the roller coaster of dread

it must have started at back to school night/meet the teacher day last week. i don't know exactly. all i know is that i changed. my stomach was a wreck (and it wasn't from food choices). i was impatient. mean. on edge. it's wasn't pretty. i've never been "excited" about my kids going back to school...but this year there were a lot of added emotions because of how HARD last year was with lincoln.

i think stepping foot back in that school (that we LOVE!) brought back a lot of HARD emotions from last year and sent me into a tailspin. i just CAN'T go through what we lived through last year. i, of course, didn't really realize it was happening until things were already pretty ugly. but i did use WORDS (yay, courtney!) with pat and asked him for some time on sunday...i asked him to take the kids away so i could have some time. that is huge for me. i don't ask for help - even from pat. (and i even had to "re-ask"...because he forgot...and we got home from church and i could tell he forgot and i seriously was about to have a panic attack...but instead i reminded him and he took the kids!)

they had fun - went to the farm. got root beer floats.
i cried. and updated the budget. and blogged. and read. i could have used about 5 more hours (or days!) but i was thankful.

monday was our last day of summer. it was full. i ran. pat got together with some friends for breakfast. the kids did chores. we studied "Peter" together...

we rode our bikes and got "fun drinks" before we rode back home...

it was sawyer's first REAL bike ride on his bike - 8 miles! he did great!

spent the afternoon doing the final details for the first day of school...lunches...

and setting expectations...

 ate an early dinner. and then sawyer had his first soccer practice!! he was so excited he had his cleats and shinguards on HOURS before!

it was adorable.

he was a hot, sweaty mess by the time it was over.

came home, the boys got haircuts, and off to bed for school tomorrow!!