First Day of School 2010

Yesterday was the kids' first day back. I think we were all ready for school to start again.

If I didn't have to work I think summer would be a little more relaxing.   After a few months I begin to go crazy with so many school-aged kids around so often. They are big and take up a lot of space when I'm used to spending the day with a handful of preschoolers.  My 4 kids + extras I watch + kids' friends that are always here = dozens of loud, wild kids. And they eat a lot, especially packs of middle school boys. I feel like I spend all the hours I'm awake cleaning and cooking and entertaining and mediating arguments and fights, yet my house is always a messy, someone is always hungry and someone is always crying or hitting someone. That sounds kind of negative & really for every kid that's whining there are 10 having fun. Nearly are days are good. Mostly it's just a lot of happy chaos. Everyone seems to be enjoying themselves--I think that's why we attract so many extras. It's just sort of exhausting. On top of that day-to-day stuff, we also have all the summer recreating to do. It seems almost every night we're swimming or at a BBQ or have some sort of plans. We aren't ever around on weekends.  It will be nice to at least switch gears for awhile into the different sort of hectic that comes with the school year. I think the kids are ready to go back & see their friends every day.

The good thing about the first day was everyone got up without any arguing or grumbling and was excited about the day.

Monkey bread for breakfast...so, there was some cinnamony bread after this baked for a bit while everyone was getting ready.

Azia shows off her black, red-tipped, silver flower fingernails. She really likes the idea of accessorizing and picking things out and is less enthusiastic about actually wearing everything. By the end of the day she'd scratched off all her nail polish, taken all her barrettes out of her hair & was holding her earrings and necklaces wadded up in her hand.

Dev helping Zoran get ready for his first day at Kindergarten. Lex making sure he wasn't being ignored.

Skinny little Zoran getting some help getting his pants cinched down even more. (I didn't notice his and his dad's perfectly matching ears until after I downloaded this!)

Israel was glaring in every single photo I took. Well at least all the ones where you could see his face. And really he was very excited to get back to school. He told me middle school is actually pretty fun.

Israel is in 7th grade this year--middle school. 

Azia-Rain is in 3rd grade this year--Ms. Cordier's class.

Zoran starts school this year too! He is in kindergarten, Ms. Clouser's class.

Heading into school. Look at those giant bags of supplies Azia and Zoran have! Plus some random things in their backpacks. They could hardly even lift them all themselves: paper, pencils, crayons, markers, glue, boxes of snacks, cleaning supplies, cups, water bottles, ziplock bags in various sizes...soon I think they'll be bringing their own desks, too. Some schools in Missoula even have kids bringing toilet paper. At least we're not to that point yet.


Lex went straight for the fire trucks. He was ready to stay and hang out all morning.

Paisley brought me some sunflowers flowers today. I love having fresh flowers on the table!

So now they're off to school. It's so quiet. (And I still have three, 2-year old boys here, so I guess even quiet is a relative term.)

I'm now going to celebrate by not listening to Green Day on repeat for the entire day.