The long weekend

Although both kids have been a challenge for Sydney the past two weeks (to put it mildly), we have been seeing some improvement in their behavior as they settle into their new routine.  Occasionally we get a few moments of this:

and even this:

We’ve also spent some time with David and Lisa and their children.  To kick off our long weekend, our two families joined forces to visit an insect fair at the Lexington Arboretum that was put on by the University of Kentucky’s Entomology Department. Along with the other 200 or so kids there, our kids roamed flower beds looking for bugs, walked paths while armed with flashlights as the evening wore on, and looked at insects, both those that were preserved in cases and those that were roaming boxes or all over their handlers.

The four youngest kids showing off their climbing skills, to be rescued by David when they had had enough:

Katherine and Anna (in braids) watched the giant hissing cockroaches, but neither was interested in holding them.

Both girls did, though, opt for cockroach tattoos when they got their pick later:

Sydney, who initiated this particular adventure, doesn’t know how much of an impression the bugs left on the kids (as opposed to, say, the mini-flashlights they were given), but we’re hoping to build on this experience later.  And I will keep trying to express positive emotions when I see a bug, rather than shriek when I see a moth, like I did in college (thanks, Sarah and Lisa, for rescuing me then!).

Erin