02/26/12 family letter

Hi everyone,
Can I really write a 5-minute letter?  Probably not, but I have to try.
The past two weeks have been good, but busy.  I'm trying to update my blog more often, so if you want details, you can always go there.
Yesterday was an especially busy day.
1.  Brigham had horseback riding lessons at 10:00, which means we had to be there by 9:30, which means we had to leave by 9:15 AM.
2.  On the way back we stopped at Walmart for a baby shower gift and chicken for a main dish we needed to bring to a ward activity that night.
3.  I went to the baby shower for a woman in our ward who is giving birth to her first child at age 49!  (She has 3 other children they adopted.)  She is a good friend and has done so much to help me, so I was excited to go, although normally I don't really love baby showers.  I've bowed out of 3 others over the past several weeks.  I don't suffer the kind of extreme emotional distress that I did before I had my boys, when I wasn't sure if I'd ever have children, and I have absolutely zero negative feelings for anyone having babies.  But I do get to feeling a little bit sad-- enough that I'd rather not spend 2 hours playing games and trying to act really happy.  Give me a few years and I'll probably get over it.  :-)
4.  I went to a ward activity that Ben was in charge of.  It was a fun pot-luck game night where everyone switched tables between courses, playing different get-to-know-you type games, so that by the end of the night, everyone had the chance to spend time with several people they didn't know well.  It was a smashing success.  I'm so glad-- it was the first big ward-wide activity that we've had in a while, and the first one at the church since I really can't remember when, and I know Ben was feeling the pressure.  I have to take some credit since the idea was all mine.  :-)
5.  I dropped the boys off and went to the grocery store, a Saturday-night ritual for me.  I got back at 10:30 PM, then spent a couple of hours putting groceries away and picking up the house.
6.  It was a long day!

Other things of note:
This weekend I might have hit a new low in my personal history of laundry.  Somehow I ended up with NINE loads of clean laundry to fold today.  NINE.  I only got to 5 of them, and now that this week has begun, I probably won't have a moment to think about it until next weekend.  Laundry is my least favorite household chore. 

Last weekend Julie Beck came to Austin to speak for our stake women's conference.  It ended up being broadcast to all the stakes in the central-Texas area, but we were the lucky ones who got to see her in person.  She spoke on Friday night and again on Saturday.  She was great, and it was really fun to get to see her more personal side.  She's a very funny person-- self-deprecating with a dry sense of humor.  I like her even more than I did before (and I liked her a lot before).

The boys had another orthodontist appointment to get spacers put in.  We have to pay a $2,000 deposit at our next appointment.  Our orthodontist bills are just beginning.

The boys and I had a Homeschool Pow-wow on Thursday where we talked about how things are going and how we want the next 14 weeks of school to go.  Things have been feeling a little stale, and I could sense it was time to shake things up.  We'll be doing a 4-day-a-week schedule from now on, and add a few weeks at the end of the school year to make up for it.  To kick it off, we went to our first park day (with one of the area homeschooling associations) in about 2 years.  It was fun-- Brigham climbed trees, Joseph waded in the creek, I got to talk to other moms, and Mosey was grumpy.  After crying every night for the past week that he never gets to do anything fun, and every day is like every other day, I couldn't feel very sorry for him.  He's going through a tough spell right now and Ben and I are a bit flummoxed as to how to deal with him best.  Are his behavior issues because he's not getting enough positive attention?  Because we're too lenient with him and he is spoiled?  Because he's just going through a "phase" that has nothing to do with our parenting at all?  I have no idea.  It's a cliche, but there are surely times when I wish motherhood did come with a manual.  :-)

Well, my 5 minute letter turned into a 22 minute letter, so I better stop now.  The boys want to get up at 6:15 to get one session of practicing done before breakfast.  Which means I need to get up at 5:45, which means it's already too late for me to get 7 hours of sleep tonight.

Happy Birthday to Daddy and CiCi and Benjamin and Polly!  I'm horrible at acknowledging birthdays, but I hope you all know how much I love you, and believe me when I say that I thought about you.

Love,
Gabrielle