The first day of school. . .

was two weeks ago!  Just a little behind.  Oh well.  I've come to grips with the fact that I will NEVER blog on time, you should too.

The week before school starts they have Meet the Teacher night.  The kids get sent letters in the mail (yes, actual mail!) from their teachers.  They were so excited about this and asked me everyday for a week if their letters had come yet.  They usually don't come until 1-2 days before Meet the Teacher night though.  Their letters finally arrived and the kids were ecstatic.  Maddie's teacher is a new one this year so we had no idea who she was until we met her at the Meet the Teacher night but we all knew exactly who Ryley's teacher was.  One of our good friends had her last year.  Here they are after meeting their teachers for the first time.

Ryley looks thrilled, doesn't he?!  Ha ha ha.  His teacher is VERY nice and a very disciplined and organized lady - EXACTLY the kind of teacher Ryley needs.  He's loving her so far. 

Maddie's teacher is a new one at the school this year but very sweet.  We found out that she actually lives in the house across the street from our old house on Rolling Brook.  Maddie's BFF Cally (remember her from the baptism?) is in her class again.  You should have heard these girls squeal with delight when they found out they were in the same class again.  They have both talked about and been worried about it all summer.  Too cute.

After filling out 20 information sheets in each classroom and divvying up all the school supplies in each we were finally ready to head home.  "But wait, Mom!  I want to go say 'hi' to Mrs. Leslie, and Mrs. Mistretta, and Mrs. Graham, and Mrs. "V"!"  Sheesh - that took another half an hour!  We may have to move next year just so we don't have to add to this list!!

We, of course, had our traditional Father's Blessings on Sunday night.  Cash even got one, which was too sweet!  After seeing Maddie and Ryley get theirs and being SUPER reverent the whole time he jumped up and headed over to our "blessing chair" and said, "My turn Dad."  Awwwww.  This kid is just the cutest.  After his he said, "OK, Mommy's turn!" so then I got one too.  ;)  The kids picked out their outfits for the next day and got into bed early so they'd be ready to get up at 6:30 the next morning.  After sleeping in until 7:30 or so all summer I anticipated this to be a serious problem for Maddie but she was pretty excited and didn't have any problems getting up.  

 

We all got ready to walk to school together.  But first, we had to take a couple pictures!

The traffic on the first day is INSANE to say the least so we usually avoid it all together. 

Cash was so excited to "go to school."  I didn't have the heart to tell him he wouldn't be staying with Maddie and Ryley. 

We saw lots of our friends heading into the school and made our way through the serious crowds to the classrooms.  We dropped Ryley off first.

Is he a handsome little devil or is it just me?  He got right down to business with his morning work and was ready for us to leave ASAP.  I did manage to get a hug and a kiss before he pushed us out the door though.  :)

Then we dropped off Maddie, and I don't have a picture for that!  Grrrr.  She did fine too and after another hug and kiss we were out the door again.   Cash was a little upset when he didn't get to stay but a ride on Daddy's shoulders made it all better.

Cash and I had a nice and almost QUIET day together.  I say almost because this kid does NOT stop asking me questions!  I guess he couldn't get a word in edgewise with Maddie 'round here but the second she's not here - watch out!  By lunchtime I was so ready for him to take a nap.  He's so excited for the kids to come home from school so that he can play with them.  Of course, they are just wiped out by the time they get home that they don't want to do anything except veg for a while.  Maddie is really good about doing something with him though.  Have I mentioned how awesome she is?

So, it's been going well so far.  I think this next week is when they'll really start getting into a regular rhythm and starting homework everyday.  We're also going to start riding our bikes tomorrow.  We just got back from Target getting them some bike locks.  We picked up a new (used) bike for Maddie and one for me and a bike trailer for Cash this weekend from Craigslist so we can start riding them to school.  Josh thinks the kids are old enough to ride by themselves to and from school but I'm not so sure so we'll all ride together in the morning and then I'll ride to get them in the afternoon.  They've been doing really well on our little family bike rides but I'm just too nervous with all the traffic during school hours around here.  Plus Ryley is not known to be the most observant child around.  ;)

In other big news, Cash has moved to a big boy bed!  Sort of.  Actually right now he is napping in his crib since we haven't had a chance to take it down yet but he sleeps in the bed every night and has for 2-3 weeks now!  He's so funny though.  Sometimes he just wants to nap in the crib and on the way to his bedroom for naptime he'll tell me, "Mom, I'm just little today.  I want to sleep in my crib."  Whatever dude.  Just as long as you go to sleep!  He's pretty proud of himself though.  I took some pictures of the first night.

"Wait, Mom!  I will do a scary face for you!"

This kid is such a crack up!

Hope you guys all had a great start to your school year too!