Let's try this again...

A few weeks ago I printed out these adorable signs for the first day of school where your kid holds up the sign and you take a picture.  I even sent out an email to my other mom friends to share the cute idea.  Guess what...last night I said, "Ella, I forgot to take a picture of you holding up the 'First day of Kindergarten' sign."  She replies to me, "It's ok mom, you can do it tomorrow on my second first day of school."  Man I love this kid!

Ella's second first day of school :)

We have a Kindergartner!

Six years ago I was waddling down the hall at St. Rita attempting to teach or get my room ready (not sure the day school started that year) and then one month later our daughter was born.  Here we are today with our beautiful and sweet kindergartner.  She is so, so bright and full of life.  Time sure does fly.  I remember the day she was born like it was yesterday and I thought this day would never come.  This is truly a huge milestone.  She is a confident, precious and smart girl who is going to go very far.  I'm very sure of it!

At the end of her final pre-school year in the spring I was pretty emotional and cried at the end of the year performance, then again when we watched the DVD from the beginning of the slideshow to the very end, on the last day of school and then again last week at Meet the Teacher I got choked up when Ella gripped my hand the whole night.  I thought for sure I'd be a mess today.  Ava's mom, Ashley, and I planned to go to Starbucks after drop-off with one other mom.  I'm not sure how I did it but I didn't cry!  She was a little timid but she did great.  She said she liked kindergarten but she was really shy.  SHe thought that is was really cool that there's a girl in her class named Riley but was too shy to tell her that her middle name is Rielly.  I'm sure by the end of the week she's not shy!  So far her buddy in class is Collin.  He lives around the corner and we were at a birthday party together this past weekend.

Here are some pictures from the day.

I made her favorite muffins: Cinnamon Streusel 

Hugging baby bro

She's ready to go

Daddy's girl

It was not easy to get this picture.  She thought Ava was going to leave without her and she had the saddest look on her face.  I kept telling her they were waiting for us.  These girls are attached!

Three little kindergartners and awesome Butterflies :)

Two little kinders and a third grader

Bennett gave Ella a kiss good-bye but I wasn't fast enough

Concentrating on her work

Goof ball...right in the hall....this is what's to come!

Pick-up time!  She really was ALL smiles but I had my phone on video and they were hot with the sun shining on them.

Bennett and I made her a 1st day of school treat and can you believe I forgot to take a picture!  She came home with three friends and two moms and we all enjoyed it with ice cream.  

I think it's going to be a great year!  Now if it'd just cool down.