New Beginning. . .

. . . of another school year. And this year, Theo gets to go, too! He was SO excited to start kindergarten.

In front of our house on the first day

In front of Lizzie's tree - Drew had to get in on the action, he was feeling quite left out

Theo standing in front of his "locker" in the classroom. Isn't he a handsome BIG boy?! He was all excitement, no nerves, no tears. In fact, he told us that we could leave now! I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

Will's our big 3rd grader now. He has a male teacher this year, which I thought he'd love. But he was really nervous on the first day. Not sure what that was about, but he's OK now.

Lizzie spent a good portion of her first day at the orthodontist. I know, but it couldn't be helped. The final step in her orthodontic journey prior to removal of the braces was a frenulectomy. This is where they cauterize the frenulum - the piece of tissue that holds your lip to your upper gums - so that it doesn't pull on your gums and cause your front teeth to separate again. They only do the procedure "once in a great while" and this was the only day they could do it before October. Since she was scheduled to have the braces off in September, we needed to get it done - it can literally cause the front teeth to separate again within hours of removing the braces. Anyway, her teacher had braces once, so he was very understanding. It's no longer "cool" to take her picture in her classroom on the first day, but there wasn't much she could do about me taking it here! Ha! That's a big roll of cotton holding her upper lip away from her gums, by the way. She was quite nervous about the procedure and I was making her laugh. It worked - she calmed down.

So Lizzie's in "middle school". 6th grade is considered middle school, even though they're in the same building with the other kids. There are 3 teachers and they do have different teachers for different subjects. However, the teachers change rooms instead of the kids. This is because the class sizes are vastly different. 8th grade might have 20 kids and 6th grade has 12. So instead of having 20 desks in each room, they just have the teachers move. This also cuts down on the time required between classes since it's only 3 people moving instead of 50-60 kids.

Drew insisted on having his picture taken in front of the kindergarten class pets - hermit crabs!

We're blessed with a wonderful, Christ-centered school with caring, thoughtful, Christ-centered teachers. I think it's going to be a good year!