Back to School - 2014

Wow, this is a busy time of year! Birthdays and back-to-school.  Tuesday was a busy day with appointments and meet-the-teacher and Yaks had a football scrimmage in another town.  With a busy evening, I thought it best that we have our Back-to-School feast for lunch instead.  One last hoo-rah to celebrate summer.  We had all the favorites:  pepperoni pizza, veggies, fruit, breadsticks and A&W Rootbeer!  Our lunch doubled as our dinner, so it was a win-win on a packed night!

I couldn't get Diddles to stop saying, "COOL!" (school)

Funny faces

The Spread

Cheers to school!

We  met the teachers that evening, and I signed up for another round of Art Docent in the kids' classes. Yaks has the same teacher Boo had last year.  Hooray!  Yaks expressed his concern last week that he  wouldn't understand her because he doesn't speak Spanish (she's originally from Puerto Rico).  Haha!  We did a double-take with that comment.  Yaks!?  She speaks Spanish, but not in class!  A rough moment came when he realized he shared a locker with a kid who is the class "bully", and is prone to violent outbursts at a wrong look (this is here-say).  Yaks' face was ghost white as he was telling us this in the car.  We talked about being assertive, and knowing the teacher will watch out for him, be a friend, etc.

Size 4's!

Boo's teacher is notorious for dishing out the heavy homework load and being a yeller.  She's been anxious for WEEKS leading up to the class assignments being posted.  I think she just wanted to know one way or another.  I decided to just prep her for the scenario by telling her I thought she likely had THAT teacher.  I told her I imagined when they sat down with the student cards to make class assignments, they thought to themselves, "Who is a REALLY great student, who LOVES to work, and is always on-task?  We need those kind of students in this class."  "Boo would be a good choice.  She can do it."  (can you see her proud smile as I was reciting this?)  So, sure enough when she got assigned to that teacher, it wasn't so bad.  I think it will be just fine.

Size 7 in womens!

I'm trying hard to start the day off on a good foot (both for myself and the kids).  Set my alarm and got them a cooked breakfast and lunches packed well ahead of departure.  We read scriptures and had family prayer.  I had the Mo Tab playing in the background to keep things calm.  Hair fixed and teeth brushed, pictures taken and then we hurried up and WAITED.  They were both so anxious to leave, but we still had 30 nervous minutes, so I let them watch a TV show just to get their minds off of the butterflies!  First day is always the hardest.

Diddles and I spent the day at the car dealership, getting our van radiator replaced.  Oh, that sounds familiar?  That's because we had it replaced almost a YEAR ago to the day!  Fortunately it was still under warranty, but we still had to eat the labor and wait for four hours for it to get fixed.  We played with the toys we brought, then took a walking field trip to McDonald's and the $ store.  It was a warm day by the time they called us to pick it up.  I thought Diddles would melt into a puddle, as she dragged her feet saying, "GO AWAY, SUN!"  We would never survive a hot climate.

The older kids had a great first day!  I sat on the porch and waited for them to come up the street at the.  They walked home with the Campbell boys, and I heard them coming before I saw them - lots of excited chatter, which was a good sign.  Boo's favorite part of the day was making get-to-know-you paper snowballs.  They wrote down facts about themselves, then they tossed them at eachother, picked one up and then guessed who it belonged to.  Make sense?  It was fun, I guess.  Yaks' favorite part of the day was "My teacher reads lots of really fun stories, and I really liked that.  She read the story, 'The Monster Who Lost His Mean".  It was SO funny!"