Grace's First Day of Kindergarten!

Grace started Kindergarten today! She attends at Bay Leaf Baptist Church about 4 miles from our house. It is a half-day Kindergarten taught by a teacher with 32 years experience. Her teacher taught at a much larger Christian school in our area for 25 years. There is also an assistant and a total of 12 kids in her class.

Grace has been waiting for this day since summer began. And she is ready. However, it has been a little hard on me the last few days. I am thrilled for her and so happy that we made the decision to enroll her in this program, but sad for me. Grace and I have been together constantly over the last 5 years. Kindergarten marks a new time of school and friends and, well, separation. :-) Hard to let go.

We all went to school today to see her off. We had to do a little hair redo in the parking lot. Daddy had the baby and took pictures and Isaac was probably off peeing and saying "poop."

Here she is at the front door. Smile bigger than that ridiculously large backpack!

And here she is outside of her classroom. She went right in and found her name. She was so excited I was afraid she was going to kiss a boy. Fortunately a little boy named Isaac sits at her table, so hopefully he reminds her too much of her brother.

Yesterday she got to meet her teachers. This is her classroom. Her teacher is the one in the turquoise in the back.

When I picked her up today she had the biggest twinkle in her eye. She said she had so much fun but it was a lot of work! I was relieved that she was not exhausted and overwhelmed as so many of our friends' kids have experienced after being in school for over 7 hours as Kindergartners! However, she did throw out all of the Tupperware I put in her lunch today. That was the only bummer.

I am so proud of my daughter and the little person God is molding her to become. She is brave and smart, sweet and thoughtful.