Back to Reality

School started and the rest is history. It's October and I haven't taken any recent photos, but there are a few I didn't get around to including from summer and Owen's first day of school - his pre-k year.

I lied, this was taken about 2 weeks ago. If there's something I'm learning about Owen it's that when he sets a personal goal he works at it over and over until he does it. This is him pumping by himself on the swing (Hallelujah!) after practicing for weeks. When he demonstrated this the swing started completely still and he can't touch the ground, but with enough wiggling he found a way to get moving. Up next...the monkey bars.

 Here he is, first day of the 4s class. He has Mrs. Beck this year.

And, finally, for Memaw's birthday this year, her older grandsons, Nancy, and I took her to see The Lion King at the Kennedy Center.

School's been pretty good this year. As a first grader Jacob is more comfortable - he knows lots of the students, knows his way around school, has learned to cope with the lunch lady (he says she doesn't yell anymore, they gave her a microphone, ha!) and we definitely got off to an easier start than last year. He likes his teacher and classmates. He's playing on a soccer team, which to me seems awfully time consuming (one practice after school each week and one game a weekend!! [Jaw drop!]). I realize this is only the beginning, so I worry a bit about my ability to sustain having children who have their own activities. We are by far quite "inactive" in the sports/classes/after school stuff compared to lots of families/kids, though. I don't know how they do anything more during the week, especially when there's homework to be done??!!

Owen really loves his teacher and "some" of his classmates. He barely (and rarely) looks back as he walks into his class which is a good thing I suppose. He comes home, we do a little something together, he has a quiet time, then he lives it up as the younger brother of a kid in elementary school and finds himself playing with all the big kids when we pick Jacob up. It's quite a sight. I'm optimistic that kindergarten next year will be an easy transition for him since he rules the school already (sorta).

Hope to get my camera out for Halloween in a couple weeks! Costumes are ready and at least one of them has the day off school. Looking good for an update.