January 2, 2014

2nd to the last day of vacation.  It has gone by too fast!  As usual I have too much of my to-do list left at the end of the vacation.  I did work on a few things though.  This morning Mosey and I worked on some cub scout arrow point requirements.  We got out our electricity snap-circuit set and he spent quite a while working on a number of different circuits.  He is such a gadget-loving kid!
I also finalized my science stuff for this next semester.  We're doing chemistry and the first semester we used a free online chemistry curriculum with some really great experiments.  This second semester I want to do something a little more rigorous, so I had to research and purchase a few more books online.  This kind of research takes me SO long.  At one point I had more than $100 of chemistry books in my Amazon shopping cart.  A little too much.  :-)  But it takes me forever to read through all the reviews and think about what I really want.  I'm glad to have that taken care of.  Now to get a history reading schedule made, vocabulary lists compiled and figure out what the heck to do about grammar.  I need another week just for school stuff!
Joseph and Brigham had orthodontist appointments in the afternoon and after we came home I made them all do piano practicing.  I've really enjoyed the time off from hounding the boys about practicing.  :-)  I immediately got into a bit of a power struggle with Joseph and had to step back and talk myself down a little bit.  It's so hard to be a parent sometimes.  There are times when Joseph and I can really get into a good groove with his practicing.  He's being really responsive to what I'm asking him to do, I can then relax a little bit and give him a lot of positive feedback, and it's really actually fun (well, for me anyway).  Why can't I strike that balance every time?  Instead I push a little too hard, and he instinctively draws back and refuses to cooperate.  Ugh.  I'd back off entirely and let him do his practicing entirely on his own if I never did have those golden practice sessions with him that show how much progress he can make so quickly when we are in sync with each other.  Is it worth still trying to achieve that with him sometimes?  I don't know.
To close, here are a few more pictures from our family reunion last summer.  I took a bunch of my brother Brigham with his daughter Jane.  I happen to think that they are two particularly attractive human beings.  :-)