back to school

I have been so busy lately I haven't had any time to blog and it's driving me CRAZY!! The boys have all started school, though, so slowly but surely I'll catch up from the summer.

Will was the first to start back to school a couple weeks ago. He was very excited to start again, and so far it seems good. Will was very excited about his new red backpack, because it is his favorite color. He was tested back in preschool, and he qualified to be in the diagnostic kindergarten program, which is for kids with special needs. That also means he gets a bus to come pick him up and drop him off right at our house--it's a good thing too, because his school is in West Jordan, about 15 minutes away. Will's class is smaller than normal class sizes, I think there are only 8 kids in his class for now, and there is a main teacher with several others to assist her. I think it will be a good program for him.

Will likes his new bus driver, Debbie, already. I am excited that I get to spend a few hours with Will every afternoon because Jake will be at his school then.

I still can't believe Ben has started third grade!! (My childhood memories revolve around third grade, because that is when we moved here to Utah from California.) Ben has a great teacher and loves to be back with all his school friends.

Because of conflicting schedules with Will, we opted for full-day kindergarten for Jake. He has such a great teacher, Mrs. Zabriskie. At the end of kindergarten the teachers make a scrapbook for each child, and I offered to be Jake's teacher's "photographer" so I could be involved in his class. His class first met together before school started to meet each other, find their cubbies, etc. Obviously it was a western themed day, so cute!

Then, on the first day of school I went in to take pictures of the kids on thier "bear hunt." When they got to school, they found some bears had slept in their room the previous hunt, and were obviously messy eaters because they left a huge mess of crumbs on the floor with a note of where to find them. It took them a few tries to find them--they were very sneaky, going from the bathrooms, to the gym, the science room, the library, out on the playground, etc. Finally the kids found the bears asleep back in their classroom in a big box. You can imagine how excited the kids were to find that each of the bears had the name of a child on them--they each got their own teddy bear to be their buddy for activities throughout the year. Every once in a while the kids get to take them home for a sleepover, like that first night after the first day of school.

We brought Jake's friend, Megan, home with us to play after school that day, and their bears got their own special seat in the car. Those two had so much fun playing with their bears (and showing off their new backpacks!).

Jake's homework that night was to name his bear, who he named Jack, which is short for Jack Sparrow, but sometimes it changes to Jack Skellington, so Jake just calls him Jack for now. Jake loved having his bear with him so much that day that Jake took Jack (confusing name sometimes? yes!) to his lacrosse practice with him and set Jack up by his water bottle so Jack could watch him.

Yea, another school year has begun! My boys are growing up, and I love to see that they are excited to go to school every day. I'm finishing this at 9pm, Hawaii time--I'm here with all the running girls who are running the Maui Marathon--but it feels like 1am, which is the time back home. We are having a great time, but I'm dead tired, so I'll write about it.........soon. I promise I'll try!