First week of school

Wow! We survived the first week of school. Hopie never missed the bus but our elementary school kids missed the bus on Tues. We're not used to catching it so early in the morning. It arrives by 6:30 a.m., so they've got to be out and waiting by 6:20 a.m. Needless to say, mornings in our house are a rush in more ways than one. But the kids are being helpful, laying their outfits out at night and slowly realizing Mom's strict bedtime is the right bedtime.

So far, Hopie is really excited about the prospect of her Pre-AP classes paying off for her as she's been talking about the new high school being built that will offer an opportunity to 100 students in the district to graduate high school with an A.S. degree. She wants to work hard to get into the program and do just that! If she does, she'll catch up to her Mom's education and be well on her way to making her own education get on the fast track. I'm happy that she is so driven and has such amazing goals! She's a beautiful person!

Cowboy (Brig) is excited this year to be in 5th grade. He has two teachers this year and one is a male teacher - his first male teacher ever. The other day Cowboy told me he couldn't believe that he was in 5th grade already. He has had fun doing the 'get to know you' projects in school. He collected different things that told people about himself, i.e., a Roald Dahl book, a purple chip, a Spiderwick figure, a dinosaur figure etc... I thought what he had chosen was clever and I was impressed that he didn't seem to worry about what other kids might think. I'm glad he likes to be himself.

Nessa has enjoyed seeing all of her friends and making new ones. She has the same teacher that Cowboy had last year. She's been diligent in reading to her little brother, Zayah, all week. Her week has been tough and she's been brave to not miss any school when she a great excuse of having a horrible toothache. We were able to get her into the dentist on Fri. afternoon and she did indeed have and abscessed tooth. She was very brave when the dentist had to pull it out and she requested, on her own, that she didn't want laughing gas. I made sure this was her own decision and after it was said and done I gave her a big hug. I also explained to her that she saved her parents $54 because she didn't have the laughing gas. She said she didn't know that you had to pay for it. Nessa, you are so brave. I'm glad you'll be feeling better now.

Zayah has been unusually quiet about school since he's usually a chatterbox about everything. All I could get out of him was that he thinks his teacher is nice. You can tell he's growing up. He has been asking each morning if it was a school day. This morning when he asked, he seemed surprised and thankful, when I said "No, it's Saturday." Besides being a bit tired and cranky at times, overall, he's adjusting to the all day school schedule.

You can tell Gracie is missing all the school kids being around although it hasn't slowed her down one bit. She is the most curious little girl and very able to get into mischief. This week she died her beautiful golden hair pink using a box of sugar-free jello. I washed it but couldn't get it all out for a couple of days. At first, I hadn't realized what she had used to dye her hair until the next day I found the jello packet safely hidden away in the food pantry with one of my clothespins clipped to it, you know, to keep it fresh. I use the clothespins all the time as inexpensive bag clips. Her thought process never ceases to amaze me.
I'm planning on getting her together with some of her friends from around here for play dates and preschool. That should help, right?

Noah has amazed us all by learning to crawl up the stairs. He's still a bit off balance about it, likes to sit on the edge of a stair and climbs each step differently. So, it scares us to death! He's fallen twice, luckily no damage done, so now the gate has to be there when we're not helping him climb up the stairs. Not before, he climbed all the way up the stairs once unbeknownst to me of course. Gracie tried to help him and when she tried to tell me I was really worried so I immediately checked on him and he had already made it upstairs and into Hopie's room. Happy and go-lucky as can be!
One thing that is funny about his name is that he never thinks he's in trouble. When he was a baby, my kids like to say "No-No" - "Nonah" to him so now when we "NO" he thinks we're playing with him. He just smiles up at us with a big cheesy grin and thinks he's never in trouble. It's simply cute but What are we going to do..what to do..?

Pictures, I've included in this post are of the first day of school and
Noah crawling upstairs. Oh, and also the bus but that really isn't from this school year it's just for effect.