The Minions are getting older....

My two oldest, Elena and Kiera, started their first day of school yesterday. Elena started 2nd and Kiera started Kindergarten. I would like to tell you that I cried when Kiera went to kindergarten, but I think I kept it together due to the fact that last year she was in the Pre-K class at school with Elena, who was in 1st grade at the time and I did my "oh my baby is growing up" cry then.

Aren't they cute!! They even match (not intentional!)

They have come a long way from here!!!

My girls are so different, yet so alike it astounds me. For the first day of school, we made sure to take the two youngest to the babysitters early so we could walk the girls to their classes on the first day. Needless to say, Gabriel was none to thrilled to be going to the sitters without his big sisters, poor guy. Anyway, I took Elena and Fred took Kiera. When we walked into the class, Elena was all smiles and excitement. She seemed like she was ready to kick me out of the class till I actually started to leave. Leave it to my emo-child to immediately yell "Mommy" and come over to hug and cry. I knelt down to look her in the eyes and said, "Baby, it's OK, It's school, you love school. You will make lots of new friends and have lots of fun. Now, take a deep breath and stop the tears. I love you and I will see you when I pick you up from school and you can tell me all about your day." With that, Elena took two big breaths to steady herself, stood up straight, gave me one more hug and went to sit at her table. She has always been my emotional one out of the bunch but oh so brave. This has become such a tradition with the first day of school, I wonder if I will be doing the same thing when she is a senior in high school.

Now, Kiera on the other hand, she has always been the fearless one. I don't know where she gets it from. Fred took her to her class, she walked in, hung her backpack where the teacher told her to. Gave her a butterfly entrance (they have to do some kind of greeting every time they walk in, there is a list to pick from, she chose butterfly) and walked into the class. She had seen the class already at the "Meet the teacher" night, but she was still a little hesitant, mainly because there was a lot going on for the first day. But as soon as the teacher gave her some options on what to do till school started, she headed to the book area and sat down to read a book. She barely even looked at Fred and Me (I went to find him after dropping off Elena). Kiera had this look when she finally did look up that basically said "Get lost, Mom and Dad!" I suspect I will see this look many times from her when she is a teenager. So, we said goodbye, more confident that Kiera was going to be better than Elena will be. Like I said, two totally different creatures.

When I got off work, and picked them up from the Babysitters, they didn't stop talking for like an hour and it wasn't easy to listen. Both of them are talking Ninety miles an hour at the same time. I couldn't keep it straight. A little tip for any mothers out there, when this happens the best thing to do, just cause you don't want to kill their excitement, listen and even if you don't catch everything, repeat back a few words they say every now and then while nodding. I do this constantly. I get most of what they are saying and they feel satisfied that they were heard. It was a great first day at school and they passed smooth out when it was lights out that evening. I love school as much as they do!!!!