first two weeks + labor day holiday.

whew. time is just rolling on by over here at our house. the school year is off to a good start, i think. there are definitely things i'm hoping will change/shift, but i'm trying to just be patient and positive. emme seems to be adapting well and hollis is much less traumatized than i expected without having ek at the same school as him all day.

the weekend after school started, jb headed up to dallas to see the coldplay concert with his mom and brother. they were there for three nights and got to catch a rangers game, eat some fancy sushi, and see the concert, so i'd say it was a successful trip. my mom was able to get a ride in that weekend, so she and i got to hang with the kids solo and that was super fun as well. we saw pete's dragon, did lots of puzzles, went out for dinner and ice cream, and generally had a great weekend. mom left on monday, so she even got to walk emme to school, which was fantastic.

i am taking care of all the animals at ek's elementary school, which is a huge job, but one that i am loving. i have always had mammals as pets, so it's been fun to learn about the parrots and hermit crabs and snakes and turtles. we have had some animal trauma this year - we lost a rabbit right before the summer, and all the chickens got mauled and killed by something the first weekend of the school year. i was lucky that mom was in town to hang with the kids while i went to clean it all up (i had an amazing neighbor who helped me so much), but it was really devastating. i really love animals and i hate to see any creature suffer. justin fixed the coop up last week, so hopefully we will get some new hens soon.

emme has also been letting me play with her hair lately which is really fun. it's so long and easy to mess with. i love it.

other than that, we are just plugging along. we did all sorts of fun things for labor day weekend - swimming and birthday parties and dinner with friends - and we are working on exhibiting gratitude and also not flipping out when it's time to leave. well, mostly emme is working on that. sigh. parenting is hard sometimes.