our first day of school

WAHHHOOOO! Our first day went well. Not great. But in a house full of boys - I really appreciate well. We started off with a promotion ceremony. Basically you walk across a "stage" to the tunes of "Life is a Highway" get your promotion certificate, high five mommy and dance your way into your new grade. We did this 3 times because Daddy video taped it blurry the first time. Max was screaming...for a reason we still have yet to determine....the second time. Then the picture outside. This is the second one I took....after I said look happy and like you like each other. Measured the boys on the door frame and marked it. Now, they tried to take their own measurements one evening on David's door frame. Hard to explain how it is ok for Mommy to write on the wall and not them. But it just is. We reviewed our time line from last year. Added the walls of Jericho tumbling down to the time line. Introduced some new things this year - spelling and grammar and penmanship. Yep, I am hoping to learn along with them on these:) We set up our calendar so they could see what is coming up. A little science. Reading. Math. Alex had his first guitar lesson this afternoon. That was COOL. Got a teenager who plays at our church to give him lessons. Alex is so pumped:) It was a good day. The kids didn't want to do school. They balked at almost every new thing I gave them. Asked "Is this the last thing?" every time. Honestly - that was their attitude every day last year. Hey - I'm not here to make them like school. I do want them to like learning. I think they do;) Tomorrow - we start back on our volcano project. Still looking for a spectacular explosion. Oh - funny thing (at least to me) Alex said. We were defining a noun. I was tossing out words and they were telling me if it was a person, place or thing. I said tree. Alex said, "Well, actuaweee (still having trouble with the "l" sound) a tree is a place for a bird and a thing for you and me." He was so proud of himself when he saw me write that down...where? In my calendar- of course:) Oh, and David drew a cartoon character from TV and they played "Pin the tale on Ed's butt." The game is now known as "Pin the tale on Ed." Boys! kelli