Jakob Daniel and Everleigh Grace Hall

Too bad we didn't see that sign until the end of our walk, ha!

Apologies in advance for typos in this post...between being up since 1:30 with excitement (and, truth, nerves) and the emotional rollercoaster of putting your babies on a bus for the first time and having your first child begin school, I'm all over the place right now.  First, an update on Everleigh's first day yesterday.  It was so great that she told Dan to "walk away" when he and Jakob arrived to pick her up, ha! We started our new routine of waking the kids up at 6:15 this morning.  Actually, thanks to getting to bed a little early last night, Everleigh woke up on her own shortly before that.  Despite having to wake him, Jakob was immediately in a good mood.  Usually he's as slow as a turtle in the morning, but today he got right out of bed, got himself dressed, and took his first day pictures willingly.  After breakfast he even brushed his teeth right away and helped us move Everleigh along, helping me keep track of time until we had to leave.  ...

After adamantly refusing to put on the super cute dress I laid out for her, Everleigh was more than happy to take pictures memorializing her first official day of preschool.  She really wanted to go on the bus ride that was a part of Jakob's orientation, but she quickly forgot about it when she got into the classroom and saw her teachers. Jakob's orientation went really well too.  There was a wide range of emotions from his classmates when it was time for the parents to leave so that the kids could talk with their teacher and take the bus ride.  Some were extremely clingy and on the verge of tears, while others didn't seem phased at all.  Jakob had some nervous energy, but he wasn't anywhere close to clingy or sad.  When I rejoined him after the (rather overwhelming) parent information session and Q&A, he was so nonplussed that you would have thought he'd been in kindergarten for months already. Our plan is to send both kiddos on the bus tomorrow.  ...

Now here's a playground with fountains that kids are DEFINITELY supposed to play in!  We saw a number of playgrounds with splash pads like this in Boston...the kids loved them!