Back to School

Sadly school had to start again:-(  We were way more prepared then last year but still not nearly enough.  The last few days before starting were crazy.  The kids are happy to be back in school though.  Especially Darin! He's our kid that complained that we were in Cancun for too long.  Weird, right?  

He was super happy to get his school schedule and to be the "big man on campus".  A sad fact that he had to remind me of after two days of school.  Actually I feel quite badly about it and he was kind of sad and was like, "Mom aren't you going to say something about this being my last year in middle school?"  Of course after he pointed that out to me I bawled like a baby.

Here he is by the fancy new water fountains in Middle School.  There are automatic bottle fillers.  You just place your bottle on the sensor and water pours from the top, then you take it away and it stops.  My boys thought they were the coolest thing!

 Nathan's schedule was messed up at the schedule pickup because they had placed him in the 2nd year for band and kickstart thinking he had taken both last year.  Sadly he did not take either of them last year so he is in beginner band and the 1st year of Kickstart with a bunch of 6th graders.  We didn't find out until school started that, that means he also has to eat lunch with the 6th graders.  It worked out okay though because he has a friend from church who is also in 7th grade but that has to eat in 6th grade lunch.  I seriously loved that at the schedule pickup when we were talking to the school counselor to change his schedule that my boys both asked her if when she was switching Nathan's class around if she could make sure that Nathan was in Darin's robotics class.  I love that they are such great friends right now!  Unfortunately it didn't work out.  They are both in Robotics but different periods.

Our Rosebud is in 1st grade this year.  We went to meet her teacher Mrs. Dickey.  She seems really sweet, I think her personality will really mesh well with Rose.  Rose was pretty excited to start school too.  She has been working hard all summer on her reading and was excited to show it off to her new teacher.  She is also happy to be a "big kid" because they get to play on the big playground.

 The morning of the first day of school went amazingly well.  Ken and I started our new schedule (sadly, I think that was the only day so far that we did everything we had planned on doing--working out, making breakfast, etc.) Well, minus the shower:-)  Ken and I felt sorely under dressed and stinky taking Rose into Elementary School.  But we worked out and the kids loved their eggs, rice and bacon. Lola even came over and ate breakfast with us.

A friend I grew up with always posts pictures of her children on the first day with their numbers.  I have loved that idea for years and finally remembered to do it!

 Our try at funny faces, never got one with all of them being goofy.

 One last smiley picture.  Man, I love these kids!  They take my breath away!

 So this year we are trying to make physical fitness more routine.  Since we still haven't sold our house we figured that we should start doing the walking/riding bikes to school thing anyway.  One, will get healthier, and secondly we'll find out if it really is a priority for us to move into a neighborhood where we can do that.  When we do move I expect it to save hours of my time everyday.  However since we haven't it is taking up about 2 hours of my day then I would normally spend.

The routine is to drop the boys off at Darin's friend Carson, his mom was Rose's kindergarten teacher last year.  She is totally nice to let our boys park their bikes in her garage.  I must say I'm kind of happy to get their bikes out of my garage.  They bike almost 2 miles to the middle school from Carson's house.

Such cuties!  I can say things like that and get plenty of hugs and kisses because they are used to me embarrassing them in front of Carson:-)

 Ready to ride!

 Carson, Nathan, Darin

 Here's our pretty Rose outside her classroom.  It's sad that Ken and I were giving ourselves props for getting her to school before it started the first day, last year we were 10 minutes late.

 At her desk.

 Ginger didn't start preschool until after Labor Day.  Ken and I were sad after dropping the kids off at school, and Ginger was practically dancing around!  Pretty much everytime we asked her if she was sad, she was like no I'm happy!  It made me kind of upset and I wasn't feeling much like indulging her with my attention.  I figured with her attitude she should do some chores and feel the pain that comes when your siblings aren't around to help you.

She was a good sport and put away the dishes.  She also started helping me with laundry...

I quickly forgave her when she woke up at 10:30am and was desperately asking me if it was time to pick up Rose from school.  After her nap she really missed her sister and asked me every 30 minutes if it was time to go yet.

So along with the boys being physical I am parking half a mile away from the school and me and Ginger are walking up to the school to pick up Rose.  Then we play on the playground for a bit and walk to where I park the car and drive to a nearby park to play until the boys are out of school.  We have about an hour and fifteen minutes to kill between when Rose gets out from school and when our brothers are ready to be picked up.

I learned my lesson after the first day when it was actually fairly beautiful and then totally started raining on our way home.  I decided to never park 1 mile away after this either because the girls started to get pretty tired of walking.  Luckily Texas rain goes away quickly and it turned out okay.

Ginger is in love with her Primary teacher in our new ward.  I was so worried about switching wards for her because me and Ken weren't serving in Primary anymore, but Sister Davenport is terrific!  Ginger loves her and she bugged me about 30 times a day to drop off a birthday present to her Primary teacher.  Ginger was so adamant about the flowers she chose for her teacher.  The florists gave us a screaming deal, I think they just loved cute little Ginger taking nearly an hour to choose and arrangement.  They ended up making a custom arrangement for her and gave us half the flowers for free.  To be honest I was relishing that time with just little Ginger and it made me happy that the other kids were in school.  Ginger ate up all the attention from me and the florists too.  Yep, that would be two florists waiting to see which flower she would choose next!  They just ate her up!  I have to say I love seeing my kids bring such joy to other people too with their cute personalities.  

Finally about a week after regular school started Ginger got to go to her first day of preschool!  I was so proud of her!  Not a single tear.  She promised us that she would go like a big girl and not cry.  It totally helps that she has fabulous teachers, Miss Jeri and Miss Janet.  Ginger goes to preschool for 3 hours twice a week.  It's just the perfect amount of time for me to go and help at Rose's school.

This is Ginger with Miss Jeri and her friend Brynlie.  Ginger  loves preschool so much!  She is begging to go now, which is such a relief.  Ken and I really felt like she needed to go to a school that I wasn't involved in and gain some independence.  We also felt like we needed to give me more of an opportunity to help at Rose's school this year too.  All around it has worked out beautifully!

This is a picture of Ginger with Miss Janet!  I was surprised by how quickly she was taken with Miss Janet because she had never met her before.  Miss Jeri we have known for years.  I think it's because Miss Janet has a really sweet spirit about her and Ginger was drawn to her.