This is always one of my favorite things to document…the first days of school!  Maybe it’s because I’m a bit of a school nerd.  I think I will always be one of those oddballs that likes school and I’m hoping at least one of my kiddos might take after me in that department!

Sneak-a-peek night always occurs the night before the first half day of school for the elementary kids.  Every year it falls on a soccer practice night so my kids usually have on a uniform instead of a cute outfit.  This year it was pouring rain, so practices were getting canceled as we were meeting teachers and organizing supplies.

Drew has Mrs. Swearengin this year for 5th grade.  Morgan also had her and they had a wonderful year together and still to this day when I see her she always asks how Morgan is doing.  Drew, don’t screw this up buddy, just act like Morgan and it will be smooth sailing!  I’m sure she will love you too…who wouldn’t love that sweet face!?Her classroom is perfectly organized and ready to whip these 5th graders into shape to get them prepared for middle school.  That’s probably my biggest struggle this school year…Drew’s class just doesn’t strike me as the example-setting upperclassman of the school!  There’s probably a little bit of maturing that needs to happen 😉

Reece has Mrs. Woolery for 3rd grade and is a new teacher for our family but not to the school.  She seems fantastic and Reece has a lot of friends in her class.  Don’t worry, she’s a rule-follower, you won’t catch her getting into trouble unless she is telling a classmate to stay on task.  That’s just Reece!

Her classroom runs a bit differently that a typical classroom.  Since there are 24 of them in this room, she follows a “flexible seating” learning environment.  Students do not have their own desk.  Each day they learn in a different seat – it may be a couch, a fuzzy chair, an exercise ball, etc.  Here’s a video clip of them getting to know their classroom today…

And I finally got Jake off the golf course for about 10 minutes to take him to school to deliver supplies, try his locker, and walk a portion of his schedule.  Don’t kid yourself, within an hour of doing this, I was dropping him off at the golf course.  He’s an old pro at this now I guess and there’s no way he’s wasting his last hours of summer messing around with a locker!  He did get a kick out of my note I left him though…Each year I write my kids a note about the upcoming school year and get them a back to school gift.  Sometimes they all get the same thing and other years they don’t but I really just hope they keep the notes and read them from time to time.  That’s probably asking too much!  This year Morgan got two golf hats for the fall high school season, Jake got a new book by the only author he likes to read!  Drew got a new water jug because he is playing fall baseball this year, and Reece got squishies and flip-a-zoos which really has nothing to do with anything except she’s 8 years old and likes toys!

I usually have them open their gifts all together but Morgan and Jake decided to sleep in a bit on their last day of summer while the littles had to get up for a half day of school.  Aren’t they looking sharp!?

This morning is what I call the ‘real’ first day of school because it’s a full day of classes and it includes all grade levels.  We set up our neighborhood breakfast party in our driveway and started snapping pictures at 7am sharp!  These high schoolers drive themselves to school now and they need to get going!  We missed Brian this year for the first time because he had a work commitment but we did a good job of sending him pics!  My sweet Drew Boo was helping me get everything set up for the neighbors – laying out blankets and chairs without me even asking him.  Thank you Drew for being awesome!  You know this back to school routine!  Morgan did Reece’s hair for me because she’s a hair expert!  Sorry Reece, but you might be stuck with me doing it the rest of the school year!Here’s our Falcon Valley neighborhood crew….pretty good looking group!!

It’s tradition to get my kids pics with the Dearmore kids and can you believe how much they have grown and changed (check out the flashback photos!)

Here are just a few more of my faves for the morning!  Wishing all of these kiddos the best school year ever!!

I also don’t want to gloss over the tradition of the neighborhood bike ride to donuts.  This always happens on the morning before school starts.  However, this year it turned into a drive to donuts because of the threat of rain.  Morgan couldn’t join us because she had golf tryouts but she requested we bring her a donut.  She doesn’t like to miss out on traditions.  I’m certain one of these years Price Chopper is going to lock it’s doors when they see us coming…

Now excuse me while I go back to my normal routine of worrying about having a teenage daughter that drives to school now, a 7th grade boy who is way too cool for his own good, a 5th grade boy who may or may not get in trouble this year for talking in class, and a 3rd grade girl who is so busy perfecting everything that she may fall asleep on her desk or have a breakdown.  Kidding!  I’m actually full of hope for these amazing kids!  Wonderful memories are happening right now!

For me, on the other hand, today is probably not the day that I’m going to get everything accomplished that I put on the back burner for my typical summer hiatus.  I planned to get to the gym at 8:30 and ended up talking with my neighborhood dads in the driveway and then ran into my moms at the gym and proceeded to talk for another hour and returned home at noon having worked out for only 45 minutes of that.  I will only have this blog post to show for myself.  Tomorrow’s a new day.  I hope my awesome neighbor did better than me – she was going to go down in her basement and watch netflix all day and eat twizzlers.  You go girl!

Cheers to the 2018-2019 school year!