Back to School - First Day!

Luken's first day of First Grade was Monday, August 23! He was up and ready to go first thing, and was so excited to go back!

Can you believe how big he looks??!!


There's a smile! :D


I still see a bit of his baby face in this one!! <3


With Daddy!


With Mommy!


Not yet too big to give Mommy a kiss!! <3




New backpack and lunchbox! Spiderman - woohoo!


Here comes Keeley!








After the obligatory front-yard photos, it was time to head to school!!


Walking in - notice the TIE tennis shoes, that Mr. Luken can tie all by himself, thank-you-very-much!! :D


Inside - hanging up his backpack.


In front of his new classroom!


At his very own desk, with his first assignment!


Gettin' to it!


Then it was time for us to skedaddle, and let our big boy get on with his day!

He LOOOOVED it!! When asked what was his favorite part, he paused, thought, scratched his head, and responded, "Pretty much EVERYTHING!" Greatness!

We are so proud of our Luken!

Back to School - Meet the Teacher!

Yes, it is true! It is already time to head back to school!
Our big kid is a big First Grader this year - unbelievable!

Meet the Teacher night was Friday the 20th. The school was buzzing! People were everywhere!
We quickly found Luken's name and learned his teacher would be Ms. Morgan. Then we set off to find the classroom and meet the teacher and classmates!

"Hi, Ms. Morgan!" :)
Isn't she cute? She student-taught under Luken's Kindergarten teacher, so she should be great!




Luken's big task that night was to unpack all his school supplies and put them in the proper places. This year they each have their own desks, and keep their supplies in the pencil box!


Looks like there's cool learning to come!!

Goodbye to Summer...

Well, it's been a good summer. A very HOT summer. We've done a lot of swimming and a lot of hibernating. Neither of which have been very camera-friendly, so I've taken a bit of a blogging hiatus.

Near the end of summer break, we had a date with friends to ride the DART down to Dallas and have lunch! Neither Luken nor Keeley had ever riden DART, and I hadn't either, so it was a new experience!

We picked up Jacob and Noah, and their mom, Stacy, and drove to our stop.
Once there, we had some time before the train came, so we explored the area around the station a bit.

Here are Keeley and Noah! :)


Luken and Jake! (These two boys met last spring, when they were on the same baseball team! They are on another team this fall, but still together, yahoo!!)


All four cuties!






Doing a little tree-hugging. ;)




Jake is a little jokester!! :D


And they're offffff!!




Look at this about-to-be-first-grade boy!! <3




Waiting for the train...


Jake will buy the tickets! ;)


Here it is! All aboard!








Luken was highly amused by Noah. :P


When we arrived at our Dallas stop, we hopped off, then rode the tallest escalator of all time. No photos of that. I was not really enjoying the height of that!

Then, we walked over to a shopping area and had lunch at Cafe Express. YUM!

Outside, there was a pretty little fountain, and after lunch, the kiddos had a lot of fun playing around it! It was a VERY rare overcast day, and though it was hot, it wasn't unbearably so - at least in the first part of the day. :)

Here's Jake! :)




Aren't they adorable???


Telling secrets???


Splish splash!


My sweet girl!




Trying to splash Stacy!












Playing around with some breadsticks - making mustaches!! :P




Silliness!


Can you see the perfect little beads of sweat on Noah's nose?? It was so cute!


The littles were getting grumpy...


Promises of ice cream turned those frowns upside down!! :D




It had gotten verrrrry hot by then. We were sweaty!


Picking out some ice cream!


With all the fancy options, Luken chose chocolate with chocolate sprinkles, and Keeley chose vanilla with marshmallows!


Cute Noah with a perfect ice cream mustache!


After that, we headed home and played with our friends some more! It was a great day, and we really enjoyed doing something special in our last week of summer vacation!!