All done!

My talk in church is done!  Now I can enjoy Christmas.  :-)  Just kidding, I have been enjoying it all month long, but it is a big relief to have it done.
I am all better now, too, which is a bigger relief!  After a miserable day on Thursday, I finally started feeling more human on Friday, and risked eating solid food yesterday, and I think I'm back to normal today. 
One side benefit to having a stomach virus all week (hey, you have to look on the bright side, right?) is that the pesky 4 lbs I've been fighting with for a couple of months is finally gone.  Now to keep it off during the season of Christmas calories.  :-)
I think my talk went well.  I really wrestled with it this week.  My brain was sluggish and I was feeling distinctly uninspired.  I wrote about 6 different opening paragraphs, discarding all of them, before finally settling on the framework of my talk, and then it finally flowed.  I used Mr. Krueger's Christmas (which is here in full-length, although not full-resolution).  There are always things I wish I had done differently after the fact, but all-in-all I think I am satisfied, and I think Ben and I are off the hook for speaking on holidays for a while, now.  I spoke on Easter a couple of years ago (with the Stake Presidency there, yikes!), then Ben spoke on Thanksgiving Sunday 2 years ago, and then me again today for our Christmas program.  I put the talk on my Google documents if anyone wants to read it.  I think it came across better than it reads, but maybe I'm delusional.  :-)
OK, that's more than enough egotistical navel-gazing for a while.

Other big news from the week:  Mosey lost one of his two front teeth!  He looks sooo cute.  Although I kind of hate it, too, because it means he'll be getting his grown-up teeth in, and as soon as that happens, he won't look like a little kid anymore...  :-(  Yes, I'm one of those selfish mommies that would love to keep her kids little forever.  Well, maybe not forever, but I really wish I could just transport myself back in time whenever I wanted to, and hold my little babies again.  But since this is not a possibility, I guess I just have to wish they never would grow up.  :-)  See, since they're not grown yet, I don't know what I'm missing.  But I do remember them little, and boy do I ever miss those little squirts...

He's just so cute!  Here he is ready for church this morning, dressed up in his Christmas church outfit.  He can't resist sticking his tongue through that hole!  I just know I'm going to look back at these pictures a few years from now and wish like anything I could go back and squeeze those cute little cheeks of his and scoop him up on my lap and tickle him until he squeals.  So let's just stop time right here, shall we?

He wasn't that much of a cutie yesterday, though.  I took him and Joseph to Target to buy a birthday present for a friend, and he was a PILL!  :-)  There is a certain toy he really wants (a remote control tarantula, of all things, a toy I worry might get played with a few times and then forgotten about, but then again Mosey does a pretty darn good job of playing with *all* his toys, and it has been on his list for quite a long time, ever since he saw it in a Sky Mall magazine on some flight or other) and he was bound and determined to buy it for himself yesterday.  Well, Christmas is a week away, and his birthday is only a couple of weeks after that, and it's just not the right time for him to be buying *himself* toys!  I tried to explain this to him, and you'd *think* he'd get the hint, right?  I mean, what kid wants to spend his hard-earned money to buy himself something there's a good chance he's going to get as a present in only a few days?!  But never underestimate Mosey's desire for immediate gratification...  I did make him put it back, and then he spent the next 20 minutes running away from me in Target.  Little snickerdoodle.  Worse than a snickerdoodle, really.  Do you know how hard it is to capture a 6 year old in Target who doesn't want to be caught?  Especially when you're on a stupid ride-on-cart that can only go about 3 miles an hour, and has a really wide turning radius, and you're chasing a little imp who scurries hither and thither up and down aisles and among clothing racks?  Well, it's really, really hard.  I even had Joseph with me running around trying to chase him.  I thought I could use Joseph to flush Mosey out where I could head him off, but there are just way too many places for a kid to run in Target.  I finally got fed up and went to the check-out line.  Joseph was able to get near enough to Mosey to say loudly enough for him to hear that we were leaving now, no matter if he came or not.  I guess Mosey decided we were a little too far from home for him to want to try to walk, so he followed us out of the store.  Little scoundrel.  So now I'm not sure what I should do about that stupid tarantula.  I don't want to get it for him after pulling that trick!  I'll have to think about it...
I know there was other important stuff that happened this last week, but I was too self-absorbed in being sick to remember anything else at the moment, so that's it for tonight.  

sick

I can't seem to kick this stupid stomach bug.  I got sick on Monday, and I still feel completely rotten.  :-(  I thought I had finally gotten over it last night.  I felt well enough to go with Ben to a work party where I ate the first real food I've had all week (and I didn't eat very much!).  That was a mistake because today I've felt the worst so far.  I had the boys go into HEB for me to get some gatorade so I could at least attempt to re-hydrate.  Unfortunately it's reminding me a little too much of the aftermath of chemo from my bone marrow transplant. 
There is nothing quite like the misery of unremitting nausea.  I guess this is what happens when you have no immunity to anything...
I have to speak in church on Sunday and I'm not sure whether to hope it goes away by then, or hangs around!  :-)  (I'm seriously kidding.  Please give me a Sacrament meeting talk every month if it keeps the stomach bug away...)

Just a few things

You know you have a great dentist when your son, the only one NOT to have a procedure done says, on the way out of the office, "I wish I had a cavity!"  (Mosey had a cavity filled, Brigham had sealants put on, and the dentist had *just* replenished his generous treasure box.  Joseph was jealous as he left, empty-handed.  No good deed goes unpunished, I suppose.)

The day may not be a great one when it starts out with your six-year-old flinging a bowl of milk (with the remnants of his frosted mini wheat cereal) on the head and face of his brother...  And it wasn't a super-great day, either.  I had some kind of a mild stomach bug and felt queasy and icky all day long.  My fuse was about 2 millimeters long today, as the boys will attest.

The day improves, however, when this same six-year-old son pulls a stool up to the refrigerator and gets out the mayonnaise and turkey breast and muenster cheese and makes you a sandwich "in case you get hungry" as you're laying on the couch actually trying not to think about food, but then not minding it so much with the sweetness and thoughtfulness of it all.

The two big boys had their Christmas recital on Saturday.  They both did great!  I did not video the performance, but I will make them play their pieces one last time here at home so I can record it for posterity.  But first Brigham has to clean up the playroom (where the piano is) which is an incredible disaster right now with approximately 700 blocks and 800 plastic soldiers and 57 stuffed animals and innumerable Schleich castle parts and knights and dragons all over the floor.  And I won't have *that* recorded for posterity!  (Not to mention the fact that I can't even get into the room with my wheelchair...)

I've been playing the Pandora Christmas radio stations over the past couple of weeks.  It is fun to note the boys' mishearings of the lyrics (did you know there's a word for this?  It is "mondegreen" although I have no idea where that comes from).  Brigham asked me tonight about the "tithings of comfort and joy."  There have been several of these-- I need to write them down!

Bethlehem

A week or so ago I was talking with a couple of homeschooling moms in our art co-op, and they mentioned the live "Main Street Bethlehem" up in Burnet the first two weekends in December.  I've been wanting some more meaningful annual Christmas traditions, and this seemed to fit the bill.  We invited some friends and on Friday night we headed up to Burnet, about 45 minutes away.

We got off to a later start than we planned, so by the time we got up there everyone was hungry.  We decided to eat before rather than after, and that may have been a mistake.  Main Street Bethlehem stayed open from 6-9 (well, they cut the line off at 9:00-- everyone in line by that time will get to go through), and by the time we were done eating, it was already almost 8:00.  So we parked, and then went to get in line.  We found the line and started walking toward the end.  And walking, and walking, and walking.  The line extended all the way out of the church parking lot (it is held on the grounds of a Baptist church), down a whole block, then over and down another whole block, where we finally found the end.  A very looooooong line.  But I had been told the line moves fairly quickly, and we were already all the way up there, so we decided to stick it out.

We were there with 2 other adults and a total of 8 boys 9 and under between us.  Lots of boys.  :-)  Joseph and Mosey in particular were not happy about standing in that long line, and the expected whining ensued.  Some of the other boys decided to entertain themselves and got a little wild.  OK, maybe very wild.  :-)  Joseph was particularly distressed by this.  Ben finally started a game of 20 questions, which was a genius move, and kept all the boys distracted for the last half of the hour that we stood in line.  But Mosey was still a pill, complaining incessantly that he wanted to go home.  I was worried he would spoil the whole experience for himself.

I needn't have worried.  The minute we walked through the "gates" of the city, Mosey, and all of the boys were enthralled.  It really is an incredible place.  The church built the place around 20 years ago.  It really does look like what I can easily imagine Bethlehem might have looked like 2,000 years ago.  The "city" is surrounded by a high wall.  Just inside, there were tents sheltering people coming to the city to pay taxes.  They were cooking over fires in front of the tents as we walked up the dusty dirt road.  There were stone buildings housing candle-makers, basket weavers, cloth-makers, leather-workers, all complete with people dressed in costume, completely in character, actually making candles, weaving baskets, etc.  There was an outdoor market with fruits and vegetables and grain, and geese and ducks in wooden cages.  There were camels and sheep and donkeys.  There was even a blacksmith shop with a blacksmith pounding red-hot iron on an anvil.  There were people in character walking around the city-- shepherds telling of the good news of Christ's birth.  A lame beggar asking for alms.  A drunken man paying his taxes at the tax collector station.  There were Roman guards patrolling the streets.  There was a synagogue with a rabbi singing prayers and training his scribe.
Toward the end, we came to an inn, which was of course full.  The inn-keeper came out and stopped to speak to Mosey.  He said, "Yesterday a young man and woman came by looking for a place to stay.  The woman looked as though she was about ready toa have a baby.  My inn was full, but I told them they could stay in my stable out back where there is a manger.  I've been very busy since then, and I haven't had a chance to go back there and see if they are there, or if the baby has been born yet.  Will you go and see if they are there, and then come back and tell me?"
Mosey was utterly entranced.  He looked up at that innkeeper, turned around when he pointed to the stable and the big star rising over it.  We walked through a gate, approaching the "stable" which was actually a sort of cave in a hillside.  Mosey ran quickly up ahead to look in the stable, and then ran back and said excitedly, "Mom, I looked in the stable, and Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus are there!  I have to go back and tell the innkeeper!"  And off he dashed back to find the innkeeper and tell him the good news.  It was the sweetest thing I have seen in a long time.

The contrast between his whiny, complaining, rotten attitude before we got to "Bethlehem," and the awe-struck wonder once he got inside was just startling.  It was so real to him.  It was amazing to see what a change the Spirit caused in my little boy as he walked through the streets of Bethlehem.  It was 100% worth the hour long wait in line, the shenanigans of 8 bored little boys, the hour and a half on the road, the whining and complaining, to see the look on Mosey's face as he looked into the stable to see if baby Jesus had been born yet.

This, this is what Christmas is about.  This event made the nativity a reality for Mosey.  From now on, every time he reads or hears of the account of our Savior's birth, he will have real memories of those noisy, dusty roads.  He spoke to the innkeeper, saw the star in the sky, and was a personal witness of the Christchild, held in the arms of  his mother Mary in that dirty, lowly stable.  The moment of transformation that I saw in my boy is one every Christian should strive for in these busy, bustling, stressful weeks of Christmastime.  Jesus Christ, our savior, was born.  He was here.  He is real.  Do we feel it?  Are we carried away by the wonder of it every December?  I hope so.  I definitely was on Friday night.

The icing on the cake was the cookies and hot chocolate they had waiting for everybody at the end.  :-)

Needless to say, I was completely blown away.  The people who put this on (it used to be only the Baptist church, but I believe several local churches now join forces) did a phenomenal job.  All the "Jewish" men had even grown out their beards!  We'll definitely go back every year, although we'll probably try to get there a little earlier next time to minimize the wait in line.

I kept thinking about the incredible missionary opportunity if our church put on something like this.  The Baptist church gave out brochures telling about the story of "Bethlehem," and then going on to speak about Christ's birth, life, and ministry.  At the end, there were signs directing people with questions to a nearby building where church representatives would be waiting to talk to them.  Our ward building has a very large field adjacent to the parking lot, which is used for nothing right now.  It's the perfect place for a Bethlehem!  I'm not sure we could, or should, try to compete with the Burnet Bethlehem, but there are many other places in the country where something like this would be possible and such an amazing opportunity for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints-- not just for missionary work, but for all the members who would be involved every year in putting it on. But here in Texas, anyway, we've just found our newest Christmas tradition.

 The boys with the Roman soldiers who were HUGE, and very serious.  I wasn't sure at first if they would even acknowledge my request for a picture!  Note Mosey's flip-flops.  It was cool that night, but not cold.  Just perfect weather, actually.  Clear, maybe 65 degrees.  Beautiful night.  Last night got really cold, so I'm very glad we went when we did.

 Mosey peering out the window inside the candle-maker's shop.  His eyes were this big the whole evening.

The innkeeper pointing out the star over the stable behind his inn.  Look at Joseph's and Mosey's faces!

Fun on a Friday afternoon

funny faces

I don't have much to write tonight.  I'm just too tired by the time I have a minute to sit at the computer to think coherently.  I'm looking forward to Christmas vacation.  I'm giving the boys the same number of vacation days that the public school kids get, and I'm hoping to get a lot done.  A lot of my own stuff done.  :-)  Like all the photos I took from our vacation in August and from our trip to Florida a month ago.  Here are three that I took at a park near our old house.  The "rock climbing" park as we used to call it.  I took pictures of Brigham and Joseph against a white fence there-- the same fence where I took their 4-year-old portraits, so I could compare them side-by-side, 5 years later.  But these are outtakes-- the promised silly shots if they would give me some smiles.

bullet points

Friday:

• Got a haircut
• Took the boys to horseback riding.
• Had a not-so-proud mommy moment when Mosey freaked out about something or other and refused to ride anymore.  He got off the horse, and when Joseph came up to get the helmet from him to take his turn, Mosey THREW the helmet at him, hitting him in the head.  Joseph picked up the helmet and THREW it back at Mosey, hitting him in the head.  The teacher called Joseph out on that, and he turned around and ran around the barn to the car and wouldn't ride at all.  Brigham got an extra-long lesson that day, and I was pretty embarrassed.  I went back to the car and gave Joseph a lecture on being mature and not retaliating.

Saturday:

• Went to the Temple, left the boys with a babysitter. Actually a "kid-stayer," according to the insistence of the boys.  :-)
• Took a wrong turn, barely missed our session, but did sealings instead which I loved.  Although, weirdly, kneeling actually takes a bit of leg strength!  Hamstrings and glutes.  I can figure out exactly which muscles do what, by how mine *don't* work...
• Got home 3 hours late (because of going to lunch and absurd traffic).  Thank goodness for nice, understanding babysitter.  I tried to compensate her accordingly.  :-)
• Decorated the house for Christmas while listening to The Polar Express (it's our tradition to ring in Christmas by having a Polar Express dance party before decorating).

Sunday:

• Church.
• More Christmas decorating.
• Took pictures for our Christmas card.  The boys are getting so grown up and cooperative with this picture-taking business, it's ridiculous!  They helped lug down my backdrop stand and get things set up in the backyard.  Thanks, guys!

Monday:

• Back to school again...
• Happy this Monday went better than last Monday.  Last Monday (I don't think I blogged about this) Joseph had a rotten morning, refusing to do his work.  I called Ben and he came home and got Joseph, bringing him back to his office.  Joseph sat in Ben's office the rest of the day and did nothing but math.  He got a lot of math done, but the punishment backfired a little, because it turns out he really enjoyed hanging out at Dad's office, and asked if he could do the same thing the next day.  :-)
• We're learning about earthquakes in science, and the boys had a contest to see who could build the most earthquake proof block structure.  Joseph and Mosey decided we should build all structures out of Duplos.  They're totally earthquake-proof!  I remembered how much I hate earthquakes when we watched a bunch of YouTube videos.  I'm very happy living in the seismically-boring state of Texas.
• Family Home Evening was watching the Christmas Devotional from Salt Lake and drinking peppermint hot chocolate.

Tuesday:

• School.  I had decently cooperative students today, yay!
• Scouts.  Joseph and Brigham left for Scouts, which left Mosey and me home by ourselves.  We spent an hour working on his gigantic 6 level K'nex Rollercoaster set which has been sitting on our kitchen table in various stages of construction for the past 6 days.  Someday maybe we'll get our table back, but we're still only on page 16 out of 49 in the instruction book.  Yikes!
• Spent way, waaaay too long looking through the scanned images posted online from the 4,893 slides we submitted to get scanned and digitized a couple of months ago.  Pictures from 1971 on.  There are so many pictures in there I've never seen before-- I feel like I just relived the first 11 years of my life (I forced myself to stop at 1988).
• Going to go to bed now.  Good night!

pointless

We went to our friend's funeral today.  It was memorable, to say the least.  The entire Stake Center was filled, front to back--even the chairs set up on the stage were filled  (which Ben and the boys helped to set up last night).  The boys and I got there a few minutes early, but the parking lot had obviously been full for a long time, and the overflow parking was blocks away.  I did manage to park due to a kind and understanding policeman who let me park in the VIP area.  And wow, were there some VIP's there.  Justice Clarence Thomas spoke along with Judge Edith Jones, chief judge of the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.  Senator Cornyn was there.  I'm sure there were other noteworthies that I was not aware of.  I've never seen Secret Service men at an LDS church building before, and I'm not sure I will again.  I'm quite sure I'll never see a Supreme Court Justice in a church building again (let alone hear one speak in one).  Ben and I tried to impress upon the boys what a unique experience this was-- for them to see Justice Thomas if for no other reason. 
I just really hated that this was the occasion. 
It was a wonderful service.  The irony is that the better the service was, the worse I'm sure everyone felt.  The whole thing just feels so dreadfully wrong to me, and I think to everyone there.  Not that death ever feels right, I know.
Ben and I debated bringing the boys.  Well, I debated, anyway.  Ben was sure they should go.  The only funeral I attended as a child was my brother's, and I obviously wish that funeral had never happened.  I actually have not been to many funerals at all.  And I've only been to two for people who died after long, good lives.  The last few funerals I have been to were for a friend's son who committed suicide, a young mother leaving 3 kids and a husband after a long battle with cancer, and now this good man leaving behind his wife and sons and a career in which he still had so much truly influential good to offer to his clients and to this country.  There has been nothing remotely joyful, or even particularly hopeful (except for in the extremely broad scheme of things) in any of these funerals.  And so I worried about bringing the boys.  But I'm glad I did.  I think it was really good for the boys to spend an hour hearing a good man being praised for all the right reasons.  Also good for them to get a small sense of the fragility of life.
The hammer of mortality falls on whom it will, without regard for its victims or the wake of its aftermath.  Some people might see the inscrutable design of God in these hammer-blows, but I, for one, do not.  I sometimes wish I could-- it might be comforting.  On the other hand, I see many people turn against God when they feel he has "willed" this or that event.  The only way for me to resolve the theodicy question is to believe that he does not will tragedy.  God is many things but I don't believe he is capricious.  God is the great Arbiter, but he is not arbitrary.  There is just too much caprice in these sorts of disasters that fall upon good, undeserving people for me to accept them as God's specific design.  But there is a trade off for this philosophy.  Tragedy is (to me) more tragic when there is no reason.  The senselessness increases the sheer sadness of the situation, and I cannot stop thinking about my friend and her boys.  It does not seem possible that this has really happened, and several times a day I feel my heart stop for a second as I contemplate their new reality.  Thinking of her coming back home and seeing her husband's socks on the floor, his half-filled laundry basket in the closet.  Getting the mail and having to open letters addressed to him.  Going into the bathroom and finding his shaving cream and cologne sitting there on the countertop.  Walking past his car parked in the driveway or garage with his favorite radio stations programmed in the stereo, the empty drink in the cup holder.  Opening the freezer to see the partly-eaten carton of his favorite ice cream.  The hugeness of her loss is something I can't wrap my arms around, and I suspect she can't at this point either.  But imagining the small details, the minutiae of a life plucked up mid-stream is what cuts me to the quick.  How does one survive those uncountable individual wounds?  I just don't know.  And I'm only thinking of the loss of her husband.  Her mother died, too, but I just can't think about that. 
I have no point in all this rambling.  Just as I see no point at all in the awfulness of Greg's death. 

Mosey-ism

Mosey and Brigham were playing in the play room while I was on the computer.  I was listening in as Mosey began telling Brigham a story.  It started like this: "One of Leonardo da Vinci’s camera obscuras was taking a whole bunch of pictures every 50 milliseconds…"
Classic Mosey.  We may have to review again what a camera obscura is, as the whole "taking pictures" thing doesn't quite apply...  :-)
Mosey recently found one of my old digital cameras, and has become enamored with taking pictures and video.  So much so that he wore out a 2 gig memory card.  :-/  Maybe I'll have an apprentice one day?

spells

Last night, after coming home from Harry Potter, I sent the boys in to get ready for bed.  20 minutes later I went in the bedroom to find Joseph and Mosey sitting on the bed, practicing spells.  They both made wands, and Joseph has been writing spells in his little spell notebook.  He started this several months ago, but the movie inspired him to get it out again.  Ever since, I've had two little wizards running around the house casting spells.  Mosey is especially good at the deluminate spell when I'm right in the middle of something requiring light.  :-)
Mosey even brought his wand (made from a straw, a wooden skewer, and black and silver duct tape) to church with him today.  Now *that* would horrify those Southern Baptist anti-Harry Potter nuts out there!

Thanksgiving

Somehow I managed to get through this Thanksgiving holiday without taking a single picture!  I guess I wasn't much in the picture-taking mood.
Ben's mom and dad came to visit, flying in during the wee hours of the morning on Wednesday.  I had a neurologist appointment Wednesday morning--just my usual yearly checkup for medication refills.  Everything's fine.  I'm trying a new spasticity medication which I hope will help.  My doctor also increased my Baclofen dosage-- I'm at the maximum dosage now, so I hope the added medication, Zanaflex, will help.  Spasticity is my biggest MS-related physical complaint right now.  I brought the boys with me so Ben's parents could sleep in, and we got smoothies in the hospital cafeteria, just like we did in the old days when I was coming in every other week for bloodwork after my transplant.  I do not miss hospitals.
Back home, I attempted to do a half-day of school lessons.  After hearing the news about my friend, though, my heart really was not in it.  I've kind of felt that way about this whole holiday.  The boys all played the piano for Grandma and Grandpa, and I got great delight in listening to Grandpa Kent teach Brigham some fun little piano duets.  Jackee and I started baking some things for Thanksgiving dinner while the men-folk watched Mythbusters.  We had breakfast for dinner (pancakes and bacon and eggs), and then tried to get everyone in bed early.
On Thursday I got up early and continued my baking projects.  I made sausage, cranberry, and apple stuffing, pecan-topped sweet potatoes, jello salad, pumpkin pie, apple pie, and blueberry cream pie.  The boys worked on giant block buildings, and I enjoyed listening to Mosey read "Dragon Rider" to Grandma Jackee.  We ate dinner with our friends, the Taylors, so I only had to worry about half the meal.  Kristen made the turkey, mashed potatoes, and rolls.  Ben isn't much of a turkey-eater, so I bought half a ham at HEB and we brought that, too, which ended up being a big hit.
A cold front blew in on Thursday, and it was downright cold by the time we drove out to Steiner Ranch.  The boys brought their scooters, thinking they might ride around in the street after eating, but it was too cold for that.  Instead they ran around with the Taylors' 3 little boys, playing guns and other boys games.  I'm glad we went to the Taylors'.  It got my mind off things, and I think everyone had fun.
Yesterday morning we drove down to San Antonio, stopping at the Temple to look around a bit and visit the distribution center there.  Then we went downtown and took a boat ride through the river-walk.  The boat tours start off at the mall, and it was absurdly crowded.  I despise shopping malls, and the day after Thanksgiving is the worst time to be at one.  Plus, that evening there was the annual San Antonio Riverwalk Christmas boat parade, so half of Texas was trying to get there at the same time.  The river boat was fun, though, and worth doing again when we have visitors.  The Riverwalk is the #1 tourist attraction in Texas-- above the Alamo which is #2!  We ate a late lunch/early dinner at Rio Rio, an extremely slow (although delicious) Mexican restaurant overlooking the river.  Then we hurried over to the Alamo, taking an unintentional detour completely around the shopping mall (oops), and making it to the Alamo a whole 5 minutes before closing...  We made it safely back to Austin in time for Ben to take Kent and Jackee to Half-Price Books.  Jackee loves that store (who doesn't?!), and filled a suitcase full of books to take home.
This morning Brigham and Mosey serenaded Grandma on their violins.  We took Kent and Jackee to eat at Rudy's to complete their Texas vacation, and then dropped them off at the airport.  We're going to leave in 15 minutes to go downtown and watch Harry Potter at the Imax theater. 
I've spent the holiday feeling extremely grateful, so that is good.  Too bad it sometimes takes tragedy to really hone my gratitude.

Heavy heart

Got news today that a dear friend just lost her husband, mother, and uncle in a private plane crash.
It's hard to feel very enthusiastic about the holiday.

Life is awfully hard to understand, sometimes.  Some people coast through with nothing more difficult than the normal ups and downs of life.  Other people get hammered with the most awful tragedies that mortality has to offer.  And there is absolutely no rhyme or reason to it.  
We all want to know why, so we can reassure ourselves that it can't happen to us.  But it can, and for some of us, some of the most undeserving, it does.
There is some comfort to be found in the plan of salvation, but it feels hollow, sometimes, compared to the extremity of the loss and pain to be endured in this life.  My friend, only in her 40's, will be a widow for the rest of her life.  She has lost her mother, the person she would probably otherwise have leaned on the most to help her through this, and the loss of whom by itself is awful.  Her uncle's family has lost a husband and father.  Stephanie's three sons, one still in high school, will not have their father to guide them through their lives. This good family, in an instant, has been dropped into the whirlwind.
It's Thanksgiving tomorrow, and I sure have a lot to be thankful for; among the top of my list is my husband and my mom.  My friend has just lost these, and that leaves me with an extremely heavy heart...

Mister, Mister, Mister

Mister is the Houdini of dogs.  I don't know how he does it, or why, but he manages to escape our house and yard despite all of our best efforts.  He never goes far-- he just takes himself on a walk around our neighborhood.  I've never had to go out driving looking for him for longer than about 5 minutes.  I'll find him just loping along the sidewalk sniffing around and doing doggy stuff.  He escaped a couple of weeks ago during a torrential downpour.  We got in the van looking for him, and found him walking cheerfully down the street utterly soaking wet. 
Well, yesterday he managed to escape again.  I have no idea how.  Both backyard gates were closed tight.  I think he must have squeezed out when Mosey went out the front door to get the mail, or maybe when we opened the garage door backing out on our way to the dentist.  Either way, he got out.  We finished up at the dentist office (pretty uneventful in spite of Joseph's fears-- he was very nervous for some reason.  He was sure he had a cavity and that the dentist would yell at him.  Well, he didn't, and the dentist didn't yell.  He's never been reprimanded at the dentist's, so I'm not sure where this fear comes from.  Maybe underlying guilt about not brushing enough?  Mosey does have one little cavity which doesn't surprise me since he is a sugar fiend-- he's finished almost all his Halloween candy while his brothers have most of their still left.), and went to the Bank (very aggravating-- someone got my debit card number somehow and tried to make several hundred dollars of online purchases last weekend.  Luckily Bank of America spotted the unusual activity and suspended the transactions.  Now I have to get a new debit card and change every single one of my automatic payments.  Grr.  The BofA person on the phone told me I could go to any bank to get a temporary replacement card.  Turns out, though, that Texas is in a different region than Florida, where we opened the account, and temporary cards can only be issued in the region of origin.  The only way to get our accounts transferred to Texas accounts is to close them all down and open new accounts.  Ridiculous.  So I went all the way into the bank, waited for 25 minutes to talk to the person (why there was only ONE person working in the bank full of at least 6 offices is beyond me), only to find out that they couldn't help me and I have to wait the 2 weeks for my new card, which hadn't even been ordered yet.  You wouldn't think this is a big deal, but for me, it is.  The simple act of getting gas, for example, is made many times more difficult if I have to walk all the way into the gas station to pay cash, and then back to pump the gas, and then back and forth again to get change...), where I got a frantic call from Ben.  Animal Control had picked up our wandering dog, and were taking him all the way downtown to the animal center.  They could take him back home, but only if I were right there.  Well, I wasn't, and couldn't get back in time, and we ended up not being able to contact the animal control people in their van anyway.  I was very annoyed and not looking forward to the fee for springing him from doggy jail.  I was sure it would be at least $100.  So after horseback riding we drove down and picked up Ben from work and went to the Animal Center.  To our surprise and delight, we discovered that they 1) gave Mister his yearly shots (which he hadn't had yet), 2) microchipped him, 3) gave him a flea and tick treatment (Frontline is expensive!), 4) gave him new tags and a new collar (although only because they lost his), and 5) released him back to us for only $20.  What a deal!  That is WAY less than I would have paid at our vet's office.  Next time I need to take Mister in for his yearly vet visit, I'm going to have someone drop off a "stray" Mister at the Animal Center, and then we'll go pick him up in the evening with everything all done!  (Just kidding, but it's still tempting.)
So, an annoying event turned out well after all. 
We celebrated by going out to eat at Marie Callenders (Brigham's favorite restaurant), because, you know, 5 days before Thanksgiving is a GREAT time to get pie.  :-)

Better!

Mosey had a really excellent day yesterday, after just a bit of a hiccup of a start.
The boys have morning chores before we start lessons.  Yesterday it was Mosey's turn to clear off the table, put away the breakfast things, and wipe down the countertops an table.  A really hard job, to be sure.  :-)  When I announced chore time, Mosey immediately went into a pout and said, "I'm NOT going to do it!"  This time I didn't give him any chances and he went directly to the hall closet for 10 minutes.  (Side note: having the big boys here to help me is crucial in my disciplinary abilities-- when I have to pick up a screaming, thrashing almost-7-year-old for a time-out, I can't very well wheel my wheelchair.  So I hold Mosey and one of the twins pushes us.  And Monday when Mosey ran away around block again, Joseph and Brigham both circled opposite ways around the block and man-handled him back to the van-- a very interesting sight to the neighbors, I am sure...)
However, when he came out of the closet, he was as nice and as sweet as could be and was delight all day long.  Phew!  At the end of the day I gave him a little toy airplane I've been saving in my closet for the right occasion.  He was really surprised and really happy, so I hope it will be a good positive-reinforcement for good behavior.  We'll see today!

trying to catch up...

I've been wanting to write for several days now, but haven't found the time.  Here's what's been happening the past few days.
We're very slowly getting back into lessons after our vacation last week.  Very slowly.  I always like to think that after a vacation we'll all be nicely rested up and eager and ready to jump back into things.  Not so.  It seems more difficult!  Why is that?
Last Thursday morning the big boys got a pass from lessons while they marched in a Veterans' Day parade in downtown Austin.  I wish I could have gone down to see them!  Their Den leader took pictures, though.  Joseph got to carry the flag!  Not that easy for the 1.3 miles of the parade course up Congress Street to the Capitol.

After the parade, one of the veterans there gave the boys donuts.  So nice!

The boys got Burger King happy meals on the way home (lucky boys!), and got back just on time to get ready for piano lessons and violin lessons.  I had a Relief Society activity in the evening (putting together care packages for soldiers-- a good activity for Veterans' Day, huh?), which made for a bit of a late night for me.
On Friday we were supposed to have a full docket of lessons.  Normally Fridays are easy days-- 1/2 lessons, but since the boys didn't do any lessons to speak of the day before, I wanted them to make up for it on Friday.  I was met with huge resistance.  I tried to explain to them how public school kids are expected to make up the work they miss on days they are absence, but I don't think they were convinced.  As it was, I ended up having to do some errands in the afternoon, so they got off easier than I would have liked.
Ben and I were asked to play some music for a wedding Friday night at the church.  So I drove to the music store to find some wedding-appropriate violin music.  Then we dropped by the violin shop to get a new bridge for Brigham's violin.  Brigham just moved up to a half-size violin-- the same one I learned on!  It's still a very nice instrument.
The wedding in the evening was nice.  It was such a good example of the power of Mormon women!  The wedding was of a sweet couple who have been investigating the church.  They have 3 little girls, but never got married.  So on Tuesday they decided to get married so they could get baptized.  And on Friday there was a beautiful wedding with the cultural hall all decked out and a wedding cake and flowers and a photographer and live music.  It was really amazing.  Who needs a year or more to plan a wedding?  Ask some Mormon women and they'll throw something awesome together in 3 days!  :-)  It helps that we have some really talented women in our ward, though.  I know the plans for the wedding were greatly expanded from something simple in the relief society room, to a much more formal event, and I know it was a lot of work for everyone involved.  And there may have been some who wondered if it was really worth it.  But, with the seriousness of wedding vows, and the focus of our church on family, I thought it was entirely appropriate that a big deal was made.  And I hope it was worth it to everyone involved when they saw the faces of the newly formed family.
There was one sour point in the evening, however.  Toward the very end of the reception, Ben had finished playing the piano, and I had put my violin away.  Brigham came to the piano and started playing.  He opened up one of the piano books Ben brought and played "Melody" by Schumann.  Then I told him to play the Mozart Twinkle variations he's been working on.  He has it memorized, which surprised both of us!  (Just variations 1-3, not the whole thing!)  A number of people came by to compliment Brigham on his piano playing.  As we were getting ready to leave, I noticed that Joseph was extremely grumpy.  I was surprised because I had thought he was having an OK time.  As we were getting our stuff out to the car, he finally came out with it-- Brigham got to play the piano, but he didn't, and now everyone would think that Brigham was better at the piano than Joseph was.  That broke my heart a little.  I told him that Brigham isn't better at the piano, he just happened to have one song ready for performing, and another that he had the music for!  Joseph is working on his Christmas recital piece, but it's not performance ready yet, and the Hedwig's Theme that he perfected a couple of weeks ago wasn't exactly appropriate for a wedding.  Joseph really is a good piano player.  He and Brigham, like with everything else, both have their strengths and weaknesses with piano, and they are different from each other.  Brigham is a good sight-reader, and has a real knack for improvising.  But Joseph is much more intuitive with rhythms and has great hands for powerful chords.  His teacher just a couple of weeks ago told me that she could see him playing one of the Rachmaninoff piano concertos when he's a teenager, because he is so good with that style of music.  Anyway, I told him that I was really sorry, and that it really wasn't fair that everyone got to hear Brigham, but not Joseph.  I promised him that I'd figure out a way for him to get to play the piano at the ward Christmas party so everyone in the ward would have a chance to hear him play, too.
Having twins is hard!  It's difficult to praise one twin without the other feeling like he is not praiseworthy, at least not in that particular way...  I have to be careful about how I handle that with other people around.  Instead of saying, "Yes, Brigham is really talented at the piano-- he loves playing," I need to say, "Yes, Brigham is really talented.  Joseph is also an amazing piano player-- they both love playing."  Ah, well.  By the time we got home, Joseph was in good spirits, and I think no lasting damage was done.
Saturday was a tag-team day for Ben and I.  Both of us were scheduled to go to a Stake leadership training in the morning, but of course the boys were home and it was Mosey's last soccer game, so I went and left Ben with the boys. 

 Mosey's team ended up tying the last three games, which was a mercy.  Their team actually got a lot better as the season went on, and with the majority of his little 6-8 year old team being 6 years old, I think they did pretty darn good.  And Mosey had fun and wants to play again, so it was a success.
In the evening, we were both supposed to go to the adult session of Stake Conference, so Ben went to that and I stayed home with the boys.  Between times the boys all worked hard in cleaning the cars and straightening up the house. 
Yesterday was Stake Conference, which is always nice because it means 2 hours of church instead of 3 (not that I mind 3 hours, it's just nice once in a while to have only 2!), and in the afternoon we drove out to a park in Georgetown that has several acres of pecan trees. 

 It got cold on Sunday!  Well, cold for Austin.  Time to get warmer clothes out.
The boys collected a big pile of pecans which we've been working on all day.  Yum.  In the evening I had a Relief Society committee meeting at our house which lasted 3 hours (!!). 
Today I was determined to have a very good, efficient, effective day of lessons.  Mosey, however, was not.  He had a pretty terrible, rotten, no good, very bad day.  He only actually completed one lesson (math), and that was after 3 1/2 hours, much of it spent in the closet.  I don't know what came over him.  I think I handled everything right.  I gave him lots of choices.  I never lost my cool.  I think my expectations were entirely reasonable, and I followed through with the consequences I set forth for him.  But for whatever reason, he was bound and determined not to cooperate.  Finally, at about 5:15, he got himself banished to his room for the rest of the night.  I went upstairs with him and lay with him in his bed.  He struggled and yelled for about an hour, and then finally settled down.  Eventually he lay cuddled next to me and planted kisses on my cheek, so I guess I was forgiven.  He fell asleep at 8:00, which meant that I was up there with him for almost 3 hours.  I really hope tomorrow is a better day.  I was reminded of some of what we went through with Joseph a couple of years ago.  Joseph has almost entirely grown out of all that, for which I am extremely grateful.

The day was pretty good for the other two boys, though.  I just wish I were better at keeping to our schedule.  The problem, I think, is that I've only scheduled 30 minutes for piano practicing, when in reality they each take about 45 minutes.  And we never get through with breakfast and dressing and chores until 8:15 or sometimes 8:30, so by the time the big boys are done with piano (their first lesson), we're already 45 minutes or an hour behind "schedule," and I get stressed out.  I think I just need to accept that their practicing is going to take an hour and a half, and rearrange our schedule to reflect that.
Oh, one more thing.  The boys and I finally finished the wall art project for our front entryway wall.  I printed a bunch of 5x7s and mounted them on pieces of foam board that I cut to size, and then put them up on the wall with mounting tape.  I love it!  It's a big wall, and I can add more as time goes on.

Surprise!

Ben and I pulled the greatest trick ever on the boys.
Last Wednesday I told them we needed to meet Ben to go eat dinner with someone who was coming to interview with his company.  He was only staying for an hour or so between flights, so we needed to go down to the airport to eat with him in one of the airport restaurants.  Also, Ben's company needed to send several suitcases of papers back with this guy, so before we could go into the airport, we had to check the bags.  The boys thought this was odd, but sometimes there's no understanding some of the strange decisions of corporations.  Inside the airport, we went through security so that we could get to the restaurant.  But, unfortunately, when we got in, we found out the guy's flight had been delayed, and he hadn't arrived yet.  We ate anyway, and then sat at the gate where the guy would be coming in.  Finally, his plane came to the gate.  We didn't know what he looked like, but he knew Ben would be waiting for him with his family, so he would recognize us when he came off the plane.  Well, the passengers came out of the plane one by one, but he wasn't there!  So, we needed to go down into the plane to see if he was there!  The airline gate agent, led us down to the plane.  Once in the plane, Ben said, "Why don't we just sit in these seats and see if this plane is going anywhere good?"
At this point, the boys were totally baffled.  "What's going on?  Mom, what's going on?"
Ben sat by Mosey and asked him if he thought the flight attendants would notice we were on the plane.  "Don't tell them, Dad!"
But, finally, we let the cat out of the bag.  We were on our way to Florida!
Several months ago, we found great tickets to Orlando, so we decided to surprise the boys.  Boy, was it a surprise!  I kept thinking the boys would see through our extremely flimsy ruse, but I guess they trust their parents, or something...  :-)
We flew into Orlando, arriving very early Thursday morning (like, 12:05 AM).  We stayed the night in a hotel, and then drove down to South Florida the next day.  We stayed 5 days, until Monday night, then drove back up to Orlando, and flew back home yesterday.
It was such a great trip.  I have a bunch of pictures which I will try to get posted in the next few days.  We went to Butterfly World, out to the Everglades, we took a glass-bottom boat tour out to the coral reef off of Key Largo, toured Coral Castle (Brigham loved this place), went to church at our old ward, spent some time with some dear friends, went to all our old haunts in Rock Creek (the area of Cooper City where we lived), went to the beach on Key Biscayne, went on a bike ride through the Hugh Taylor Birch State Park, and finally back to the beach one last time.
It was so much fun and such a needed break for all of us.
Now we're home, suitcases are unpacked, laundry is started, and it's back to real life.  :-)

Halloween

Halloween is over and gone for another year.  The boys were all very happy with their costumes, and I spent a *little* less time on them this year than last, which is a good thing. 
Saturday night was the church Trunk-or-Treat.  I sent Ben and the boys on ahead while I attempted to finish a costume for myself.  It was a sad failure, and I ended up just wearing a black dress and witch's hat.  But I made it in time to see some of the reaction to Ben's costume.  He dressed up as Joe Dirt and was quite the sight.  The costume works a little too well on him-- he didn't look like himself, but he didn't really look like he was dressed up in a costume, either!  The wig is exactly the same color as his real hair, which I think helped to make it more real.  After, we went to a Halloween party at the home of a fellow homeschooling family.  I made cupcakes to bring, just like the ones I made last week.  The edible ink markers are fun!
Yesterday was church as usual, and then the festivities began.  I made dinner while Ben helped the boys cut the tops off their pumpkins and begin scooping out the insides.  The pumpkin carving took a while, but I believe each boy actually cut almost all of their pumpkins themselves (I think Ben helped Mosey with the knife insertions).  We made our traditional pineapple and watermelon jack-o-lanterns, too.  The result of all of this was a great big, huge, gigantic mess in the kitchen.  Ben moved some of the pumpkin scooping and carving to the floor so the boys could reach better, but that also served to expand the mess as well...  I was up until 2:00 AM this morning cleaning everything up, mopping the floor, sorting the seeds from the guts for roasted pumpkin seeds, and generally trying to get ready for the start of this week...
But anyway, the boys went off trick-or-treating at about 7:30.  They went by themselves this year!  Brigham and Mosey were done by about 8:30, but Joseph wanted to keep going, so Ben went off with him and he stayed out another 20 minutes or so.  He really cleaned up, I can tell you!
I didn't get very good pictures of their costumes.  I really wanted to take some pictures before it got dark, but we were finishing pumpkin carving, and it just didn't happen. 
I tried to let everyone (including myself) sleep in this morning, but the boys were all up by 7:30 anyway.  It ended up being a slow lesson day, anyway, because Joseph woke up sick.  This kid can't catch a break-- he just got over a stomach virus a couple of weeks ago!  This one appears to have been pretty short-lived, though (knock on wood), and he was feeling better by this afternoon.  He wasn't sick from too much candy, either-- he's pretty disciplined. 
OK, it's way too late and I'm very tired, so I'm just uploading all my Halloween pictures because it takes too much energy to decide which ones to post and which to leave out.   Also, I am too lazy to put them in any kind of order.

Ben as Joe Dirt at the church Trunk-or-Treat.  I think he caused a scandal!  :-)

Brigham as a zombie at the Trunk-or-Treat

The cupcakes I made.

Mosey the pirate!  He has a problem with maintaining eye contact when I have the camera out, and I was about out of battery, so here's what you get.  He was SO excited about this costume, and has worn it about 15 times since it was finished.  I made the shirt and vest and belt.  

This is Joseph just after Trick-or-Treating last night.  This is a recycled black cloak from his grim reaper costume a couple of years ago.  I added the silver trim to make it more alien-y.

It was Joseph's idea to use a swim cap under the hood so his hair wouldn't show.

Joseph's bat pumpkin.

Ben striking some poses on our front porch Halloween night, as we greeted trick-or-treaters.  Do you like his ball-point-pen barbed wire tattoo?  Maybe I should be a tattoo artist.  :-)

Brigham was my most enthusiastic pumpkin-guts cleaner-outer.

Brigham the zombie after coming home from trick-or-treating.

Brigham's cat pumpkin.  Good design, huh?

Joseph was at first not excited about carving pumpkins.  I think he doesn't like to compete with Brigham (and everything turns into a competition with twins) when it comes to things artistic, and he's a bit of a pessimist anyway.  He kept drawing faces made of squares and rectangles, saying that was all he would be able to do.  I encouraged him to try something else anyway, and I'd help him if he needed help.  As it was, he did the entire thing himself!  I think he surprised himself and I'm so glad he did it!

Mosey working on his pumpkin with Dad.  Ben helped him begin the cuts, but I think he did most of the actual cutting himself.

And here is the final result of Mosey's first jack-o-lantern!  Good job, baby!

Pineapple man.  His mouth was better when I cut it, but it got kind of squished down by its own weight.

Pirate Mosey coming back from Trick-or-Treating.  He weighed his candy bag this morning-- 3.8 lbs!!!  Oh, my.

This is my skull jack-o-lantern.

The trick-or-treaters, about to head out.

Here's watermelon face.  I like this one this year.  Carving watermelons and pineapples is a tradition in our family since the time a few years ago when we waited until Halloween day to buy pumpkins.  The grocery store was sold out, so instead Ben bought a pineapple and watermelon.  I love this tradition!  You get to eat the guts and all the parts you cut out!  (Although the juice it generates is pretty spectacular and exceedingly sticky...)

Here is Joseph this evening, after he was finally feeling better.  He dumped all his candy out on the kitchen floor and organized it by type.  We have dentist appointments coming up later this month, and looking at this, I'm thinking the boys better start brushing their teeth 5 times a day!

So, that was the Halloween weekend. On to Thanksgiving!