school!

The Monday after Audrey's birthday party, we started homeschooling! I felt like I should commemorate the day with a "first day of school" photo in front of the house...it just seemed so first-day-of-schoolish. So I had Evie and Eloise stand on the porch and pose for a picture, but my camera wouldn't take the picture; it just kept shutting off. Even though I took it right from the charger, where it had been "charging" overnight, it kept saying the battery was dead. After five or so attempts, resetting the date and time each time, and monkeying with the clear packing tape I've been using to hold the battery compartment closed (have I ever mentioned that I could really use a new camera?), I finally gave up and sent the girls inside.

We tackled our studies with much gusto. Or something. Both Evie and Eloise were excited to get started, and they loved the little "schoolroom" I had set up the night before. Audrey hung out in her pack-n-play right by us for quite a while, playing with a bunch of the new toys she'd received from her party.

At the end of the day, before we sat down to dinner, I decided to try taking a picture one more time, and it worked!

Evie and Eloise's first day of Kindergarten and preschool

She kept insisting on striking different poses...

Yes, she wore this all day. No, I will never admit to being glad that she wasn't actually leaving the house like this...

We've been going strong for four weeks now, and we're still enjoying it. Each day is a little different, depending on what other activities we have (dance classes, piano lessons, storytime at the library, and homeschool gym and swim class), but we're in a routine, and we're learning a lot! I was a little bit surprised by how much material is considered "Kindergarten"--some things I don't remember learning until 3rd or 4th grade!--but Evie is soaking it all up, and Eloise is, too, actually! (The other day Eloise asked me if I noticed the simile in the book we were reading...probably not a question uttered by most three year olds, I'd wager...)