Back to School and First Days

Back to school night was a success. I am following in my mom's PTA footsteps. I loved having my mom involved in the PTA and at school and she was always in the know. So I am on the PTA board this year.
We changed up Back to School night this year. It was more of a carnival/block party. There were games, a scavenger hunt, crafts, face painting and then of course all of the PTA tables for signing up and t-shirt sales.

The kids all have friends in their classes, yay!

The next day the big kids got on the bus and went to school. It will be a fun year having all my kids at the same school. Such a momentous year. When the minis were newborns I remember thinking about how cool it would be when they were in kindergarten and then the others were 2, 4, 6 grades. It seemed so far away. Now fast forward and here we are to THE YEAR.
Here are the official first day of school pics:
Jameson-6th -Mrs. Frangia
(James doesn't need glasses but he likes wearing these fake ones for fun) James finally has his best friend McKay in his class after 6 years. Glad it finally worked out!

Lynnlee-4th-Mrs. Searle
Lynnlee loves her teacher and has her best friend in class so it doesn't get better than that.

Kaden-2nd-Miss Youd
Since I'm writing this weeks later I can add this detail....my mom was watching my kids one day and she asked Kaden about his teacher. He said, "She has red hair and she's pretty!" He is loving his class and it's starting off to be a much better year than last year.

The minis and I went to Waffle Love after the big kids left. I thought they would be more sad to have everyone gone but they didn't mind.

The hardest part for the minis is that they had to wait a whole week for kindergarten to start. They kept asking when they got to go to school. So we made paper chains to count down to kindergarten.

First day of kindergarten:

Sienna-kindergarten-Mrs. Duvall
We decided to put them in different classes for many reasons. First, in preschool they depended a lot on each other instead of learning and doing it for themselves. Second, they are so silly together and sometimes have a hard time behaving because they are so comfortable together. Third, we want them to be individuals with their own friends and experiences. Fourth, I talked to many teacher and read many articles and they all advised to put them in separate classes.

Taggart-kindergarten-Mrs. Bowen

Bus stop pics:

The minis were nervous for school but so excited that they had no problem getting on the bus. Lynnlee made sure they got to the kindergarten gate and in line with their class. Lynnlee is a good motherly sister. Kaden and James are early birds so they go to school an hour and a half earlier. It works well having Lynnlee be a later gator and going the same time as the minis.

We have a lot of kindergartners in our neighborhood. So it's funny because Taggart has Sienna's friends in his class and Sienna has Taggart's best friend in his class.

I was emotional when they got on the bus but also very excited to have made it to this day. Raising twins is no easy task. I was looking forward to my few hours of freedom but unfortunately James was home sick on the minis first day (Tuesday). Then on Wednesday Kaden woke up with a cough and stuffy nose, Lynnlee had pink eye and James was still home with tummy troubles. So the minis went to school and the "big" kids were home. Thankfully Lynnlee and Kaden were good and ready to go back the rest of the week. James was home the rest of the week. Thankfully he is old enough and doing well enough that I went to the temple Tuesday and Friday.

I just love the temple so much! I have always loved temples and once I could get myself there (in college) I went weekly. Marshall and I worked in the temple before we had James. It was hard after having kids to get to the temple. Now that my kids are getting older it is getting easier to go and I love it. I read the book Covenant Keepers by Wendy Watson Nelson. I decided to take on her 21 day challenge. So for the next twenty-one days I will be going to the temple as much as possible and also doing family history as much as possible. It's so amazing how much better my day went on Friday after going to the temple. It's so cool how much you can accomplish when you give a few hours to do the Lord's work. So I'm really excited to see how the next three weeks go.