Now, having the girls here for school means, three sets of school supplies, three children to get clothes, shoes, lunchboxes, and anything else you can think of. And of course, Melayna wants in on the action, too.
The girls, from what I understand, have always been on free lunch program and so they've never taken their lunches to school. Tristan ate school lunch maybe three times last year. So, despite being eligible for free and reduced lunches (a family of six on primarily one income does that to you), we've opted for making lunches. But I want to ensure that their lunches are healthy and fun. So, I've discovered bento. Just thinking about bento makes me giddy. But I'll explain that in a post later once I've gotten in the supplies!
Anyway, moving on. I've spent about $130 or so on the kids' school supply lists. This doesn't include the other stuff like backpacks and lunch boxes. I also took Hayley and Jacey with me on a trip to the Arc during their 99 cent kids' clothes sale. I spent nearly $90, but it was worth every penny and more!
Here's an photo I took with my cell phone of us sorting through the clothes. Let's just say there was a lot of clothes!
Of course the girls wanted to dress up and put on a fashion show!
So, all that work and all that money culminated to this: the first day of school.
Scott headed to Falcon with Melayna and the kids he babysits to bring them to school (they started two weeks prior to our kids because their in a different school district), while I took our three kiddos to school. They were excited. They were tired. They were apprehensive (mostly Jacey). But in the end, they all had fun. They all reported having fantastic first days.
The worries of meeting new friends and going to a new school have subsided. Instead, their worries are replaced by excitement. Hayley is going to play clarinet in the band, Jacey is going to play violin in orchestra, and all three have joined cross country. They wanted to do more, but I had to limit them to just the two. Hayley is excited about the 5th grade retreat in October.
Shameless plug for my little boy, but I'm his mom and have every right to brag about him. Right? Anyway, today they did DIBELS assessments and Tristan, my sweet little boy, is reading at a 2nd grade level (he's currently in 1st)! They expect 1st graders to finish the year at about 40 - 45 words a minute. He reads at a pace of 84-85 words a minute! We have the kids read every night for about 15 - 30 minutes. In fact, they've been reading for about 45 minutes this evening and they're still going! My bubbas, I can tell, is super smart with reading. I'm so proud of him!
Well, anyway that's it for now. I can't wait for my bento stuff to come in, so I can share what I plan to do with them. I love reading other blogs, because of all the ideas out there. I've tried so many things because of other bloggers out there. Pinterest has made it way easier to find ideas, too. I absolutely love it! Thank you to all you fellow bloggers for inspiring me and giving me ideas to be more creative, save money, and so on!
