First day of school

Can you believe we sent two kids off to school this year?! Amelia went to first grade and Paul went to kindergarten. It's still hard for me to believe either of them should even be old enough to go to school. Their signs say what grade they are in, the date and what they want to be when they grow up. Paul wants to be a fisherman on the ocean and Amelia wants to be a nurse. I thought I'd try something new this year as a way to document how they change year to year.

I also had started this with Amelia when she started school, taking a picture of her standing in front of the street sign, it's fun each year to see how much taller she is. So I had to continue it with Paul. 

Pretty excited for school!

Getting on the school bus for the first day of Kindergarten. Paul rode the bus home last year from preschool. He LOVES riding the bus. We'll see how long that lasts!!

Both kids are rocking personalized Thirty-One backpacks this year! I let them pick the backpack they wanted, along with what they wanted for their personalization

 Addie and Stella were very excited to see the bus come after school, they missed the big kids during the day! We had to wait outside for the bus to come!

Everyone was so excited after school!

Addie was pretty excited to see her big sister and big brother!

They both had a great first day of school. Paul really loves routine and was more than ready to head to school this year. We have conferences in a few weeks, I can't wait to hear what his teacher has to say. He has the same teacher Amelia had last year, we really like her and I think she's a good fit for Paul. Hard to believe we're already about a month and a half into the school year. I keep saying I'm going to get our blog up to date, but so far I'm failing at that!

Preschool Graduation

 Now that we're on vacation for a week, I'm going to try my hardest to get our blog caught up from the last 2-1/2 months! Paul graduated from Kindergarten Connection (preschool) on May 9th. They sang a few songs with actions and then they had a little graduation ceremony complete with a "stage" to walk across. Paul's teachers were great, he really liked them. Ms. Sandy goes to our church, so he always thought that was cool he got to see her at church too, in addition to at school. Ms. Monique lives on a farm and would always tell the class about her farm animals and one time brought their pet duck "Peep" to school. He always came home with funny stories about things that happened at school or things that Ms. Monique would tell them at school. He's very anxious for kindergarten to start and he reminds me daily that he gets to go to school FIVE days a week, and then he names them all for me. I'm happy he loves school, I just hope it continues!

 Getting his diploma!

 Shaking Ms. Sandy's hand.

 Paul's class

He had a great class, many of these kids were in his ECFE class last year,

it was nice for him to have familiar faces.

 They had a few projects to do after their ceremony.

 Making a clothespin butterfly.

 Planting some flowers with his friend Kaedyn.

 We celebrated after school with cheese and crackers and root beer floats!

 I found this idea for teachers gifts on Pinterest. So I made them for 

Paul's teachers and we tucked a thank you note inside each cup.

Kindergarten Circus

On the 20th of April, the kindergarten classes had their spring program and it was a Kindergarten Circus. The pictures I have aren't very clear, I was too far back and don't have the right lens for my camera to get decent up close pictures, but I got a few pictures anyway. The program was really cute and all of the kids did a really good job, they did actions or sign language to every song they did. I was really impressed with how well they all did.

 Amelia is in the back row, third from the right.

Each class took a turn sitting in front

of the rest of the kids doing something extra special 

for the program.

Amelia did a super job! In the past when she's participated in a program for school, church or preschool, she hasn't always sang along, mainly just watched the other kids and this year she sang every song, did every action right along with all of the other kids. It sure made me proud and even brought tears to my eyes, it made me feel SO good to see the progress she's made in the last year.