Beginning of a New School Year

Well, we've reached the end of Summer Break and are officially in our Back to School time! I've been looking forward to taking the kids out for shopping and scheduling haircuts, especially for Pierce because we had just been letting his grow all Summer and it is quite long!

We did our shopping with Mom back on the 3rd, which was fun. They didn't really need  anything, but we still found some good stuff (we did Wal Mart, which was new for us, but I love their deals and their clothes are really nice quality lately). I even ended up finding things for me (including an outfit for family pictures I'd like to have scheduled at the end of October). The girls were all obsessed with getting Minecraft backpacks. Lucy didn't need one so I got her a Minecraft lunch box. Gwen ended up settling for a cute pink sparkle backpack, and Cara's we had to order online because every store was out of them already (no real surprise though).

Cara's new backpack

Gwen's new backpack

I scheduled their haircuts for the 12th, at Sharkey's, of course. Although I told Larry I may not do that anymore. The girls just get trims, Pierce gets a full shaved head (usually with a cute style, but we don't NEED to do that) and it ends up being over $100. Granted, the girls get cute style stuff put in their hair and a mini manicure with a ring, and they get to pick out balloons and suckers at the end, but it just seems so pricey for simple things. 

The girls just got trims, so this is the most 
Dramatic before and after to show off

We had the back to school night on the 11th (for the older girls). We got to sit and listen to Cara's new A.L.L. teacher talk about how his class will be different than what Cara was previously used to. He mentioned he wants them to read 40 books this year (which is about 1 a week) and when I told Cara that she looked a little worried/nervous so I was trying to reassure her she could do that so easily when she said "Forty? I can do more though right?" haha. The girl LOVES to read! Larry had to go meet Gwen's teacher while I stayed at that since they were about at the same times, but I hear her teacher is really nice. 

Cara and Gwen started school on the 13th, Lucy had to do her Kindergarten testing that week (she didn't start until the 19th) so I took her to do that. We found out that week that she got the same Kindergarten teacher that Cara had! Because she started later, her back to school night was on the 18th and it was so sweet when the teacher saw Cara and immediately recognized her. She said Cara would constantly stop by and say hi to her whenever she could. Cara was happy she remembered her.

No idea why I put 2nd grade on her board
She definitely started 3rd grade!

We definitely made sure to go out on the 13th for a family treat to celebrate. we picked froyo, of course! That's a family favorite for us. 

We also decided, completely last minute, to sign Pierce up for Preschool. We registered him late so instead of starting on the 21st, like all other Preschoolers, he started today. He did NOT love the idea of going when we first signed him up and I was SO nervous how drop off would go. I assumed he'd be excited, but he wanted NOTHING to do with it. I even thought he'd like to drive by it to see the playground he'd get to play on, but the night we planned to do that, it he fought so hard just getting in the car (I assume he thought we were taking him right then). We decided the day of we'd call it the play place instead of school, he still said he didn't want to go, but he wasn't fighting AS bad. He ended up being okay with going the day of. He actually walked out of the house on his own and climbed into the car without any issues. He also kept asking if there was going to be a play kitchen for him. When I took him in to check the room out (it's in a relocatable) and he saw they did have a play kitchen, he ran right to it and didn't care about me one bit. He even did great at Pick Up for Larry and the teachers said he did so good and had fun. He was even excited when we drove past the school later that night (on our way to soccer practice) and we pointed out "Bubba's School", he got a little smile! I'm just so glad he's transitioned so well so far!

We've found doing drop offs and pick ups at 3 different schools is a bit chaotic, but we've got a good rhythm to it so far. We also know that Lucy doesn't like school lunches. She says they are yummy, but she can't eat it all in the time she has and she doesn't like throwing it away (if she doesn't finish a home lunch she can just bring it back home to finish). We still make her do pizza Fridays so she can get used to eating quicker and maybe she'll want more later. 

After all the changes we've had the last couple weeks, I'm so glad I'm able to take the first week off of work to make sure we figure things out and I can take care of the last minute things we didn't know would come up. It's been SUPER helpful! I'm also glad the the kids are taking to the change of going to school so well, all seem to like going so far. Lets hope that continues throughout the school year.