avery's first day of kindergarten

Avery's first day of kindergarten started off at five minutes until 7:00 when she showed up next to me in bed fully dressed and said, "I am ready for school".  It was so sweet and so Avery.  I loved it.  

We had pancakes and eggs for breakfast.

The girl can rock some Hello Kitty like no other.

She was so excited that she completely cooperated for a ton of pictures.  

She was striking poses like crazy.

She kept asking me to take a picture of her as she picked up her bookbag.  Made me laugh.  It was pretty heavy with all those supplies.

Had to get a picture with her little buddy.

Yes, she even had a Hello Kitty hairbow.

How adorable is that lunchbag?  Not very practical we know as it got pudding stains on it the first day.  Ha.

This is what I added to her lunchbag for the first day.  It's still there.  She told me when she opens her lunchbag it makes her feel better.  She is awesome.

Little sis had to match.

It was all so surreal.

I was kind of in shock.

Avery never showed even a hint of nervousness.  She was beyond excited.  It was so precious.  She told us on the way in that she couldn't wait to introduce Tyson to Mrs. Ison.

She literally walked in the room like she had been there 100 times before and said, "Hi, Mrs. Ison, this is my little brother, Tyson."

I love her teacher already.  And so does Avery.

She found her cubbie right away and stared at her name for a minute.  Another girl came in with a Hello Kitty bookbag so she said "Hello" to her so sweetly.

One of the best parts of the morning was when she got down at Tyson's level to say goodbye and in her sweetest voice said, "I'm going to be at school all day, Little Buddy."

She came out into the hallway with Tyson and I to say goodbye to Jason and Mia.  I was last.  It was so hard.  I didn't want to let her go but I also didn't want her to see me super upset and mess up all her excitement.  So I did let go.  I hated it but I was so proud of my big girl.  As she walked in, I called her name one last time and she looked back at me just like this.  It is my favorite picture from the day.

We stayed in the hallway for several minutes watching her.  I would have done just about anything to be a fly on the wall in that classroom.  Mrs. Ison asked them to go to the carpet and read a book.  She did just that.  She was a pro at this school stuff already and never even went to preschool.

Meanwhile, Tyson waited patiently in a chair like he owned the place.

This was the last vision we got of her before we walked away.

And we left with tears in our eyes, pride and joy in our hearts, and two littles who were oblivious to the big life moment we had just experienced.

I didn't want to go straight home so we took the littles to the park and McDonald's for lunch.  It was fun and it kept my mind off kindergarten for a minute.

I couldn't wait to pick her up and hear about the day.  She hopped in the van with a smile but no words.  We asked her how it was and after a long pause, she replied with "I loved it".  Ah, exactly what we wanted to hear.  We asked her what she loved about it and she said, "All of it".  We both breathed a sigh of relief and then took her for an ice cream cone at Sonic to celebrate.

Then today as Jason took her to her third day of kindergarten, her teacher came out into the hallway and pointed down at Avery, looked right at Jason and said, "A really good kid".  Jason said thank you so much and she said, "Great kid".  Jason thanked her again and she said, "No, thank you".  In light of recent events at home making me feel like a complete failure as a mother this was exactly what I needed to hear.  I had been running on fumes and now I have a full tank.  Thank you, God.