Back to School!

Yesterday was the first day of school.  Hooray!  Two out of our six girls was excited about, two were not, one was crushed, and one didn't have a clue.  I know, it sounds crazy, doesn't it?  School starting in JULY??  I made the mistake, when we first got here, of calling it year round school, when in reality, it is called a modified traditional schedule.  Which, in my mind, translates to....year round.  The kids start in late July, have 2 weeks off in October, 3 weeks off in December, 2 weeks off in March, and then get out in early June.  They also still have the usual breaks: Labor Day, Veterans' Day, Thanksgiving, Spring Break.  So, they get the same amount of school days, but more frequent breaks.  As a mom, I love it!

Anyway, yesterday, Brianna became a high school junior, Brittany became a sophomore, and Abby and Emma joined the world of kindergarten.  We've been preparing for kindergarten for a few weeks now.  The girls helped me make their lunch bags:

They picked out the fabric, and helped me push the sewing machine "gas pedal".  Katie's is on the left, although she's not going for another year.  I have the fabric cut for a fourth one too, and will finish it soon.

Sunday night, I remembered that I hadn't made any kind of ID tags for them.  When Brianna started kindergarten, I made her some tags from Shrinky Dinks.  Remember them?  You draw and cut out special plastic, put them in the oven, and melt them down.  I happened to have some in the Craft Room (aka garage), so I made these:

This picture is before baking them.  Brittany came in and saw me, so she asked for a hippo, which is in the lower left corner.

Here they are, after baking and finishing:

Emma's,

Abby's,

and Katie's.

I like how they came out, and they were surprised the next morning.  I'm dreading the day they no longer think these kinds of things are cool!

My sister-in-law contacted us and told us that there is a German custom of giving the kids bouquets of flowers on the first day of school, and asked us to do that, from her.  Therry, here are cards I put on their bouquets:

And here are the girls, coming down for breakfast, and finding their flowers:

By this time, Brittany was ready for school.  Here is one of the few pictures I got of her.  You can see she is doing the typical high school girl thing:  texting her friends to see who's going to be there this early!

We managed to get a picture of Brianna and Madison too.  Brianna wasn't quite ready for school yet, and it's not a great picture, but it is getting increasingly difficult to get a camera into the same room as her!

Here are Abby and Emma, waiting to get into the car.  See how Abby's arm is around Emma?  That pretty much tells her their day went!

Katie, modeling her "back to school" outfit.

Waiting to go see the classroom.

Emma putting on her name tag.  See that folder?  That was 1/2 of MY homework last night.

Abby, putting on her name tag, and the other half of MY homework.

By the time we left, they were already poking around, finding out what is in a kindergarten classroom.  Don had to call them over to say goodbye to us!  They stuck pretty close to each other, but had no problem separating from us, which is a good thing.  OH!  I guess you can tell from the pictures, but they are in the same class, which kind of surprised us.  We had been told at registration that it was standard practice to split twins up.  I'm not sure why they didn't, but we had 2 of a very small group of kids that was not upset yesterday.  I think it helped that they had each other. 

After leaving them, Don and I went home.  Don took the day off, so while he stayed with Madison,

Katie and I dropped off Brianna.  Katie had a hard time with the fact that she didn't get to go to kindergarten too, so I took her to the local bagel shop, just the two of us.  I let her pick a doughnut (pink, green, and white sprinkles), and got her an apple juice.  A bagel with cream cheese and vanilla latte for me, and we were ready for our "breakfast date".  When we got home, I did my "homework", and then Katie and I worked in a numbers workbook until it was time to pick the girls up.

The report for the day was that school is fun.  Abby and Emma played on the playground together, and ate snack together.  They didn't make any new friends yesterday, but are going to soon.  They heard a story about a raccoon who was going to school, and then drew their hands, to leave with me, so I wouldn't miss them while they were gone each day.  Their teacher (Mrs. B.) gave them each a hand shaped cookie, to take home and share with someone they loved.  I think it's going to be a great year!  As for the older girls, they both got to school on time, some classes with some friends, although not enough friends in other classes.  Neither one of them had much to report, so I'll assume that's a good thing!

P.S.  Katie cried today, when we left the girls at school.  When we got home, I had her help me cook dinner:  Baked Penne with Meat Sauce.  Here are a couple pictures of her helping me.

Grinding pepper into the sauce.

Boy, this thing is loud!