Today was back to school. Can you tell from the picture who was not having a good morning, because they were tired! :-)

1st, 4th and 7th grade. This is the first time for Benjamin to be in the middle school (which is 5-8th grade). He was very excited and nervous. I went with him for his back to school night. Crazy layout of the middle school. I was also surprised with how many male teachers there were. In the elementary there are only 2 male teachers out of 22. Benjamin has 4 male teachers this year and they were all younger than me. So glad to see men in those roles. We spent about 5 minutes at his locker. He did not know how to work the dial lock. Fortunately, mom to the rescue. It was comical that I would open it then he tried 3 more times and could not. Fortunately we kept laughing. I told him that he needed to nail his locker combination, otherwise a huge frustration to his day. He persevered. When he realized he could not flippantly pass numbers and turn back to them, it went much better.

The elementary back to school night went well. Jacob's 4th grade classroom has what is called 'flexible' seating. This means, as long as they are behaving, they can sit where ever they like. One table is a tall, stand at table, one table is really low with couch cushions, one has the big bouncy/exercise balls, one is a traditional table, etc. Very excited to see how this new trend in classrooms will go. I think his classroom might be the only one in the school set up this way. I see Jacob on the bouncy balls most of the time!

Jacob out of the blue told me last night "my goal is to only be sent to the behavioralist five times this year". (The behavioralist is the one you go to when you are in trouble). I looked at him and he told me that zero was too hard to make happen, so he is shooting for 5 times instead of something like 10 for 3rd grade!

Very excited for my boys and praying circles around them!

I have my huge to-do list. I need to keep reminding myself that I don't have to get it all done in one day or even a week. I have 185 days home alone. The best way for me to celebrate, is to have it quiet! Does not really matter what I do, whether it is work or leisure, as long as it is quiet, I am fine! Too much noise, commotion and chaos when the boys are home.