Elly's first day of school!

It's official...I have all three of my kids in school. Granted, Elly's only in pre-K for 3 hours 3 days a week, but it is crazy that school has started for my youngest kid. I'm excited for Elly to have her own thing for once (she's been a tag-along to the boys way too long) and I know my time alone will get filled up fast, but I am also a little sad that this is the precursor to kindergarten and each school year after that. Once the school years start, time just seems to fly. Of course there's many exciting and fun things with the school years, it's just a new season of mommyhood.

Back to Elly...
Elly was a little bummed when we went school supply shopping and her list contained napkins, plates and cups instead of all the cool notebooks, pens and pencils the boys had on their lists, but she was excited for her pink backpack.

She had no hesitations, just said "bye mom" when it was time for me to go, and went on playing with her playdough.

Elly is going to the same pre-K program the boys went to. It's lots of fun and I'm excited for her to learn from Mrs. Kirk. I'm curious how she does. She's definitely got a little more spunk with the boys and sits still way less than they did at her age. However, she's got some skills hidden up her sleeve. Look at this worksheet!

She wanted to improvise and give the empty tree one apple, but in the end decided to just go ahead and follow the directions, "'cause Mrs. Kirk would like that.":)

Her teacher gives the kids a handful of worksheets each time. You're not supposed to force the kids to do it, but they do get prizes for doing them...so Mac, maybe did one sheet each time, Nate, did every single one right away, and I figured Elly would be more like Mac. However, she wanted to do homework like her brothers. She didn't bust through them, but she did a couple. I think with Elly, it's just going to be more if she thinks it's worth her while to sit down and do something...'cause playing babies and swinging on a tire swing can sometimes trump sitting still!