Back to School

Well, hello little blog!  It's been a while ... seems I've fallen victim to a different form of social media (Instagram) much to the neglect of this corner of my world.  That and the fact that, well, life is busy.

So, here we are finishing up week four of the new school year.  Here's where the LilyKids are at:

Jack - Jack is in 7th grade this year.  At some schools this would mark the first year of junior high, but we have a middle school for 5th - 8th grade so being at the middle school / junior school is quite familiar.  The year is off to a great start - I honestly think football has influenced his school habits (we noticed the same thing last year), I think it has been the discipline of the sport.  Aside from getting a little sidetracked with the "eraser challenge" along with nearly everyone else at school, 7th grade is going great! 

Jack is our busiest outside of home, by far.  From the end of the baseball season, we did a family road trip for a week, he went to camp for a week and then football started.  He has a few weeks of football left and then will transition to basketball.  He also took hunter's safety so will be hunting with Jason this fall (as his schedule permits, of course - ha!).  And, he's doing youth group with a buddy from school.  He exhausts us (in many ways!).

Samuel - Samuel is in 4th grade this year. His year is also off to a great start, he's transitioned back into the school year like a champ.  It's an exciting year as he is the oldest at the elementary school.  He is one of only two boys asked to be a "Bus Buddy" this year.  This means that he is assigned two junior kindergarteners to get on the bus in the afternoon, a big responsibility for the selected 4th graders.  They even had a "meeting" with the Principal.  He also got to be on flag duty this week, another privilege.

Samuel is a homebody for sure so it's wonderful to see him blossom at school and to see him being selected for these types of activities.

Lydia - Lydia started junior kindergarten this year.  JK is the equivalent to 4k, it's just fancy like that in our school district (hehe).  She goes to school four mornings a week.  The transition was fairly easy for her.  For about the first two weeks she did, however, neglect to eat snack at school because she was a little intimidated by the independence and responsibility of pouring her own milk and getting a snack.  She has since realized that snack is worth a little intimidation! 

Nora - Nora started early childhood (a preschool program) this year.  She is at our elementary school (same as Samuel and Lydia) so that she can continue to get speech as part of the program.  The first two weeks or so were rough - lots of tears (Samuel's classroom is on the other side of Nora's so he would come home and report if he heard her crying in the morning).  Nora also goes to school four mornings a week, like Lydia, and they are across the hall from one another.

After the initial transition, Nora is blossoming!  We are so thankful for her very patient, very outgoing, and very loving teacher.  Nora is very proud of going to school and is always eager to show us papers from her backpack. 

To keep this real, while I'd love to post a happy picture of Nora, this is what the first day of school looked like.  Poor girl.  I couldn't even get her to look at me for a picture.  Change is hard for this girl, but she is adjusting to school like a boss!

So, that's the back to school update for September 2014!