Back to School

One day at church we found out that a missionary in our ward has the same birthday as Natalie. We were having them over for dinner on Sunday, so we had a little birthday cake for the two of them. I'm glad we got to help Elder Little "celebrate" his birthday while on his mission, and I think Natalie thought it was really neat.

A friend in the ward had asked if Nate would give her kids blessings before starting school the next day. Of course he was more than happy to, and the missionaries were able to be there as well.  The funny thing about all of it is that our kids did not want blessings. Jansen wanted to see "how it would go without one." After Nate blessed the 3 other children, Natalie changed her mind. Later that night, right before going to sleep, Jansen changed his mind too. 

We had chocolate chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast on the first day of school. It may not have been the wisest choice, but I don't think Jansen and Natalie were too off the wall after starting their day off with a double dose of chocolate. 

Neither of them expressed that they were very nervous or scared about going to school. I suspect I was more nervous than they were. I had wrestled with the decision of whether or not to send them on the bus for days. It really was a huge and difficult decision for me. I decided to have them ride the bus to and from school, and it has been going great. Here is our 3rd grader:

And our beaming first grader: 

The bus stop is probably 25 yards from our house. It comes at about 8:45 in the morning and brings them home around 3:55. It's a very different schedule than we had in Las Vegas. It's really hard for me to think about all the time they spend doing things that I'm not there for or a part of every day, but it has been a good experience so far being home alone with Emmy. The time actually flies while they are at school.