It's been fun having Benjamin here. One of my favorite things about being one of the oldest of a bunch of kids, is seeing each of my siblings turn into an adult. Suddenly I have a whole new friend. Sometimes, as a married woman, I do miss the friendship of other males. Ben and I have couples friends, of course, but it's not exactly the same thing. That is why it is so great when my brothers get old enough to really be my friends. I'm looking forward to the same thing when Abraham gets home from his mission in a year.
Benjamin is great with my boys, and has been so helpful. I really wish I had a full-time assistant, it is so nice. He helped Brigham with math yesterday, helped Joseph with his piano theory today, listened to "Bass Mechanic" about 45 times with Moses this evening while I took the big boys to piano lessons (that's his current favorite song-- a couple of weeks ago it was "Duel of the Fates" from Star Wars), and has provided Ben and I some quality adult conversation. I've been quizzing him on his methodical, scientific efforts in finding a wife (I'm kidding, I just like to tease him), and probably scaring him off of ever wanting to have kids (again, I'm kidding, he will be a great dad, my boys like him better than me).
I'm not-so-subtly trying to nudge him toward possibly coming to Texas after he graduates. :-)
In this effort, we've been trying to do some fun Austin stuff. We went to Barton Springs today (but didn't swim-- I really wished the boys had brought their swimming suits when we got there, it was so hot!), and then toured the Capitol building where Benjamin had the pleasure of physically removing a kicking and screaming 5 1/2 year old from the gift shop when he had a complete melt-down over not being allowed to buy a $6 Texas Wallet (he doesn't even have any money to buy the wallet, let alone any money to put in it!), and then went to Rudy's for a late lunch, where the same 5 1/2 year old announced that Rudy's was his new favorite restaurant (better than Burger King!!!!!), just minutes after whining and complaining that he HATES Rudy's it's the WORST restaurant in the WORLD. (Think someone hasn't adjusted to Central time after being in California for 2 weeks??) The boys have been through the Capitol building several times now, and it was fun to see them kind of giving Benjamin the tour themselves!
Tomorrow morning we're going to see the Texas Propaganda Movie at the IMAX theater at the Texas History Museum (it's not really called the Texas propaganda movie, but that's essentially what it is, I promise if you come see it you'll be all choked up and ready to pack your house up to move to Texas by the time the closing credits come rolling down), and then to Mount Bonnel to see the views of downtown and the 360 bridge over the Colorado River, then to County Line for dinner and catching turtles from the lake, and then hopefully to see the bats fly out from under Congress bridge.
Friday is the boys' birthday party and Benjamin will be here to help me shop for that in the morning, and then help Ben wrangle the kids in the evening.
I feel like a bit of a loser with the boys' party. They haven't had a birthday party since they turned 5. And that one was an awesome party, pirate themed, on the beach in Miami, with a whole bunch of kids. They got nothin' last year or the year before. And this year, we're just doing a backyard swim party. No theme, no games, at least, nothing that I've planned yet. I didn't even make any cool invitations, I just sent emails out to the boys' moms. AND, since it's the last weekend before school starts, I think there are several people out of town on last-hurrah vacations. So only 4 other boys are showing up. I think Brigham and Joseph probably won't care, but I am feeling major guilt for not making more of an effort to cultivate outside friendships over this past year. We have a few homeschooling friends, and a few church friends, but I've done a totally lousy job in having friends come over, and in maintaining their friendships from elementary school. I feel awful. I'm really going to do better this year. Next year they will have an AWESOME party with TONS of friends. Probably not, but I can tell myself that anyway. I guess these are the pitfalls of homeschooling.
Anyway, I'm enjoying my last couple of days of having 2 seven year olds. Time goes way too fast.
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I totally remember the Pirate themed party and thought you were the coolest ever to come up with it. You are also brave to even think about having more than two kids at the party. The only "parties" we have had were only cake and a few presents and one friend and his baby sister. You kids are so lucky to have a cool mom.
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