First Day of Kindergarten

It has been a whirlwind few weeks.  We found out three days before the closing date on our house, that once again, the house was not going to be able to come through (remember how I mentioned to not be surprised if it didn't work out?!).  So after starting our home search on Valentine's Day, we gave up trying to work with this crazy market and started looking for rentals.  We moved from Iowa in May and have been in limbo ever since, so it was time to find something! Of course it was insane trying to find something because I had all three kids with me the whole time, and my husband was gone into the hours of the night every day, but I found a place and we love it.  Love the neighborhood, love the splash pad right by us, love the ward, love the schools.  And school started right away...the day before we moved in!

So the day Evelyn had been waiting for her whole life was upon us, and she could not have been more excited.

We went to the school, got a brief tour, got introduced to her teacher and off she went.  It happened so fast that the shock has barely had time to set in, but she is loving every second of it. 

Some more notable things that have happened since the first day of school:

*Evelyn says she has a friend in her class named Kate who is in her church class, her kindergarten class, and rides the bus with her.  Oh, and the best part according to Evelyn...she has BEAUTIFUL hair. It is long and brown and wavy. Yep, we are going to have to scout out this Kate girl. :)

*Blake cried the whole way out of the school the first day.  He did not want to leave Ev there, and pouted the whole way home.  Meanwhile, as soon as we stepped into the school, Addi's eyes just lit up.   She said, "LOOK at all these kids! Mom! When do I get to go to school?! Do I get to wear a backpack?!" She now wears her little backpack everywhere and is yet another kid that is going to have a hard time waiting two whole years.

*When Evelyn was telling me about kids in her class: "There is one boy named Jared...no, Braden...well, let's just call him Jared. I don't actually know what his name is."

*Ev told us,"There are kids in my class, five-year-olds (!), that say bad things!" When I asked her what they say, she said, "They say, 'that boy is stupid' or 'he's dumb.' And so you know what I did? I said, 'Please don't say those mean things...it's not very nice.' and you know what?! They listened to my directions!"  Bossy? Assertive? not really sure.

*The first week of school, it was 111-117 degrees outside. Ev will probably find out what real recess is in September.

*Of course I love my kids, but I had forgotten how much easier it is to go to the grocery store and run errands with only two kids! It's amazing...I actually enjoyed going to Hobby Lobby the other day to get storage baskets, and I was able to take the kids through the Halloween and Christmas (already?) aisles and let them take time to look at all the lights and decorations.  I know it shouldn't feel like so much of a difference, and I almost felt guilty for enjoying it so much, but I felt like I was able to give them so much more attention instead of just herding them through the store.

*We were surprised at the last minute to find out that Evelyn rides the bus to school and back.  I was completely freaked out and kept worrying about the worst of course...that someone was going to take her, or she would ride the wrong bus home or something.  As it turns out, the bus stop is about 20 steps outside our front door, so I just walk her to the stop every morning and pick her up in the afternoon, and for the first two weeks they ride with wristbands saying which bus to ride. They actually have a really safe and fail-proof system, but of course it was just another point of anxiety on my part.  The school is honestly just down the street from us and they ride less than a mile, it's just to cut down on school drop-off traffic, and it is working great.

*Ev forgot her water bottle on the bus one day, so I told her the next day she should just ask the bus driver if he found a purple water bottle.  I watched as she climbed the stairs on the bus the next morning, and quietly asked if he had a lost purple water bottle.  He smiled, pulled it right out of a box by his chair, and gave it to her.  The best was the beaming smile and thumbs up she gave me out the window while showing me the water bottle.  

*These two kids:

are starting to adjust to life without Evelyn during the day. I can already tell it's good for Addi to be the oldest for a few hours.  She and Blake are making leaps and bounds in how well they play together as well. In this picture they are eating on the kitchen floor (no table yet) with an empty fridge spot behind them.  Luckily we have a fridge now, and we are slowly unpacking the house.  We are thrilled to finally have a normal schedule, and our own place to live!