When we moved to Arizona I couldn’t believe school started in July! It seemed a little un-American to not have Harry Potter’s birthday off. I was use to starting after Labor Day. Although I must admit it was pretty great getting out of school the third week of May. As always school started too soon. I love the excitement of the first day of school. I love letting the boys pick out their first day of school clothes. I’m not a big fan of arguing with my boys about the necessity of hair products on the first day of school, but I love the results.
I LOVE taking pictures of my boys together on their first day! They last two years we have been running so late I forgot to get ones of them by themselves. Grady really wanted Draco to wear a button down shirt to look a little nicer, but that kid really wanted to wear his Darth Vader shirt. And I can’t blame him. Darth Vader is pretty cool. As you can tell from the picture I totally ruined Gandalf’s hair by applying gel to it. Draco was really great about using product, but kept correcting me on how to style his hair. I love these great smiles! And I love these fun school prints I got from I {heart} Naptime. They are designed by Sugar Tots Designs. I got a little nostalgic and found previous pictures of my boys.
Aren’t they just itty bitty?
How adorable is Draco’s smile when he started Preschool. It’s fun to compare what the boys look like when they are in the same grade.
Time seems to go so fast these days. I always loved the first day of school. Picking out an outfit for the first day. Looking for your friends when you got to school. And not really having homework yet. Other traditions we have for our family is Grady giving Father’s Blessings the night before school started. It’s so wonderful that my children can hear words of encouragement and help from our Heavenly Father. I know it helps ease my mom worries about my children as well. It helps me to know how I can better help them become who the Lord wants them to be.
I’m bummed I didn’t see this fun post from Kristen Duke earlier about having a Back to School Dinner. We usually have a fun dinner like pizza and we talk about their day. But I like the idea of setting the table all fancy and fun. I also just saw this cute idea from Amy at the Idea Room about a back to school countdown. Kind of hard to count down when I saw it on the first day of school. (Next year!) Another fun idea that I pinned years ago was to have your child write his or her name at each grade to see how their handwriting progressed. I really need to work on that one soon.
One idea I did start in Gandalf’s 1st grade year was making up a list for his teacher to fill out. I realized when Gandalf was in Kindergarten and it was Teacher Appreciation Week, I had no idea what she liked. Did she love chocolate or fruit candy. By having their teacher fill out a Getting To Know You Slip I would have a better idea of what to get them at Christmas or the end of the year. And even I sometimes buy them something on sale it’s still nice to know a little more about them. Plus I felt terrible for not knowing their birthdays. You can click on this image to make it bigger and save and print this image below.
I hope this gives you some great ideas on how to make this time of year a little more fun! Please feel free to share a fun family tradition your family does this time of year…
