Back to School!

The kiddos all headed back to school on Monday, August 29th!  It marked the end of what seemed like a very short summer and in a lot of ways we were very much looking forward to school starting (bored kids!) and yet it meant new schedules, early mornings and more adjusting.  We kicked off the school year with our Back to School bbq to meet the teachers and bring the school supplies.  The kids love this!  We had to do a little divide and conquer to make this work... Steve took Preston and Kaley to Preston's soccer practice and I took Abby and the twins to the bbq and we met up there.  I have a feeling that is what life will look like for us a lot more in the coming future.

Abby has been so excited and ready to start kindergarten so it couldn't come soon enough for her.  We found out just the day before the bbq that Abby's teacher would be Mrs. McMurray, who Preston had for both kinder and first grade.  This made both Abby and Preston really excited.  She is in the "pm" class which is 11:33-2:25 and has two other little girls in her class that are in our ward which has been really fun.  She had a great first day and has been excited to go back each day, which is exactly what we expected.

This cute girl!  I can't believe she is in kindergarten... I only teared up a little bit on the way home!

Preston has complained (something we're struggling with right now) all summer about going back to school.  We have been very anxious about him going back to school because we knew it would bring more complaints, early mornings, and homework.  His teacher is Mrs. Virgin and as it got closer he got a little bit excited.  On the first day he was pumped to go and had a great day which I am so grateful for.  He has really liked his teacher and some of the fun things she does in the classroom.  He has also really enjoyed having Abby at his school.  He likes to be the big brother and help her and feel like he knows whats up.  He goes to school 7:50-2:25 which means really early mornings! Steve walked with him on the first and second day and since then he has been riding his bike, with Steve the first few times and now he rides by himself with Steve driving a ways behind to make sure he's ok.  He has loved this and I think it has helped him be a little more cheerful about going to school.  He also hasn't had barely any homework (two weeks in) which has really helped too.

We are off to a great start in this school year... we are really hoping it's a great year for both of them.  We are grateful for a little bit of quiet during the day where we get to focus a little more on Kaley and the twins.  We were worried that Kaley would have a tough time with her buddies being gone but so far she doesn't seem to mind and loves to go on errands with just Steve or I.  Hopefully things continue to go well!

We celebrated the first day by getting frozen yogurt (with the coupons the kids earned from the summer reading program).  A fun time and then we went for a drive to get check out where a local fire had burned in the foothills not too far out of town.  It was a good day for everyone!