Our First Day of The New School Year

We started our new school year today! We now officially have a 7th grader, a 3rd grader, a 2nd grader, and a 1st grader! This is what they saw as they came out from their bedrooms this morning (names changed to protect the innocent...LOL). And speaking of which, isn't that dry erase board just the greatest? I got it at a yard sale this summer for a whopping $5.00!

Anyway, each year I buy the kids new binders to put their school work in and new school boxes to stash all their pencils, erasers, and whatever else they need each day. With Baby Girl being in 7th grade now I thought she might not want me to do this for her like I do for the littler kids, but when I asked her she looked almost hurt and said, "Nooooo mommy! You HAVE to do it. It's tradition". Oh she does my momma heart good.

So this is the kids waiting, rather impatiently, for me to let them see what I got them this year. It's just little stuff...pencils, erasers, funky paper clips (we use these as bookmarks in all their school books), and whatever else 'fun' stuff I could find for them, but you'd think it was Christmas if you could see how excited they were!


Just to give you an idea of what each of them got, here are some close ups. (The boys got an extra 'toy' because I had a hard time finding them stuff, like pencils and such, this year. The girls were simple and had more, thus the extra much-desired gift for each boy). I usually spend about $10-$12 per kid each year on this 'tradition', much cheaper than if they all went to public school!