First Day of School - August 18th

The day after Hylie's birthday, these two girls packed up their backpacks and headed to school!

Hylie has Mrs. O'Shea for fourth grade and Eliana has Mrs. Pupillo in first grade.  The schools require masks to be worn unless you're eating and they continue to practice social distancing.  We are grateful for the steps being taken towards a more normal setting and hope that we can continue to move in that direction.  It's been a smooth start to the year for our family, but I admit, I'm holding my breath for when we'll have to deal with quarantining or other protocol!

Lillian started Preschool on September 8th.  I was super nervous about how she was going to handle this new setting.  When Primary at church started separating into classes, she had a pretty big meltdown, but thankfully her sweet teacher helped her feel safe and welcomed.  On September 2nd they had a meet-your-teacher day where parents and students got to go into the Preschool Classroom.  Once Lillian saw the shelves and shelves of toys and books, she was sold on this whole Preschool deal.  At the end of the event, I asked Lillian if she would like to come with me to thank her teacher and Lillian turned to me and said, "I want to go thank her by myself."  Oh, how my heart swelled with joy!  It was beautiful to watch this shy little girl go up all by herself to talk to her teacher.  When I dropped her off for her first day, she was bubbly and excited, didn't look back as I drove away, and greeted me with a huge smile when I picked her up!

Her teacher, Mrs. Staib, was super kind and took pictures of their first day adventures.

Lillian reported to me on the first day that she was the tallest kid in her class...I hope she gets used to this being the case!

This kiddo could color all day...and anytime there is a free-choice time at preschool, you will find this little thing coloring away.  She has easily colored over 100 pages in the first 2 months of preschool.  When I got her progress report, it showed she didn't interact much with her classmates, so I decided to talk to her about trying other activities besides coloring.  Lillian was SUPER hesitant to agree to this request, but the next time she attended preschool, she was proud to report to me that she didn't color the whole time, but that she also dabbed with dot markers, ha!  I felt bad that I couldn't hold back my laughter when she reported this to me...but the next time at preschool she did pick a different activity and has pretty much been putting coloring on the back-burner since.  I'm so proud of how brave Lillian has been in trying new things and pushing herself out of her comfort zone!