I know he feels responsible for his clan.  They can only fight battles when they're all online at the same time, and as group leader he feels like he can't skip scheduled battles.  I'm proud of him for doing all of this, and it's great for him to feel responsibility toward other people, but still it's a COMPUTER GAME and not real life.  It's not real-life leadership and social interaction with other people (including his family), and on the good-better-best scale of how he could be spending his time, I'm not sure it ranks that highly compared with other things he could be doing...  Sigh...
OK, I've got to get our science lesson ready, so that's it for now.

October 7 family letter

Hi family,

Aarrgh.  I missed Eva's p-day!  Oh well, she'll get this next week.

Conference weekend is over...  Conference weekend always feels like a little break from reality-- a mini vacation right when I need it.  I loved Elder Holland's talk, Elder Uchtdorf's talk, and Elder Soares talks the most, although there were lots of memorable talks.  

During conference we put up Halloween decorations.  Brigham informed me that our old decorations were not adequate.  :-)  Too much cutesy, not enough creepy.  Which is fair since all of our decorations have come from when the boys were really little.  So he did a bunch of internet/pinterest searching and came up with some good ideas for our yard and house.  I'll take pictures when it's all finished, but it's looking good!  Between sessions we went to Target, Walmart, Hobby Lobby, Halloween Spirit (a great big store that just went up in a shopping plaza nearby-- I can't imagine they'll be open all year, but we'll see), and the dollar store.  Should have gone to the dollar store first. :-)

This last week was good.  No early seminary, so no 30 minutes between classes, hence no blog posts (I'm writing now during my 30 minutes between the 5:40 class and the 7:00 class), and now I can't really remember what happened.  Oh, well.  On Friday the boys had an airsoft battle with 5 other boys.  Ben came home early and joined in.  :-)  Airsoft has been really great for my boys' social lives.  We have a standing airsoft game every Friday afternoon which the boys look forward to all week long.

On Tuesday we went to Seaworld!  Seaworld has certain days in October open only to school groups.  Thursday was actually a designated homeschool day, which would have been so fun, but it was sold out.  We went with my friend/visiting teaching companion and her 4 kids.  We drove together down to San Antonio, which was not so fun for my boys since we were squeezing 9 people in my 8-passenger van, including 4 booster/car seats.  My boys were good sports.  On the way home, after having been screamed at and poked/pinched by the kids next to him (including his brother!), poor Mosey unbuckled and sat on the floor for the rest of the way home.  

Anyway, the trip to Seaworld was just OK.  Most things were not open, and there was a lot of stopping to go to the bathroom, to get snacks, and general dawdling that we didn't get to see as much as we could have.  But we did get to pet dolphins and that was pretty cool.  At least it only cost $4 per person (plus a tank of gas, but I'm not going to count that :-)).

The rest of the week was full of regular school stuff and practicing and orchestra.  Mosey is 3rd chair cello, which is extremely respectable, but I know he was disappointed.  He really wanted to be first chair.  There will be additional chair testing later in the year, though, so he has more chances.

The weather is starting to turn a little bit.  We still had a couple of days in the 90's last week, but only 80's in sight this week.  A cool front blew in on Saturday evening and it was actually the first time in months and months that I felt a little... cold? outside!  What is that sensation??  Yesterday evening we went on a walk/jog/bike ride around the old golf course and it was just perfect.  The grass was perfectly green from the rain we got last week, the deer were just coming out (Ben and the boys and Sandy tried to orchestrate a joint attack on the deer, surrounding them from all sides, but they were too fast), and it was one of those idyllic evenings that I want to remember forever.

So I better close now since my 7:00 class will be here any second.  I love you all!  Have a great week!

family letter 09/29/2013

Hi family,

This last week flew by.  I had the 5:40 class for seminary this past week.  I think it went OK.  I had some more inspired lessons than others.  I'm having a terrible time getting my kids to read scriptures at home.  I'm not sure what to do about it.  They are good kids, just very busy and it's not in their schedule.  I've been texting them every evening to remind them what the next day's reading is, but it's not really helping.  I had my lowest-ever attendance on Friday-- THREE kids showed up.  I'm trying to think positive and take it as a convoluted compliment-- I had texted the kids the night before to tell them there was no specific reading assignment since we were going to be doing scripture mastery stuff (which they  normally like).  So when only 3 kids showed up, I can only assume it is because the rest of them figured that without my scintillating, educating, and inspiring lessons, it just wasn't worth coming.  Maybe?  :-)

School went OK.  Our routine is going pretty well.  I had a couple of days of some uncooperation which got me down.  I really need to find better ways to handle those situations so they don't deteriorate into lose-lose power struggles.  Getting more sleep so that my patience isn't razor thin would help.  Also there was some fighting and not getting along between Brigham and Joseph which makes me sad.  I still need about 2 extra hours each day so I can really be ready for school the next day-- time to correct work done that day and time to get more prepared for the next day's lessons.  Some topics this year are requiring more advance preparation from me than in the past.  We're studying logic this year for the first time, and the book we're using seemed pretty good until we got to analyzing the truth value of if-then statements.  It gets extremely counter-intuitive and very frustrating.  Shall I try and slog through it anyway?  I don't know.  I need a few hours to go through the book and decide if it gets less or more frustrating.

What else.  Brigham and Mosey went to the symphony with me on Friday night to hear a Prokofiev piano concerto as well as selections from Wagner's Ring series.  It was wonderful.  I love that my boys like to go with me.  I wish Joseph would go, too!  I think he would have enjoyed it (he likes Prokofiev).

We got lots of rain this week.  The problem in Texas is that we tend to get our year's worth of rain all at once.  :-)  The boys had fun running around outside and getting drenched.  Mosey and Brigham went swimming during the downpour-- almost no difference in or out of the pool!  We had some 90's days still this week, but it looks like things will cool off this coming week.  I hope.  I'm ready for fall to arrive.

I hope everyone has a good week.  EVA, I can't believe you are leaving!  Your time in the MTC has gone by very fast for me-- I hope it was just right for you.  I love you and miss you!

Love,

Gabrielle

09/26/2013

Items from the last couple of days:
We went to the orthodontist on Wednesday.  Did I ever write about Brigham's and Joseph's braces?  Well, they have braces now.  It's maybe the one thing that to me has really made them look like middle-schoolers.  :-)  They have been troopers about it, hardly complaining at all.  They are veterans with orthodontics by now, having done spacers and herbst appliances.  It's a long haul.  But they will be done long before high school, which I think will be a great thing.
Yesterday I took Mosey to the park with me to help watch my friend's kids while I met with a woman I visit-teach.  Mosey is a good kid.  He ran around with those kids (all younger) and did a good job looking after the 2-year old.  It was pretty hot-- in the 90's (boy am I ready for these days of 90's weather to be OVER), and he was so cute with his rosy face.
I cut the boys' hair last night, which was sorely needed.  Brigham and Mosey both hate their hair getting long and have been bugging me to cut it.  Joseph still hates getting his hair cut.  He let me do it, but not without very vocally and continuously expressing his dissatisfaction with the situation.  :-)  He looks so handsome with short hair, though!
Today is Friday.  Only 3 kids showed up for seminary.  That's an all-time low.  I'm trying to actually be flattered by it, though, since I told the kids yesterday that we weren't having a formal lesson today-- it would be scripture mastery activities (which normally they love!).  So I'm going to interpret their not coming as deciding that it is only my scintillating and spiritually satisfying lessons that I have had every other day that has kept them coming.  :-)

09/24/2013

Yesterday was not a stellar day for me.  I was sleep deprived, and it shows up by my nearly nonexistent rope of patience with my children.  I'm perfectly fine as long as they are perfectly compliant...  :-(
To be sure, a couple of my boys had some unusually difficult moments, but I should have been able to handle it.  And I was needlessly short with another child.  Oh, well.
One thing that drives me to distraction is when, during piano practicing, my child messes up on something, and then shoves away from the piano and stalks out of the room in anger.  It drives me insane.  SIT DOWN!!!  DON'T LEAVE THE BENCH!!!  I don't care if they make a mistake-- no problem at all.  I DO mind the temper tantrum.  So in response, I throw a temper tantrum of my own.  Awesome.
I have another child who is testing me every now and again with the word "No," another thing that will put me over the edge.  I can't stand it when I ask my child to do something, and I get a flat out "no."  I don't mind, "No, mom, I can't because...." or "OK, but in just a minute, first I have to..." or any variation on that theme-- let me know WHY you are saying no, and if it's reasonable, then there is no problem.  But flat out defying me?  I see red.  And I tend to put down draconian consequences.  "If you don't ____ by the time I count to 10, I'm going to _____."  Which is stupid, and lazy parenting.  It sets them up for having to lose face, even if only to themselves, in order to comply.  It's a win/lose situation (or lose/lose).  After the fact, I can almost always think of ways I could have avoided that situation, or changed it, but at the moment, it really seems like they are driving me to that point, and leaving me no option besides the power struggle.  And when I'm tired, it is 10 times worse.  That kind of parenting can work fine for small children, but for 12 year olds?  No way.  And I should know that since I couldn't stand that kind of thing when I was that age.  (Of course, in my memory, I was always totally reasonable, offering many logical reasons for my position, and my parent was being the unreasonable unyielding one...)
So I'm going to do better today.  No more power struggles like that this week!  No more yelling this week!  I've been doing really well in not yelling, so I'm going to tell myself this was just an anomaly.

09/23/13

Mondays, Mondays.  They are my longest days.  Up at 4:50 to get ready for seminary.  Then get the kids up and out for breakfast and scripture study, then the long marathon of lessons during the day, then orchestra in the afternoon.  Because of Mosey's and Brigham's overlapping schedules, I end up making two trips down there and don't get home until about 9:00 PM.  At least I had an hour or so in the afternoon to prepare for my seminary lesson so I was able to be in bed not long after 10:00.  Which I needed to make up for the 4 1/2 hours of sleep I got the night before.  :-(
Mosey had his chair test at orchestra.  He forgot his music at home-- the music we had marked with all his reminders.  Oh, well.  He borrowed music and said it was OK.  Brigham found out the results of his chair test last week-- 2nd stand 2nd violin, which is perfectly respectable.  Especially since this is his first year in that orchestra!  But I could tell he was disappointed.
School was OK.  Not super, but OK.  I managed to make Brigham cry before school even started.  I'm so awesome.  He is very competitive, and ultra sensitive to any perceived slights.  I'm giving out tickets for participation in seminary, and doing the same thing for my boys during our scripture study.  But Brigham can't help but count how many tickets I'm giving his brothers, especially Mosey, and then get very hurt and upset when I haven't given him as many as he thinks he deserves.
I can't stand this kind of competitiveness.  It pushes all the wrong buttons for me.  I know Brigham needs reassurance and compassion, but I just get mad.  I told him I'm not going to do tickets at all if they're going to cause so much unhappiness and contention.  Then he started crying.  Oh, man.  I struggle with knowing how to handle this part of my boy's personality.  He feels things very personally-- things that are NOT personal at all.  I find it frankly annoying, and so I tend to respond with frustration, which only feeds into his feelings of persecution.  It's tough.
I measured the boys again yesterday-- they were interested in knowing their BMI's so they could see who was the fattest.  Yep, competition again.  Turns out they are all within 1 point of each other, so not much difference.  But I was able to see that Joseph has grown another inch since June, and a good 4 inches since a year ago.  Mosey's grown almost an inch as well, but poor, poor Brigham hasn't grown at all since we last measured.  I know he is sensitive about this as well.  He didn't say anything, just walked off.  I personally love that he isn't growing up so fast!  I'm finding myself very emotionally conflicted about Joseph getting so big-- he's now 5'1" and 92 lbs!!!!!  And his voice is getting lower and lower- I hardly recognize him on the phone anymore.  So I'm loving that Brigham isn't growing up quite so fast, although I know it will be his turn soon enough.  It is hard to be a twin.
OK, time to get the boys up for the day and finish figuring out what we're doing for science today.
Here are some recent pictures.

Oh, man

This school year is proving to be incredibly busy.  And I am really, really resolving to get more sleep, so this blog has suffered.  I may institute a ONE thing every day policy, instead of three.  We'll see.
Yesterday was my last-ever MRI as part of the HALT-MS study.  It was pretty weird coming out of that Children's Hospital building, knowing I'll probably (very hopefully) never be going back.  The MRI was fine, despite having to get poked 3 times to get the IV running...
I may never go back to Houston again, either.  I don't have to if I don't want to!!  It was the least stressful drive out there that I've ever had because I knew it was my last.  I made it there with only 5 minutes to spare (I'm supposed to be there 30 minutes before), and that after speeding as much as I possibly dared.  I meant to get an early start, but then just as I was dropping the kids off at church, Mosey realized he forgot his cello at home (he was playing in the primary program, which I also missed), so we sped home, got the cello, got back to church in time for the primary program, and then I got myself on the road 30 minutes late.  Oh well, all's well that ends well.

09/02/2013

1.  Labor day!  We didn't do school today, although I spent most of the morning organizing stuff for school.  The boys did practicing (didn't get totally finished until 8:40 tonight, oh well), Ben worked from home.
2.  We went to my friend Traci's apartment pool for dinner and swimming in the afternoon.  It was so hot and I got overheated and then couldn't stand up, but it was still fun.  I'm such an antisocial person, it takes a lot to give me the gumption to go and do social things, but I'm glad when I do.
3.  I told Mosey I am pretty well finished with the dramatics during practicing.  Oh, you should see it!  The huffing and puffing!  The groaning and moaning!  The shoving away from the piano and stomping away!  I can deal with hysterics, it's just that it takes so much time.  If he would practice instead of throwing a fit, he'd probably get done with his practicing in half the time, and sign off pieces a lot faster, too!  But really, 9 1/2 years old is plenty old enough to be aging out of the practicing hysterics stage of life, isn't it?
4.  One of my seminary students, Max, brought over the most delicious banana cream pudding I've ever tasted.  Oh, dear, it is so good.  And he brought over a HUGE bowlful.  I am in trouble.
5.  Today is my youngest brother, Isaac's birthday.  Joseph's middle name is Isaac, after this brother of mine.  He was born prematurely 17 years ago today, and I miss him.  He would have been only 5 years older than my boys, and would have been such a great role-model for them-- more of a peer than any of their other aunts or uncles.  I can't wait to get to know him someday.

08/31/2013

Happy Birthday to me!
I told the boys all I wanted was a day of no bickering or whining, and... I think I got it!  Of course, it may have helped that the boys were gone for most of the morning, and I was gone for most of the afternoon.  :-)
Still, they did good.  Brought me home an apple fritter from Crown Donuts this morning, got the house cleaned, outside mowed and watered and swept, and then took me out to eat at Cheesecake Factory.
In the afternoon I got to spend a couple of hours at Target wandering around the store (one of my favorite things to do with no kids, even if there wasn't anything cute on the clearance racks), and then I went with Brigham to a violin shop to look at violins.  We spent almost 2 hours playing instrument after instrument, and finally settled on one that we both love.  It has a very unique looks, and a wonderful sound.  I think I might even be a little envious!
I had lots and lots of happy birthdays on Facebook (I'm never exactly sure what is the proper protocol-- do I respond and say thank you to everyone?  I hope not, but I did read every one of them), several phone calls from various sisters and brothers and parents, and a couple of emails and blog posts that made me cry (in a good way), and so I felt very loved.
It is good to be me on this August 31, 2013!

08/30/2013

One week down, 35 to go.  :-)
It was an OK first week of school.  There is room for improvement, but it was a good start.
Joseph and Brigham got braces on Wednesday!  Oh, were they ever excited.  I took pictures of them just before leaving for the orthodontist-- their last braces-free smile for who know how long.

Of course neither boy likes to smile with his mouth open, so I'm not sure the difference will be that noticeable.  :-)   Poor boys!  The first couple of days with braces was not so fun.  And probably won't be much fun until they are off.  Here's to hoping that will be very soon!

The first week of seminary was something of a mixed bag.  I think I have a better idea of how to put together a lesson, but dang, 5:40 AM is *early.*  The first day (Tuesday) was pretty good.  Lots of kids came, everyone was alert, I think my lesson was pretty good.  Wednesday and Thursday saw progressively fewer students, although not too bad, but the level of alertness decreased dramatically each day.  5:40 AM is *so* early.  And these kids are not getting enough sleep.  On Thursday I asked how many kids got to bed before midnight, and only about half of them had, which meant the other half was working off of 5 1/2 hours of sleep, or less.  And it's only the first week of school.  Of course, I really wasn't doing much better myself, sleep wise, so I'm not one to talk.  But I wasn't falling asleep in class, either.  :-)
I have a 7:00 class, too, for a pair of brothers who don't have any before-school activities.  Shockingly, this class has been far more effective!  I have had a "practice" lesson, there is actual daylight outside, and the boys are awake and participatory.  I'm really looking forward to when we're meeting at 7:00 permanently.  :-)
I'm not sure what my boys thought of our first week of school.  I need to ask them.  I do know that the amount of bickering and picking on each other has not yet started to taper off from the summer...  Man, oh, man.  My mother-in-law has a pillow that says, "Motherhood is like being pecked to death by a duck."  I always thought that was a strange saying, but I get it now. Every little snide remark and passive aggressive jab pecks away at my sanity.
Here are some of the awesome picks and pecks that my boys are so good at:
Clicking pens, tapping feet, flipping papers back and forth, breathing loudly, anything to make annoying rhythmic sounds.
Putting various body parts just close enough to a brother to bug him, but just far enough away to claim he wasn't doing anything wrong.
Going into diva-worthy dramatic hysterics during practicing over the audacity of their mother to ask them to play a difficult section more than one time.
Suddenly having no idea where the book is they have just been reading when a brother comes and asks for it.
"Accidentally" dropping things on the floor, over and over again.
Bickering and arguing among each other over the most inane things in the entire world.
And so on, and so on, ad infinitum.  :-)
Oh, it is sometimes so fun to be a mother.

On the other hand, we have had some good times this week, too.  We are doing logic this year, and it's been fun even with just the first few lessons to be able to joke around with each other about flaws in arguments.  The boys are going to be getting computers and so they've been doing lots of research into various computers, and it's been fun to listen to them talking and debating over all the intricacies of processors and RAM and gigahertz and all the other jargon of computer-buying.  The boys have also been getting up for my 7:00 seminary class, and that is pretty fun, too.  At least I think so.  :-)

Well, tomorrow is my birthday.  I think I'm going to stop counting how old I am.  :-)  All I want from the boys is a day of no bickering.  I think I may have better luck asking for a diamond bracelet, but I guess we will see.

1st days of school

Yesterday was our first day of school.  It was kind of a mixed bag.  I am doing a new curriculum this year-- well, actually going back to an old curriculum, but it is still new because essentially it is a do-it-yourself curriculum in which I purchase all the books and develop all of my own lesson plans.  I think it will be great, but I have been so, so busy that I am not as prepared as I should be.  I thought about waiting a week, but figured there was no harm in starting now, it's not the end of the world if all my ducks are not in a row and we end up making adjustments as we go along.
Anyway, the first half of the day yesterday went surprisingly well.  The last half, not quite as stellar.  A couple of meltdowns from a couple of my boys, and I was feeling discouraged.
But, today went much, much better.  After a couple of heart-to-hearts with various children, it went very well.
Tuesday/Thursday will be science days, and we started off the day by breaking open a chemistry kit I bought online, assembling our alcohol burner, and unpacking some test tubes and other equipment.  We then spent the next 45 minutes satiating my boys' innate pyromaniac tendencies while ostensibly doing some "science."  Science reports were written, so I guess it counts.  :-)
Today was also the first day of seminary.  I was up way too late, of course, as I kept remembering last-minute things that I needed to do.  And then I was paranoid about sleeping in, so I woke up every single hour on the hour.  Oh, well.  At least I did not sleep in.  And I think the first day went well.  It's so hard to judge my own performance.  I will have two sessions-- an early class at 5:40 AM-- yes 5:40 in the morning, and a later class at 7:00.  I have some good ideas for how to do things differently this year, and I hope I can pull it off.

3 things 08/25/2013

I want to reinstate the 3 things on my blog, so here goes:

1.  There is something in our attic.  I have never heard it, but Ben says he has.  Ben and the boys put our traps up there (Joseph has 2 humane traps he has used to trap squirrels, and, on occasion, skunks), and each day the traps remain unsprung, but the bait has gone missing.  We can't find any evidence of animal droppings, which is good, but clearly there is something up there.  It is freaking me out just a little bit.

2.  There is a new family that has moved into our ward with a boy around Joseph's and Brigham's age.  They played with him at the new member meet-and-greet this evening, and Brigham excitedly told me that he is into airsoft, too.  I like this family, and I hope our boys can be friends.  I know my boys are excited about the upcoming airsoft season, as soon as the temperature manages to get down below 95 degrees on any sort of consistent basis...  :-)

3.  Yesterday the boys and I played at the baptism of the daughter of some good friends.  I was touched that Andrea asked us to do it.  We played an arrangement of A Child's Prayer, with Joseph and Brigham taking the two melody lines on the flute and violin, and Mosey and I taking the treble and base accompaniment lines on violin and cello.  It was a little painful getting everyone to agree to participate, then to practice individually, and especially to practice together, but we did it!  Even after a last minute freak-out by one of my boys who shall remain nameless, but who plays a string instrument that is not a violin who decided he was not ready and he wasn't going to play.  He changed his mind, and I think maybe we even sounded sort of good.  I sure love playing music with my boys.

family letter 08/25/2013

Hi everyone,

First of all, congratulations Naomi and Dave on your first house!  I just wrote Naomi a gushing email, but I have to say again how much I LOVE their new house.  When I think back on our first house... well, let's just say that Naomi and Dave have found a gem.  

This past week was our last week of summer vacation.  I thought I was going to be able to really focus on school, getting my lesson's outlined and my books in order.  But I thought wrong.  I did get all of my books reorganized in my schoolroom, which was much needed, but somehow every single day was filled with other pressing things, and other not so pressing things but necessary things like music lessons and practicing and chores.  I had a couple of seminary meetings that lasted several hours each, which were productive, but still I did not make the progress for school that I wanted to make.  But, it's OK.  I don't have to have all of my ducks in a row before school starts.  Maybe it's better to start off a little slower anyway.  After all, in most schools the first week is about getting to know the teachers, getting an introduction on what the class is going to be about, maybe doing some review.  

The biggest news of the week was Brigham's and Joseph's birthday on Thursday!  The night before they went to the church to be interviewed by the Bishop for their priesthood ordination on Sunday.  They went with their suits and ties on, ready to answer any question the Bishop had about D&C section 84.  :-)  They did great.  On Thursday morning, all the boys were up really, really early.  Mosey was just as excited as they were.  We have a little tradition of counting down until their actual birth time, when they are "officially" the next year old.  It works out because they were born at 7:23 and 7:28 AM Utah time, which corresponds to 8:23 and 8:28 AM here.  After that it was birthday breakfast which meant Golden Crisp for Joseph and HEB chocolate filled squares for Brigham.  Brigham went for taste, and Joseph went for sheer sugar content.  Seriously.  He chose the cereal with the highest grams of sugar per grams of serving.  Oh, well.  :-)  They had a pretty good day, I think.  I didn't make them do any practicing at all.  In the evening we had a party with some friends who came over for swimming, pizza, and the first Percy Jackson movie, to get ready for the 2nd which has just come out.  It was a fun night, even if it did start positively pouring rain almost as soon as the kids got into the pool.  :-)  It didn't seem to deter the kids.  

Yesterday we continued the celebration by going to see the 2nd Percy Jackson movie (better than the first), and going out to eat.  I have to record the restaurant decision making process for posterity.  I told Brigham and Joseph they needed to decide together.  I threw out a bunch of suggestions, but every one that Brigham wanted, Joseph said he did not want.  Brigham said he didn't mind going to Carinos (Joseph's first choice), but since Joseph hadn't shown any willingness to compromise at all, he wasn't going to agree to Carinos.  Oh, man...  Finally Joseph agreed that Cheesecake Factory was acceptable. As soon as he said that, Brigham said, "Ok, we can go to Carinos.  I just wanted to make Joseph agree with something else!"  I'm not even sure what I can say to comment on this.  It isn't easy being a twin sometimes.

I think Brigham and Joseph got some good presents.  They got wonderful compasses from Grandma Frandsen, a blow-dart gun from one of their friends (yes, really-- it is very cool, but dangerous.  I told them the first time a dart is aimed ANYWHERE but at the archery target in our garage, the dart gun gets put away for a very long time), and cash from some other friends.  Ben and I got them some camping backpacks they can use for scouts.  When I asked Brigham what he wanted to do for his birthday, he said he wanted to go backpacking!  Sadly, there aren't too many super awesome places to backpack around here... :-)  They also got a good deal from us for buying their own school computers-- we will pay half of whatever they choose.  And then Joseph got a really nice pair of star gazing binoculars with a tripod and astronomy book, and Brigham got an IOU for his own violin, which he was completely thrilled about.  So, it was a *big* birthday for them-- much bigger than we usually do, but 12 years old is a big birthday, after all.

Today was a busy day!  Brigham and Joseph officially graduated from primary and went up on the stand to recite their favorite articles of faith-- Brigham chose #13, and Joseph #8, which I think says a lot about their personalities right there.  I had to speak in church along with the other seminary teachers in our ward, which meant I was up on the stand, so I didn't even get to sit by my boys on their last Sunday before their Sacrament duties take them away from me forever...  As far as my talk went, I was told we would have 6-10 minutes each, so I woke up early this morning and prepared a talk-- a good one, I think, based around several scripture mastery verses we will be studying this year.  But I was 3rd on the program, and the first speaker took a little extra time (it was really a wonderful talk, so I'm not resentful), and the 2nd speaker took a little extra time, and so by the time it was my turn, there were only a very few minutes for me and Kandis.  So I was glad this wasn't a talk I had spent many hours on during the week.  :-)  Then during the 3rd hour, Brigham and Joseph were ordained.  Ben gave a sweet blessing to each boy, and I tried not to cry as I watched them go into Priesthood for the first time.  I am so proud of my boys, and it is exciting to see them growing up, but I really can't think too hard about it.  How do parents stand their children growing up??  After church we went home and immediately got to work getting the house ready for our back-to-seminary meeting at 4:00.  Most of our seminary students came with their parents, and I hope it was a good meeting.  Seminary officially starts on Tuesday morning, bright and early at 5:40 AM!!!!  I better be receiving some serious blessings, that's all I can say.  :-)  Finally, a half hour after that meeting ended, we all headed over to the bishop's house for a new member meet and greet, not getting home until nearly 8:00 PM.  Phew!  I am tired.  I decided to give up on doing any more school prep for tomorrow...

So, that was our week.  I still have not had time to edit any pictures from our trip, and at this point with school and seminary starting, I'm wondering if I ever will...  

Anyway, I hope everyone has a wonderful last week of August!

Love,

Gabrielle

Happy 12th Birthday to my boys!

I love you!

dipping my toes back in

This is the longest break I've taken from my blog since my transplant, I think!  We were gone for 3 weeks, and ever since we've been back, I feel like I've been scrambling to get things organized for school and seminary, plus dealing with a trip to Houston, and an overall feeling of rebellion against the tyranny of the internet.
Anyway, it's been a great summer, although far too short.  Our trip was wonderful and I have an absolutely, crazily, absurd number of photographs to go through.  It's going to take me the next year to get through them all.  :-)
Here's just one.  Aren't we a great looking family?!

My trip to Houston was OK.  It's over, that's the best part!  I have to go one more time for a repeat MRI in September, and then I never, ever have to go back again.  And I just might not.  At least this trip was fairly quick.  My mom came with me which made everything much easier and less stressful for me.  I had a bunch of appointments, but my nurse was able to schedule them into just 2 days.  On Monday I had an echocardiogram, then a full pulmonary function exam, then bloodwork at the fast-track lab (where they made a mistake and only drew half the number of vials, resulting in them calling me back and sticking me again for the rest...), then a check-up with Dr. Popat at the stem cell clinic, then a bone marrow aspiration and biopsy (hurt much more this time than last time, but again, it's over, so all is well), and an MRI at night.  Phew!  The next day was easy in comparison-- bloodwork (16 vials!) and questionnaires with Dr. Hutton, then the timed walking test, hand dexterity test, and mental cognition test-- the math test which is my favorite since I can ace it, and finally a general MS physical.  Dr. Hutton is such a nice man and I will miss him.  But I will not miss the anxiety and stress that always surrounds visits with him.  :-)
My mom and I talked seminary, went to the Houston museum of fine arts, ate Thai food, and saw a great documentary about back-up singers-- all things that wouldn't have been huge hits with my husband and 3 boys, so it was really great having her there.
Since coming back, my cousin Deborah has been staying here for a couple of weeks until she can move into her apartment down by UT where she's going to grad school.  I love all of my cousins, and it has been great getting to know her.  She is 10 years younger than me, so I didn't know her as well as her older siblings, but she is awesome.
I reorganized all the books in my schoolroom (a big job!), and have been trying to get things organized for school starting next week.  It's complicated because I feel like now that the big boys are going into 7th grade, I need to be working according to a master plan to get them prepared for college.  So I'm trying to figure out exactly how to organize our studies for the next couple of years so they can be ready for AP exams and such when they are in high school.  I'm not doing Sonlight this year, since I think they need something a bit more rigorous, so it's been a lot more work for me.  But I'm excited and I hope it will be a great year.
The boys have been enjoying their last few days of freedom, doing entirely too little practicing and too few chores, but you know, that's OK.  My sister Rosalynde introduced me to the musical "Mathilda" while we were at our family reunion, and I got the soundtrack and we've been listening to it constantly.  Mosey loves it and has lots of the words memorized, including a big chunk of one of the best monologues I've ever heard onstage.  I need to video him for sure.  :-)  Brigham and Joseph had their last day of Primary on Sunday, since they are turning 12 on Thursday.  I get too emotional if I think too much about that, so I won't.  But it was fun staying up late with Brigham on Saturday night helping him master those last few articles of faith so he could pass them off before graduating from primary.  I have some really good boys.
I'm going to try to get the boys up early(er) tomorrow to start adjusting to our school schedule which is coming up in less than a week now.  Which means that I really need to get myself to bed earlier too.

07/08/2013

Summer is flying by.
The boys had some friends over on Saturday.  They used to be in our ward until the ward split, and then they moved to Utah.  Jacob is 1 month older than the twins, and Andrew is 1 month older than Mosey, so they match up great.  We miss them a lot.  The kids have been in Austin visiting their dad, and so they've been able to get together with our boys a couple of times.  They played airsoft (donning thick jackets and face masks, even in the heat!-- that's dedication), went swimming, and played Tanki and World of Tanks.  Before bed I let them watch an hour or so of Netflix.  Joseph chose an episode of X-files which I hope did not scar the other boys forever.  My boys have a pretty high tolerance for dark drama, being my sons and all...  :-)  Then the Anderson boys chose an episode of  "Jessie" which I guess is a Disney show.  It was a pretty cute show, but I think went largely over the heads of my boys, since it was so full of pop references and jokes that my boys don't really get.  I was kind of happy to see how uninterested my boys were in that show, but it also elicited the familiar anxieties and second-guessings about how we're raising these boys...
Anyway, here is a video of the twins and Jacob sword-fighting in the front yard.  My boys take it extremely seriously.  :-)

Happy Independence Day!

Don't you think this holiday should be referred to exclusively as Independence Day?  It might help us remember a little more of its pretty cool origins.  I mean, we don't celebrate "December 25th," do we?  Anyway, I hope everyone had a fun Independence Day!!  We sure did.
I got up before anyone else was awake (these late summer nights lend themselves nicely to some quiet, peaceful mornings around here!), and ran to Walmart for some groceries.  Back home, I made a 4th of July brunch of bacon (a serious treat at our house), pancakes, and whipped cream, blueberries, and strawberries.  The boys were especially excited about the whipped cream (from a can! also a serious treat at our house).  :-)
Afterward, we went outside to put up our American flags and pose for the yearly obligatory 4th of July pictures.  I managed to offend 2 of my 3 boys during this process.  Maybe next year I'll get all three...  Are the pictures worth it?  I think so.  Being mad at mom lasts a little while, but a picture is forever.  :-)

(Joseph and Mosey are in serious need of a haircut)

Joseph requested that his picture be taken with our Texas flag.  It's red, white, and blue, so close enough, right?  And we are pretty patriotic Texans. :-)

This picture was taken before I really offended Mosey.  I should have just stopped with this one and saved him the aggravation, because it is definitely my favorite of the bunch.  Sorry Mosey!

Anyway, after the picture-taking ordeal, we headed down to Lady Bird Lake to go kayaking.  A couple of my boys were lobbying for the liberty of unrestricted computer-game-playing (hey, it *is* Independence Day!), but I was adamant-- we are doing something *real* today!!  And it was a great success.  Mosey, my main computer-game-playing-supplicant, told Ben and me over and over again how he wanted to buy a kayak so he could go kayaking way more often.  :-)  We rowed almost all the way up to the dam, to where the current got a bit too strong (this is one of several lakes damming up the Colorado River, so the dam was actually the one holding back Lake Austin and releasing water into Lady Bird Lake).  Ben and the boys stopped at one point at what we thought was an island (turned out to be a long peninsula) to swim to shore and take several jumps from a rope swing into the water.  Overall, it was great fun.  Next time I'm going to put my little camera in a waterproof bag so I can take a few pictures along the way.  That part of the lake is incredibly beautiful with sheer limestone cliffs rising up out of the towering, almost tropical trees and lush greenery lining the shores.

Back at home, we had a barbecue, and went swimming.  We discussed the Declaration of Independence and our favorite Founding Fathers, and enjoyed the fairly mild weather we've been having the past several days.  We were pretty beat from kayaking all afternoon and decided to forego making the trek downtown, braving the traffic and the crowds to listen to the symphony and watch fireworks.  Instead we watched Lost, drank root beer floats, and then drove up to watch the Cedar Park fireworks from the roof of the van.  Not as exciting, and the music was definitely not as good, but you can't beat the 5 minute drive to and from!

My fireworks pictures left a lot to be desired this year.  Oh well.

And, that was it!  A good day.

07/03/2013

I've been on a computer strike the past several days, trying to get some "real" stuff done.

Summer is going well.

Brigham loved his strings camp. I only had to go down there once during the week to bring him his dress shoes which he forgot on the bathroom floor. On Saturday we went down to San Marcos to listen to the final concert and take him home. He ended up 2nd chair, 2nd violin in the 2nd highest orchestra, so he was very happy. Yes, this is very mom-braggy, but he deserves it. Most of the kids in his orchestra were much older, and that was also gratifying to him. He took a fiddling class and composition class, as well as advanced theory. His composition was chosen as one of the pieces highlighted at the electives demonstration. But, they didn't give it back to him to take home!! Oh well, it's not like he has any lack of compositions floating around in his brain. He got along with his roommate, told us that the kids at camp were well-behaved and respectful, and that he definitely wants to go again! At least, until he discovered that his brothers got paid (WAY TOO MUCH) for dog-sitting our friend's dog. Then he told me, "If I would have known Hannah was coming, and they'd get paid so much, I wouldn't have gone to camp!" I'm guessing he'll probably re-think that conclusion. Still, it's interesting to see the innate human tendency to resent other people for "unearned" gain.

Joseph and Mosey had a quiet week without Brigham. Not too much practicing and schoolwork got done... This is hard for me. I'm such a productivity-driven person-- I tend to feel extremely grouchy with myself after a day without much to show for it (hence my computer strike). But it's not necessarily fair for me to project that onto my kids. I gave them the choice to do their schoolwork and practicing in return for screen time. If they choose not to do schoolwork or practicing, that's their choice. I guess what really gets my goat is the whining and complaining about doing chores (very simple, easy, fast chores) after a day spent doing pretty much nothing. But, I guess this is pretty normal for kids. And to be fair, there have been plenty of days when practicing and schoolwork have been completed, and chores have been done uncomplainingly. I know I need to relax.

I've been able to accomplish a few things. Not enough! I'm working on seminary stuff most every day. I'm making some new scripture mastery mnemonics. I've been practicing my violin as well-- almost every day. I want to join the Austin chamber orchestra-- the one Brigham's teacher is in, but I'm guessing that would really push me over the edge. Still, it's more fun to have a reason to practice. It's funny how much more enjoyable practicing is as an adult. I try to tell Joseph this, but he's not buying it. :-)

I have several books I was hoping to finish this summer. Not sure it's going to happen. But I need to finish these before I let myself buy more on Amazon! I completely blame my dad for my book-buying addiction.
(Here's the proof:  These are only 2 shelves out of at least 10 that stretch floor-to-ceiling in my dad's "library.")

Like I said, we've done some dog-sitting. Hannah is a great big golden-doodle with oodles of hair, but she is so, so sweet. My boys love her. However, she did not love our cats. Or maybe she loved them too much. In any case, the cats hid out in Mosey's room most of the week, and have just now started venturing out.

Well, here are some pictures from the past few days: