New Beginnings

The Lou dog joined Little C this year in the public school education journey.

His enthusiasm for learning was enormous before Kindergarten and now, although I thought it'd be impossible, the enthusiasm has grown. 

He is ready at least two hours before school starts - packs his own snack - and has his backpack hanging on the front door.

He adores his teacher and made up his own permission slip form for me to sign with a list of different adventures his teacher could take him on.... he asked me to initial next to each activity stating my consent. 

What?! And no. I didn't initial :) - but we had a nice long talk about how great it was that he loves his teacher and he should soak up every minute being spent with her at school in the classroom.

He is determined to know how to read tomorrow and works on sounding out words even though he is unfamiliar with some of the combined letter sounds.

For example -

Anything that starts with an A followed by an S... 

he pronounces A S S. If he continued on to the next letter quickly this wouldn't be noticeable..

but tis not the case.

Little C was dying of laughter in the car one day when I told Lou to stop sounding out a word until I could help him at home because we had heard the word A S S about ten loud times in a row.

Shoot dog. 

Cute little Lou-dog on his first day of school

Little C is having his first experience with a male teacher this year and they are a match made in heaven.

Little C didn't know teachers were allowed to be SO COOL (his words) but I was warned never to tell his teacher how much Little C likes him because that is soooo embarrassing. 

His teacher was a skater in his prime and allows the kids to bring their skateboards to school and shows them how to do different tricks at recess. How could Little C not be happy? :)

Besides having fun he is being so diligent in getting his homework done, applying himself, and being accountable.

He loves introducing Lou to his friends at school... especially one particular little love interest named Lauren.

This girl is on his brain A LOT.

Oh dear.

I'm not quite ready for that journey. :(

Little C and Lou on their first day of school.

Two weeks after school started the boys participated in a 

lap-a-thon fundraiser. Ruckus, The Baby, and our little neighbor girl participated for fun, even though they weren't collecting money. 

At the beginning of the event they had all of the kids gather together in a circle to explain the rules. I had The baby with me (he started running later) and I was quite a distance away. All of a sudden the whole group broke into a stampede and starting running their laps.

Ruckus got separated from his brothers and was running as fast as his little legs could carry him, looking like a deer in the headlights. 

I wanted to rescue him -

but he continued diligently all around the track.

After his first lap I finally retrieved him so we could talk it through, explained it wasn't a race, to go at his own pace, and then partnered him up with our neighbor -

off he went.

The school kept track of the laps ran by placing a mark on the participants arm after every lap.

There were numerous adults giving out marks...

Ruckus decided it would be cool if he got marked by every adult possible after every lap. :) His arms afterward look like he ran a marathon. He was so proud.

The Lou dog approached the lap-a-thon as he does everything else. Pure determination.

He opted to run alone and kept a pretty impressive steady pace through the whole event.

Little C is a good little runner and ran his heart out for about the first thirty minutes. After that he still went around the track but was ready to chat with his buddies and slow his pace down a bit.

The baby was a hit.

He ran and ran but avoided the line of adults keeping track of the laps.

They totally freaked him out and he only blessed them with his presence once.

:)

Little C in the brown shirt running.

Lou smiling as he runs past.

Ruckus chatting and running at the same time with our neighbor.

The baby, trotting around the course.

supposed laps ran :)

He ran and ran but only allowed his arm to be marked once

Way to go Lou!

Awesome job Little C!

After ten laps were completed the kids were able to collect a free hot dog.

The true fundraiser participants.
Good job guys!