Back to School

This week has been crazy busy!
Monday was a teacher inservice day and my two older kids had their open house!
Kira was patient and mainly we just walked Ben through his different classes and talked to his SPED teacher.  Kira is mainly with one teacher in 6th grade, so she hung out there with her friends from the Staff social last week!  I love how fast she makes friends!
Tuesday was a workday and our Open House.  I had Ben and Kira with me, so I could bring them to Cross Country practice.  After practice I raced home, changed shoes and grabbed everyone, to head to our Open House.  My classroom isn't even close to up to par, but it will work for this first few weeks!
I'm slowly getting things up on my bare walls!

Wednesday was the first day of school!  My two preschoolers had Doctor's appointments, so Josh didn't get to start right away. At my lunch, I went to see how things were going.  I got a Totino's pizza from our amazing secretary, because Josh has a staph infection on his face and can't be in school.  He was screaming and yelling about this injustice.  He really wants to be at school!  He'll actually get to start tomorrow (Monday).  Poor kiddo!  Ben forgot to stay at school for cross country practice and came to our school.  Surprise!  No practice for him!  Kira was worried, so she had the secretary call and I was able to tell her it was okay and I had him!  Silly Ben!

 Technically not his first day.

 They wait at our school to catch the bus to their school!

Then we had church.  Great times!
Thursday went much more smoothly!
Friday went well!  My students are great!  I love this school!  Everyone works together really well!
The amazing lady that I took over for (she's a Reading Specialist now) let us come out to her place and pick yummy cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini and squash!  There were even a few blackberries!  So nice!  Our kids had a blast!
Saturday we didn't go to Olathe, since my parents are in Idaho!  I was actually able to get most of the boxes out of Living room and Dining Room!  Aaahhhh!  Our house is coming along quite nicely as well!  Kira and I went to my classroom and were there until late, but we got more done!  Then when we got home I finished up my lesson plans for the week and my classroom behavior plan!  I still need to make my monthly newsletter on Monday, so the parents know where to check in on their kiddos!  I'm so excited about a new app-Seesaw, the learning journal.  It's like an online portfolio where I can put the kids' work the entire year!  Awesome!
Today was church and then my son's amazing para from last year came and visited!  Her granddaughters were here for the rodeo!  It was so great seeing her!  She stood and listened to Ben tell about his awesome creatures (seriously he should write books or a computer program, or something)!

 Josh loves to snuggle Cecilia and will put his arm around her.  It's so cute!

Ben and his old para!

Prepping for the first day of school

 Bows I made for the oldest girls.  I still need to do the centers!

 Josh loves these lensless glasses!  It cracks me up!

 He loves his momma!  I love the snuggles!

 6:30 runs mean lots of sunrise pictures!

 After their first cross country run!

 My hall bulletin board!  The eyes have been darkened in since then!

 Cecilia is quite the nail painter!

 The younger kids wanted to go running too!  

 Sleeping so sweet!

 Everyone eating together at the Staff social on Friday night.  It was awesome!

 Even Samuel likes the glasses!

 I was holding my niece and Samuel came to talk to her!  It was super cute!  Even cooler (although not documented) was Josh walking up when she was crying and immediately started rubbing her head and she stopped crying!  Fantastic!

Today after church they offered to take a nap from me.  So, we all snuggled up and I went to sleep.  They went to play, silly boys!

Preschool open house

We're getting more acclimated to our new house and getting more done!  Hurray!  Then we got good/bad news:  we all have insurance, but Scott-the most expensive of our bunch.  Now we have to figure out how to pay for all of his meds and appointments.  Good times.
We were able to feed both sets of Missionaries this week!  Wednesday was crazy with me going into work for a few hours and then feeding the Sisters.  Right after they left, we went to Josh and Cecilia's open house.  They didn't want to leave!  Their teacher is awesome!  Then we headed to church to drop off Ben and Kira went to her church activity.  Gotta love Wednesday night craziness!  The kids all had a great time-Ben went swimming and Kira was partying.
Thursday was our pj day this week.  We got the house cleaner and got more unpacked.
Friday I spent most of the day at work, getting my classroom looking much better!  I have almost all of the books put away now (in a deep cabinet) and the reading nook started.  The tables look great, but need name tags.  I now have my class list-only 18 students!  Woohoo!  I even mostly finished the bulletin board!  It just needs owls with the kids' names on them!  I was there late, but totally worth it for all I got done!
Saturday was at my family's house.  Scott worked for his mom and I worked for my mom and dad.  I help clean and hang out with my dad while my mom and Uncle get a break.  They totally need frequent breaks!  Today was super hard, but we'll see how next week goes!

Six kids registered

Samuel is the only one not going to school!  Cecilia and Josh will be going to half day Preschool.  Leah will be in first grade, Emma will be in second, Kira will be in sixth and Ben will be in seventh,  Kira and Ben will be doing sports.  We started running this week in order to prep them for Cross Country, which will start running soon.  I want them to have at least a couple week head start!  I ran with them the first day, which meant they went very slow.  The next day I rode Scott's bike (mine has  a flat tire on the front) and they were sad that they had to go so much faster.  Then Scott biked with them, because I wasn't feeling well.  We're on our way!
I'm super excited to get in my classroom.  I only went one day and got some done (including getting everything in there) and putting the desks where I wanted them.  Kira was helping me and we got textbooks in all of the desks.  So, I felt like something was better.  I have a long way to go and lesson planning to do too!  I'm still nailing down the classroom theme.  I can't decide.  I really want bright colors.  I also have a lot of owl stuff, so I'll probably do those as well.
Our house is slowly getting unpacked.  It's small, but divided up very nicely.  The girls are all unpacked.  We're still working on the boys.  Our room is mostly unpacked too.  It's all of the books that are causing a problem, everywhere.  We need ten more bookshelves.  Two for my classroom.  It's so hard to get rid of good books. I'm going to make books a prize in my classroom, so my kids can earn books to take home. That way I'm helping them read good books and destashing my awesome amount of books.
Kira has been working hard babysitting and earning money, so she bought a guinea pig yesterday that she named Clara.  She loves her!  She's already wanting to save money for another guinea pig!
Picture dump:

 My classroom

 My lack of bookshelves

 Dragonfly at the park

 Kiddos not napping that went to the park

 I got creative and he didn't like it.

 Kira's first time with her locker

 Ben being talked through his locker combination.

 He's so excited he can fold his tongue in half!  His papaw can do it still too!

 The fun strawberry sundae cookies we made.

 Emma made me this great heart!

Cousin love!

We've moved!

We worked most of the week on packing and still weren't done on Friday when we had to go.  We went and got the Uhaul truck.  What a mess!  It was $70 more than I expected and then it was completely empty, so we used the rest of our money for gas.  We packed for another hour or so and then the electricity went out.  Then we headed out.  I'm so grateful for awesome church members who helped us move!  I just kept the kids out of the way elsewhere.  Now we're "moved in."  We have a lot of unpacking to do and figuring out where to put things!  Next week we're going to get the kids registered!  We'll see how it goes!

 My two guys that are usually on my lap.

 At the new house

 Cecilia prefers this porch.

 First dinner at our new place, and it was LATE!

 Everyone conked out on the way to church-nine o'clock church an hour and a half away.

 Even Scott slept.  It made for a quiet trip.

 We went for this sweet girl's blessing.

She's so cute!