Kindergarten

Today was the BIG day.  It's a day Zoie has been talking about since I picked her up from the last day of preschool.  She loves school and she has been looking forward to getting to go everyday, rather than just 3 days like she did in preschool.  

Last night we had a "back to school" dinner.  We ate Zoie's favorite food, made a time capsule that we will open back up on the last day of school and Josh gave Zoie a father's blessing.  She had her clothes all picked out complete with her backpack and snack for the next day all ready.  The kids were in bed and asleep by 8pm.  It was quite heavenly.  Summer brought late nights and I am really looking forward to having a schedule again.

This morning she got up, got dressed, made her bed and ate her breakfast.  I don't remember the last time I saw her this excited!  Her school starts at 8:45 so we had plans to leave around 8.  We decided to put her into Malibu schools so there is a 15 minute drive to her school and I knew it would be crazy on the first day so I wanted to get there with some time to spare and make sure she was all set.  I was so proud of myself when I had all of the kids dressed, fed and ready to walk out the door at exactly 8am!  That is a hard task to do with 3 little kids!  I grabbed the camera, grabbed Luke in the car seat and then walked out the door.  The second I shut the door I realized that I forgot my keys!  NOOOOO!  Not today!  I ran around to the side door and it too was locked, just as I suspected it to be.  I called Josh and luckily he had a break in his schedule so he hurried home to unlock the door and I told him to just take Zoie since the boys slow me down.  I still had to go since there was a new parent meeting starting at 9.  Sadly I missed walking Zoie into her first day, but Josh got to do it and he took pictures so I guess it is ok:)

The parent meeting went well.  Having 3 kids in Malibu is like having 15 kids in AZ.  Everyone tells me that I have my hands full and they can't believe that I have 3 WHOLE KIDS!  And the fact that I look 12 doesn't help.  If only they knew that I wasn't done having kids!

She is in a pretty awesome school.  It is a small school and the community is very involved.  The other parents that I met were all really nice.  I'm pretty sure we are the only LDS family at the school, that is very different from what Josh and I are used to.  At first that was something I really struggled with, and to be honest I still have days that I struggle with this.  But I am slowly realizing that people that aren't mormon are nice and have good values too!  

When I picked her up from school she was so happy.  She told me about the playground, the bathrooms, the art projects that she did, and that the play kitchen is pretty awesome.  Her favorite part was snack time (she thinks it is pretty cool that starting next week she will get to bring her lunch to school).  When I asked her if she made any friends she told me that she didn't talk or play with anyone.  Talk about putting a dagger through a moms heart.  I immediatley started crying.   I had held it together so well up until that point!  Right after she told me that she then informed me that it was "the best day ever".....guess it wasn't so bad after all!

We met Josh at a park near his office for lunch.  Zoie recognized a few of the little girls from her class but was too shy to go talk to them.  To be honest, I was a little intimidated by their moms as well.  I over heard one of the moms refer to their little group as the "Malibu Mommies".  They were feeding their kids Gardenburgers and water for lunch while mine were munching on McDonalds chicken nuggets and drinking Sprite.  I could tell Zoie wanted to play with the other little girls so bad but didn't have the courage to go talk to them......so I did what any mom would do and I walked over to the group with her and introduced ourselves.  Much to my surprise they were all really nice.  Maybe tomorrow she will be able to play with those little girls at school!

I think this school year is going to be a great one.  Gone are those days of waking up whenever we wanted to with nothing in the world to do....at least until next summer!