Weekly letter for February 12

Hi Family,
Another week has ended (or started, whichever way you like to look at it).  The last few Mondays have been kind of rotten, so I'm really hoping to buck the trend tomorrow.  We'll see.
I am feeling singularly uninspired for my weekly letter tonight.  This last week was pretty average.  School, practicing, lessons, chores, laundry, errands.  Etc., etc., etc.  (Mosey was talking one time and at the end of a sentence said, "Eckt, eckt."  It took me a minute to figure out he was trying to say "et cetera, et cetera," he just hadn't made the connection between the abbreviated "etc." and the full "et cetera."  Funny.)
Monday was a hard day.  I found myself in tears, begging the boys to just sit down and do their math!!  They were pretty shocked by that and were cooperative with math for most of the rest of the week.  :-)  We had our normal lineup of school lessons, TKD, flute, and speech.  Mosey had a much better time at speech and has decided he wants to keep going.  Joseph's decided to stay with his teacher for the time being, so we are maintaining the status quo.
We had our first cub scout meeting at our house on Tuesday.  We did a bunch of requirements on the flag-- learning the history of the flag, how to fold it, how to lead different kinds of flag ceremonies, and how to properly treat and retire flags.  Only 3 kids came because a lot of people were out of town for a long weekend (some sort of teacher in-service days or something like that-- I'd like to schedule a few of those for myself!).  I hope I will be good at this calling.  It's a bit hard for me to keep up physically with a bunch of 8 and 9 year old boys.  :-)
On Wednesday night Mosey tested for (and passed!) his Tae Kwon Do green belt.  And then I totally forgot about the belt ceremony on Friday night.  :-(
Thursday was regular lessons in the morning and art in the afternoon.  I got to hang out with the 3 and 4 month old babies of two of the moms in our art group.  I wish one of them were mine.  :-)  Mosey had cello in the evening.  He's doing really well in cello, and I like his teacher a lot. 
Friday was an OK day.  A pretty good day except for the 30 minutes that Mosey decided to run away from home.  I did find him, he hadn't gone far and didn't intend to.  But situations like those are when I really curse my physical disabilities.  And really question my parenting skills.  I got my hair cut in the afternoon and thought about how much the boys need haircuts.  It didn't happen this weekend, though.
Saturday was busy.  I took Joseph to archery early in the morning (he is awesome!  I'm going to start calling him Robin of Locksley).  After we got home, I took Mosey to Walmart from to try to find a Nerf gun he's been fantasizing about ever since Tuesday night when we did a quick Walmart run while Joseph and Brigham were at scouts.  The gun wasn't there and Mosey went home disappointed.  As soon as we got home, I took Brigham to horseback riding from.  This involved some drama-- Brigham doesn't like to ask for help, and his teacher had left in him the lurch with his horse after his lesson, leaving Brigham to figure out how to put the horse blanket back on the horse, how to put the halter on this particular horse who is really tall, and really didn't want the halter put on, and how to find the elusive "pasture 3."  I know how Brigham feels-- I hate asking questions that betray some lack of ability or knowledge on my part.  But after the blanket fell off the horse, the halter fell off the horse, and the horse ran away (without a halter or lead rope), I hope Brigham learned that sometimes it's better to ask for help or clarification to begin with, rather than risking things getting out of hand later.  Meanwhile, I was no help whatsoever since I had gone out to the van to wait for him while he put the horse away (which normally takes only a few minutes).  I felt so bad for him when I finally found him crying after more than 45 minutes of frustration trying to put this horse away.  I attempted to make things better for him with a stop at Sonic for a banana pineapple shake.  Anyway, once home (not till 3:00 PM!), I took Mosey to Walmart AGAIN (a different Walmart) to try again to find the nerf gun.  Success this time and he's been driving us crazy with those little foam bullets flying every which way ever since.  Then I cam home, did laundry and then took the boys to see War Horse (good movie!).  It was long, though, and we weren't home until 10:00 PM at which point everyone had to get ready for bed.  After I shooed the last reluctant boy up the stairs to bed, I went to the grocery store, barely finishing in time to make my purchases before the Sabbath started at 12:00 AM.  I got home after midnight and spent the next 2 hours putting groceries away and straightening up the house for Sunday.  I need another weekend day.
Today was a good Sunday.  I'm back in Gospel Doctrine and Relief Society now that I'm not a primary teacher.  And someone came to sit next to me in Relief Society, so I was happy.  After church I took a nap and then got dinner ready for a couple of people from our ward who came to dinner.  The laundry I did yesterday afternoon is still sitting (clean and dry) in laundry baskets in the laundry room where they may stay until next weekend, but I'm going to try to ignore them and go to bed.

That's it, everyone.  No pictures this week.  This next week I am making it a goal to have a least a few pictures worth looking at.  My camera is getting dusty on my desk.

Love,
Gabrielle