Back to School - Last week.

Yes.  They went back to school.  We barely crossed the finish line (like every year :)

Ella was still asleep - she didn't have to wake up, so I was able to drop the 3 bigs off and get back home BEFORE she was awake (yes Matt was still home - no I didn't run off and leave her all alone sleeping...tempting as it may sound). 

This year I was determined to not get bogged down in the craziness of school - so I bought the bare necessities, made them sharpen old pencils and colored pencils...had 'em wipe off scissors and sent them to school with a gift card for their teachers to purchase the kleenex and sanitizers etc... I thought myself brilliant (the teachers probably thought me lazy).

I must add that 2 of these children had new shoes and 1 did not.  1 chose not to wear his new shoes??! and 1 went to school with a smile on her face and didn't even blink twice -she was totally oblivious to the junky trashed shoes on her feet - I felt so bad that I had overlooked that little footwear issue that I ran to the mall and bought her a pair (and a friend went and bought her 2!! :)  She's rollin now...

Hallelujah! Now if we could just get to bed before 11pm (fall ball and math are killing us!! How am I supposed to remember decimal division rules at 10:30pm??!!)