02/24/12

1.  Starting from January 3, and lasting through March, it is BIRTHDAY SEASON in the extended Frandsen Family.  I think there are 16 birthdays in that time period (Ben, Mosey, Eva, Jane, Abe & Lucy, Miles, CiCi, Benjamin, Polly, Daddy, Rachel & Jacob, Elena, Mara & Lincoln!).  Needless to say, it is a bit hard to keep track of.  :-)  I totally missed Polly's 3rd birthday a few days ago.  I'm a horrible aunt-- her middle name is after me, for heaven's sake!  Does it count that I actually bought her a present a week ago, but haven't made it to the post office?  I'm thinking not since I didn't actually acknowledge her on her birthday.  And then today Naomi called me and I chatted with her for 20 minutes before hanging up and realizing that today is CiCi's first birthday!  (I have a present for her, too, but still how crummy of me not even to mention CiCi's birthday to my sister.)
SO, with that on my mind, I finally finished editing the pictures I took of Naomi and her family when they were here just after Christmas.  Here are a few of them in honor of my sweet and wonderful nieces.

As you can see, I have lots of adorable pictures of CiCi, and only 2 adorable pictures of Polly.  This is because CiCi couldn't walk at the time of those pictures, and Polly could.  In fact, Polly could run, and fast.  And she didn't particularly like getting her picture taken (especially after being awakened early from her nap, which we had to do the day we took family pictures at the park).  Therefore, the only adorable picture I have of Polly by herself, is when she was fast asleep, confined to her carseat.  There are limitations to child photography when the photographer is trying to shoot from a wheelchair.  :-)
Nonetheless, I love these two little girls and their mom.  I wish I could transplant them about a thousand miles closer to us.

2.  Our first Friday of our new schedule was a bit of a bust.  Joseph and Brigham had orthodontist appointments in the morning, which took a while and threw everything off.  Then Mosey got really involved doing a clay project and was very unhappy when it was time to go to the park for the homeschool park day I'm going to try to attend more often.  He was grumpy the whole way there, the whole time there, and the whole way back.  Sometimes I feel like I can't win!  He cries that every day is the same, but when we do something wild and crazy like go to the park during our normal school hours, he doesn't want to go!  :-)  It was a fun park, though.  Brigham immediately shimmied up the first suitable climbing tree he encountered, and perched on one of the branches to read his book.  Joseph found the creek and spent a very happy hour and a half exploring and finding fossils and scaling the limestone cliffs on the other side of the creek to find old golf balls that had been lost from the adjacent golf course.  We'll have to go back another time when Mosey is less grumpy.

3.  The Elders Quorum Moving Company has another move this weekend.  Ben, being the Elders Quorum president, is also the de facto Elders Quorum Moving Company Manager and therefore has to be at every one of the Elders Quorum Moving Company moves.  So he was out on a "job" tonight, and will be out on a "job" for several hours tomorrow.  I have a lot of passionate feelings about the appropriateness of the Elders Quorum Moving Company and the unrequited demands it puts on the precious time of not only the Elders (especially the EQP), but also the families of those Elders and EQP's.  But I'm too tired to revisit that emotional quagmire right now, so I'll leave it at that.  At least Ben was able to take Mosey along tonight.