Kindergarten Ready

Well, today we finished our 6th week of Kindergarten at our brand new school.  So far, they are loving it!  I'm so proud of how far they've come.  Seriously, I can get real emotional real quick just thinking about it.  Here are some of our pics from the first day of Kindy.

Sloan, Rocco, Madden & Jagger - SO ready! 

My new trick for getting them to take a decent picture like the one above is to promise them we will take a silly one next.  So then here's that...

My little princess

    Rocco

  

Madden

Jagger

Uniforms AND little big people. I can't even handle it. ;) 

 Okay, aren't these backpacks the cutest?! I've gotten compliments from just about every carpool helper we've encountered.  The funniest thing to me was that one teacher told me she thought that striped backpacks must be the new trend because she kept seeing them but then she realized after the fourth that they all belonged together.  Hahaha! (P.S. I ordered the backpacks from Hannah Andersson - patches came from Etsy)

(M, J, S, & R)

 Everyone got to pick out their own shoes.  Let's just pause and reflect a little bit on the control that was relinquished here. Especially since little missy tends to live by the "more bling the better" motto...sort of like her G.G., I guess.  Would you believe that those light up TwinkleToes shoes have actually grown on me? 

Big Pop and G.G. walked over to give some first day of school hugs. 

It's always a hot topic for multiple moms, to keep together or two separate.  I see the benefits with both.  Until this point, the kids have always been in a class together (2 year old MDO, 3 year old MDO, and preschool.) It has never presented an issue - them being together, but Nick and I decided that this year we would like to see them apart just to see how they would deal with it and how they would grow from it.  We did not and still do not anticipate any problems from it.  Their school only has 3 kindergarten classes so putting each of them in their own class was not an option. We decided to put 2 together in 2 classes.  It's a change but also some comfort - a nice compromise.

Rocco & Sloan - The Monkey Class 

Madden & Jagger - The Owl Class

Our biggest struggle with adjusting to Kindergarten was the schedule.  The longer days with little naptime made for some cranky kids the first couple of weeks.  These guys are used to 1 1/2 to 2 hour naps every.single.day.  They do have rest/nap time at school, but it's just not the same.  Their little bodies have adjusted though (and we still nap on the weekends - I just can't let go that easily) and I must say I have become quite fond of a 7:30 bedtime!

So Kindergarten - here we are.  Crazy!