First day of school 2012

Today my girls started a new school year. They were so excited and ready to go, but I was just not ready. Not only did the summer fly by, but I'm a little sad because this is Kylie's last year of elementary school. Yes, I know I'm a big ol' sap, but they are my babies and I just can't help it. I tried taking a few pictures of them before they left, but they didn't turn out that great. I'm still going to share them though! 

Audrey, my third grader

Kylie, my fifth grader

Sophie, my first grader

 Their teachers seem really nice so I'm crossing my fingers we'll have a really great year. Sadly none of the kids have any of their friends in their class this year, but I'm hoping they'll use that as an opportunity to make new friends. Have any of your children started back to school? If so how was their first day?

Storytime

I have always had a love for reading. My mother always bought my brothers and me books and some of my fondest memories of my childhood are of her reading to us. When I started school and learned to read on my own it was like a new world opened up for me. I drove my family crazy because I would read everything from billboards to cereal boxes. I remember going to the library and being so excited because I could check out as many books as I wanted and just sit in my room and read all day. 
I still love to read and luckily my kids are little bookworms too. All three of them can read on their own, but I still read with them every night. When Kylie started reading chapter books I remember being kind of sad because I thought our storytime days were over. For a few months I would go read to Audrey and Sophie while she read on her own. One night I went into her room and told her that even though she was reading so well I still wanted to read with her. I thought she would roll her eyes and protest, but she surprised me by saying, "fine with me." She's ten and a half now and we are still reading every night. 
This afternoon I told the girls that we needed to go through their books and try to put them in order. I buy them books all the time, but when Christmas rolls around I like to buy them a lot of books to give as gifts. I was hoping that by sorting the books now I could see what we had so I could avoid buying duplicates. 

This isn't even half of the books!

It took us a few hours, but we finally muddled through and are now *somewhat* organized. There were many "Ah, I remember this book!" moments while we sorted. It was also bittersweet because I had them set aside some of the little board books they've outgrown to put away. And no, I am not getting rid of any of them. I am going to put them in my attic to share with my future grandchildren.