first day of school

Today school started. Christie is in 8th grade, Jordan is in 6th. Alex will start preschool through Special Ed next week. He is still working on speech therapy. Today went very smoothly. Everyone woke up on time and all before-school stuff was done. We had a momentary hiccup when Christie wanted to ride her bike but it had a flat tire. She was very anxious to get to school early so she would have time to decorate her locker. I drove her over, partly because of the desire to get there early but also because her bag was STUFFED full of the items she was going to put in her locker. I'm glad I don't have to drive her to school often--it's crazy how bad the traffic can be, between the regular commuter traffic and parents dropping off their kids. I had a very productive day at home. Last night (Sunday), Christie accidentally bumped one of the shelves on the fridge door and it fell on the floor. A soy sauce bottle broke so this morning I cleared out the kitchen and swept and mopped. I really need to do this weekly. I also worked on the living room. Last week I cleaned out the garage and all the stuff that belonged in the house that had been out in the garage was piled in the living room. Also a lot of toys that belong downstairs had migrated upstairs. I sorted the toys, went through all the stuff that had been brought in the garage, put several bags of clothes and some other items in the car to go to the DI, and thoroughly vacuumed. I even pulled out the couches and vacuumed under them. Found a lot of stuff under the couches and vacuumed up a lot of dirt, dust, food particles, hair, etc. Really gross. More and more I think that instead of replacing the carpet I'd love to put in wood floors. I have no idea when that's going to happen so I'll just work harder on my goal to vacuum weekly. Alex and Nathan had fun playing while I worked. I love that they can just be in the room with me and they're happy to play with each other or toys. Christie and Jordan came home excited to report on their first day. Christie is taking FACS (which is some kind of home ec class), theater, mixed chorus, English 8, Math 8, honors history, Science 8 and keyboarding. She'll be a busy girl! As a 6th grader, Jordan doesn't have rotating classes but he was really excited about his teacher. Jordan had his first soccer practice tonight. Fortunately it's at a park in the neighborhood just east of ours, which is great because his practices are at the same time as Alex's Monday games so I'm glad he can walk over and I don't have to worry about how two boys are going to be in two different places at the same time. Alex had his second soccer game tonight. They "won", I think 8 to 1. For this age, they don't really keep score and I lost track after awhile. They scored 3 goals in the first few minutes. Alex had a much better game this time. His first game was on Saturday and he was upset because (1) I forgot his water bottle, (2) he didn't get to kick the ball, and (3) he wanted to use his own ball instead of the game ball. Today I remembered his water bottle and a small snack for breaks, he got to do two corner kicks and also kicked the ball a few times while in play, and we left our ball at home so he wasn't tempted by that. Watching 3 and 4 year olds play soccer is so much fun. Their pitch is probably no bigger than our backyard and they stop the game for kicking out of bounds and players tripping and falling over the ball quite frequently. Still, it's fun and cute to watch. Pictures from the first day of school.

p.s. I don't know why the text appears as one big block. I'll work on getting that figured out.