First Day of School

Well, summer break has come to a close and yesterday was the first day back to school!  Summer kinda started off rough for me but I felt like I ended up enjoying the time with my kids, even if we didn't do all the fun things I had in mind.  I forgot how much harder it is to do certain things with a baby in tow! Matt gave all five kids (and me!) blessings on Monday night so we weren't rushing to do it the night before.  I love watching my husband exercise his priesthood in giving my children each a father's blessing to start them off right for school.  Matt always encourages me to ask MY dad for a father's blessing and I look forward to that special opportunity as it doesn't come along as often now that I'm married.

I stayed up pretty late the night before, baking cookies for lunchboxes and making sure everything was set.  Still, the morning ended up being horrible!  I had a fussy, crusty-eyed baby, a kid complaining about soggy breakfast then dumping his bowl in the sink, one kid spilled food down his front so we had to change shirts, I was in a panic trying to come up with a backpack for another kid**, lunches were already a struggle on day 1 since no one will eat the same thing as the next kid and of course I had to take pictures so we left the house a lot later than I wanted to.

Brooklyn and Blake are in fourth grade this year.  Every year school starts, it astounds me that I actually have kids this old!  They're going to be 10 years old in less than 6 months!  When I went to pick up their teacher assignments at the school a few weeks ago, I was shocked that they had placed them in the same class.  I quickly fixed that as they seem to do better in different classrooms.  After meeting their teachers, Matt & I both agree that once again, they were matched well with teachers for them.

 

Gavin is in first grade!  It's the big time because he gets to eat lunch at the school!  I ordinarily would be worried about that transition but Gavin is my third child, therefore I find myself a bit more relaxed than when Brooklyn and Blake started eating lunch away from me (that was in kinder for them), and Gavin is a get-down-to-business kinda guy when it comes to lunch.  The thing I look forward to the most about having Gavin in school all day?  It's not that I want him gone (because we all know he's my favorite child, right Matt?), but being able to run errands and not only having less than a 3 hour time frame to do it in!  Preston and I can go fun places and not have to rush back by 11am to pick someone up.  The teacher he got we absolutely adore and she loves our kids-  all of them!!

What did I do with my nearly 7 hours and only two kids?  Practically nothing!  I just wanted to relax!  Preston enjoyed having free reign of the house.  Poor Hayden wasn't feeling well and you can really tell in this picture with her sad, swollen eyes. 

Everyone was all smiles when I picked them up this afternoon and we saved our annual trip to get ice cream on the first day of school for after dinner when Daddy could join us.  We got Thrifty ice cream from a nearby water & ice store.  Brooklyn and Blake always get the psychedelic cotton candy ice cream, gross!!

  Hayden had her first taste of ice cream!

** I ordered backpacks and lunchboxes for the twins weeks ago and got Gavin a lunchbox, but somehow I neglected the fact that Gavin wanted a Pokemon backpack until the last minute.  I hadn't seen one anywhere in the stores I normally frequent so last week, I found one on Amazon from a private seller (no two-day shipping) and ordered it, praying that it would be here in time.  On Monday, it showed as delivered so imagine my disappointment when it wasn't in my mailbox.  We did, however, receive a package for our neighbor so I was sure there was probably a mixup in delivery. I asked the neighbors if they could check their mailbox, but nada, nor did it show up in my box on Tuesday either. :(  I called USPS and told them it showed as delivered but I had nothing.  I felt like a horrible mom, having to send Gavin to school the first day with Blake's backpack from kindergarten (thank goodness it's held up so well!) as I had gotten rid of the two hand-me-down backpacks he had used for preschool and kindergarten.   He was bummed of course, but took it in stride and I promised his backpack would be here soon.  Thankfully, it came that afternoon and he was able to take it today for the second day of school!

 

A bit obsessed, we are.

 

Hopefully we'll fall back into a groove with our morning and afternoon routines soon.  We're working on making morning scripture study as a family a habit, even if it means waking up 15 minutes earlier.  Every day as I send my kids off into the world with an "I love you,"  I hope that they will have positive experiences at school and be able to make good friends that will influence them to do what is right.