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.

fourth of july.

fourth of july was super fun this year. hollis's class had a parade/party celebration; we had our neighborhood parade, complete with bagels and lox at the bowmans; and we rounded out the actual day with another neighbor party and an evening at the koens. the kids loved sparklers, but the louder fireworks were not a hit this year. it was also a pretty exhausting day - three blow-outs is a lot to cram into one day, especially for the 10-and-under crowd.

the rest of june.

the rest of june is pretty much a blur at this point. probably because it was almost two months ago. woops. anyway. there was a lot of swimming, some breakfast dates, a finding dory adventure (which ended with an epic hollis meltdown, but let's not dwell on these things), some brownie baking, and about a million trips to central market.

cousin visit and work trip.

after school got out, we had a visit from the colorado cousins - justin's brother and his family. the kids absolutely adore each other and they all play together really well, so it was super fun to watch them all play so hard. i took pitifully few pictures, but it was a great weekend. we ate a lot - salt lick bbq, lick ice cream, chuy's for mexican food, i made jambalaya one night - and did some swimming and slip n sliding too. rose and i even snuck away for a quick yoga class.

the following week, in mid-june, i had to head to california for work for the whole week. i hate being away from my family, but cali was really nice and jb took great care of the kids. i'm pretty sure he wins for most likely to be goaded into getting ice cream or going for a weekday swim...

festival weekend.

last weekend we loaded up and brought the kids to lafayette for festival international. we missed it last year and it was awesome to be back, even though it was the most crowded i have ever seen it. the kids had a blast there, although i think the highlights of the trip for them were popsicles for breakfast, hanging with kk & jj & joe joe, and going to the dollar tree. jb and i even got to slip out friday and saturday night to see some music and peruse the crafts. we loved the bach lunch on friday, making masks at the children's area, jb and hollis dressed as twins, and squeezing in a nap during cedric watson. other than the insane rain we hit while driving back through houston, it was a fantastic trip!