rodeo and other weekending.

jb got back on monday and we were all pretty excited to have him home.  although, i have to say, i think the kids and i did surprisingly well (for the most part) during our five day solo tour.  emme and i are having our share of battles here and there these days.  she's super defiant and even though i KNOW it's totally a three year-old thing, i hate battling with her and losing my temper.  anyway.  we had our share of head-butting over the five days, but mostly we had a jam-packed time with lots of fun in there.

i took the kids to central market after school on thursday, then to luby's cafeteria with nanny mandy/justin/amelia after school on friday.  emme loves going through the line and picking stuff out - and she especially loves the cheesecake.  ha.  saturday morning we went to cafe java (as usual) for breakfast and then braved the pouring rain to hit up the rodeo.  because it was so yucky outside, there were hardly any other people at the rodeo, which was awesome.  ek rode a pony for the first time ever (adorable) and we got to pet baby goats, calfs, deer, and a baby alpaca.  the carnival part looked like lots of fun, but a lot of the rides were closed because it was so wet.  this turned out to be kind of a blessing because ek was a little too little for most of the rides (especially the caterpillar roller coaster she reeeeaaaaallllly wanted to ride).  i promised we would go back next year with another adult so she'd be able to ride more stuff.

she (especially) was not thrilled to leave the rodeo, but i finally got her in the car and back home.  both kidlets took good naps then we went for a little walk in the stroller and headed back to central market for some playground time.  sunday was another cafe java breakfast, followed by an attempt at kite-flying in the park by our house.  the wind was crazy strong, so ek was a little scared to hold the string.  we spent most of our time on the slides - hollis is all about climbing to the very top of any play structure available to him.  after nap on sunday, we packed a picnic and went to brentwood park to meet several of ek's school friends for more kite flying.  the wind was still crazy, so it was a little overwhelming/tiring, but super super fun.  hollis mostly wanted to eat all the snacks.  after the park, we went with addie and her parents to a new tex mex restaurant for some fish tacos and headed home tired and full.

of course the house isn't as clean as it could be and i didn't complete 90% of the projects i was hoping to start/work on, but i loved my solo time with the kids and they were really so so good.