Ben is currently in Texas again, for a meeting about the homeowners insurance venture his company is diving into. He left yesterday morning (early-- 5:30 and he didn't miss his flight!), and will be back tonight probably 9:00 or so. Not a long trip, thank goodness. Last night was whine-city for the boys. All three of them. But they all three woke up really happy today, so hopefully it is out of their system. It's hard on them when Ben is gone, though.

We've had a cool couple of days. Cool enough for long pants and long sleeved shirts, anyway. It is a nice change and I'm enjoying it. Not too cold that I can't send the kids outside, though! Monday and Tuesday there was no school for the boys (MLK day and teacher prep). I'm trying to think what we even did. On Monday we had some shopping to do, groceries, Target, Sam's Club. On Tuesday we had the Curtis girls over (plus Melissa this time) which was fun, but crazy.

After dinner on Tuesday we went to the Pines Mall because Ben needed to buy some new pants and there was a sale going on at JC Pennys. I took the boys aroundl the store while Ben was trying stuff on. We rode up and down the escalators twice, and the big boys got on and off by themselves! It is a tricky thing for little kids to learn, and a little scary. We went up to the children's department and the big boys admired the Spiderman and Batman pj's. We passed a display of stuffed animals and Joseph told me to stop, that he was going to scare me. He came out from behind the display with a stuffed tiger and let out an enourmous, "ROOOOAAAARRRRR!!!!" which must have startled half the store. Of course this got the other two boys interested and soon I had 3 boys roaring at me with various stuffed animals. Mosey wanted to join in the fun but he didn't really get the idea that you are supposed to choose a ferocious animal to go along with the ferocious sound effects. I got roared at from behind a pink stuffed doggy and a squishy green fishy.

On the way back downstairs we went through the women's intimate apparel department. I'm sure it won't be too long before my boys would rather go to the dentist than walk with mom through displays of bras and panties but for now they have no notion that this is something to be embarassed about. Instead they happily pointed out to me the items they liked the best. "Look at this beautiful bra, mom!" "Mom, this one has flowers!" On the way out Brigham asked me why girls like to wear beautiful undies. Hmm... I guess for the same reason little boys like to wear superhero undies! Superhero undies make little boys feel strong and powerful and beautiful undies make girls feel pretty and delicate. And so the gender-based socialization continues... Back downstairs we admired the jewelry ("jewels") and I gave each boy a squirt of cologne. They were pretty excited about that and when we met back up with Ben they each wanted him to see how nice they smelled. In fact, yesterday they asked me if they could wear some of dad's cologne to school! Oh, and they want their hair to be gelled and combed, too. There is a little boy in their class, Peter, who they tell me always has hair that is wet and combed really beautiful. So today they went off to school all slicked down (but no cologne).

Oh, I forgot one of the most important news items of the week! On Sunday after church I went to the nursery to get Mosey. Ben had already picked him up, but while I was there, Julie Trapnell, a dental wife, stopped me. She asked me if I liked to read and I answered that yes, I love to read. Then she said that she's in a little book club with some other girls in the ward and wanted to know if I'd like to go. Oh my gosh, I think I was just invited to be in the exclusive dental wives book club!!!!! I've told you about this book club before, right? The really really exclusive one?? Well, you could have blown me over with a feather right then and there. Not knowing what else to say I told her that it sounded like fun, and what book are they reading this month? Anne of Green Gables, apparently, which fits in perfectly with the dental wives book club. On the way home I joked with Ben that I guess I must be skinny enough now to qualify to be in the dental wives country club. I'm not entirely sure if I will go to the book club, all joking aside. I'm pretty busy and not necessarily looking to vastly expand my social circle, if you know what I mean. On the other hand, it would probably be a really good way to network my photography business. How grasping and selfish is *that* of me?

All right, that's enough for the day. I just got back from getting the boys from preschool and I gotta get some stuff done.