Yesterday was Sarah's first day of preschool in the "Fab 5's" class.  She was so excited to finally be heading to school! 


Like Nathan, she was super excited about doing all the writing (and decorating) of her sign herself.  She needed a little help from me to fix her bubble "1", but other then that everything you see is all Sarah's work. 


When we got to school drop off she was a tiny bit sad, but I told her that Daddy would be able to come pick her up from school in his fast "vroom, vroom" car and that cheered her up (he was post-call).  Later I had to text her teachers (because Brian and I lost track of time so he was a few minutes late picking her up) and they said about her day: "She was great! Very enthusiastic and so happy to be there [at school]!  We love getting kids like her!"

I also have to add a note about her new dress that she specifically picked out for the first day of school.  I had worn a maxi dress to church earlier in the summer and since then Sarah's been asking for a long dress of her own.  And months ago after watching Frozen, she asked if she could have a dress with a slit in it like Elsa.  At the time I said that only grownups wear dresses with slits in them (Elsa's goes up to her thigh - yikes!), but when I happened to spy this dress (which has slits on either side) while shopping for family picture outfits, I snapped it up thinking this would be the answer to both of Sarah's requests - and I was right she loves it!

Second note... lately Sarah's only let me do her hair in a ponytail, so I was thrilled that she kept it down today "so my teachers could see how long my hair is now!"  The problem is that I wet and scrunch it when we leave it down so that it will curl, but Sarah doesn't like getting her hair wet.  But Mama sure does love her curls!!

We have had some challenging weeks lately at the Kornrumpf household, dealing with LOTS of toddler tantrums.  One morning I was so fed up and tired of all the fussing and inconsolable crying that I tried a new tactic: use each opportunity to try and capture a good angry/crying expression of Andrew on camera. 

Then I decided that the pictures don't quite capture all of the drama, so it was time for movies.  This is typical Andrew on Nathan's tricycle - he loves it so much but he also gets so frustrated and unfortunately lots of times I can't figure out how to help him.  You would think that scooting him away from the yard cart would fix this problem... but you would be wrong.  That's what I had tried right before taking the movie, but he just started ramming it again. Next I tried moving the yard cart out of the way, which still didn't fix things for Andrew.  So I gave up trying to help and continued with my chores.



I think Nathan was a little concerned that I was videoing Andrew's crying.  "Why are you taking a video of Andrew fussing, Mom?"  I told him it would help us remember this, because someday Andrew would be as old as he was now and wouldn't be having tantrums anymore.  I'm not sure my explanation satisfied him, but it was helping me cope with my frustration so I carried on.



These pictures and videos were from two-ish weeks ago, and within a day or two of taking them Andrew's first molar cut through. Now that tooth is all the way in and we can see two more peeking through the gums. Some days are fine while some days have been excruciatingly difficult. God willing, things will get better again after that last molar makes its appearance. Or it will be just in time for the "terrible twos" to start kicking in... Never a dull moment these days, that's for sure!

Update: In the pick-up line after Nathan's first full day, Nathan's teacher Mrs. N stuck her head in the car to tell me "I love that guy!  He's intelligent, friendly, on task, happy, (insert additional very complimentary adjectives that I can't remember).  There is NOTHING I don't love about Nathan."  Wow!!  What an amazing first impression Nathan has made on his teacher.  I'm so proud of him!
 
For a little while in the middle of summer, I wasn't sure that the kids and I were going to make it through until this next school year.  Andrew was being crazy fussy ALL. THE. TIME. and the big kids were at each others' throats.  So I waved my white flag and texted both the kids' schools: PLEASE let there still be some openings in your summer programs for my kids!!  Thankfully there were.  Sarah got to go to preschool camp for 1.5 weeks, and Nathan got to head back to Paideia for Explorer Tuesdays (there was space for Sarah got to tag along twice, which she was over the moon about!).

But finally we made it here, to the first day of school!


 Nathan wanted to write his whole sign this year and I think he has pretty great handwriting.  He and his friends also taught themselves to write their names in cursive last year (our school still teaches cursive later on), so he likes to show off that skill too.

One of the funny things "behind the scenes" is that Nathan had a half day of school on Friday, but wouldn't let me take his first day of school picture that morning.  He said it wasn't is real first day of school because it wasn't a full day.  So today was is real whole first day of school and therefore it was allowed to be documented.  

This year parents were asked to only walk pre-k or kinder kids into their classes, unless there's a specific reason or its the first day of school.  Sarah desperately wanted to see Nathan's new classroom and be a part of some of the first-day excitement, so I mentioned to Nathan that we were planning on walking him in on his first day.  Well, he did NOT want that at all!  He knew where to go and  he could do it by himself.  He finally compromised by allowing us to walk behind him into school so Sarah could peek in at his classroom.


At school pickup after his half-day, Nathan was just so happy!  He loves his new teacher, he loves his class, he loves being in first grade, he loves life!  And later he told me how glad his was that he was back at school "because I was so tired of staying at home all the time and being bored, I'm so glad that I'll be at school 5 days a week and not at home where I never get to go anywhere!"  So while I'm definitely going to do some things different next year (like pre-scheduing some camp weeks to break up the summer), I think overall summer vacation was pretty successful when Nathan expresses sentiments like that!

Last year: First Day of Kindergarten.