Evan's 1st Day of 4th Grade

Yikes!  I can't believe we already have four years of elementary school behind us and only two more to go before the dreaded middle school is upon us.  It has been a crazy four years, but I think this year has started out about as smooth as we could have hoped with two kids in school.  I do think it helps with me being home and not having to worry about other childcare arrangements right now.  That was such a stressful part of our lives during Evan's first years of school.  So for now, this lifestyle is working out okay even if it does mean a few sacrifices here and there.   Now that sports is also in full swing with two busy boys, our schedules during the week do get pretty crazy.  It does seem like their school days are very long because even though they don't have to be at school until 9:15 in the morning, they are there until 4:00.  With sports practices starting at 6:00, that doesn't leave us much time to get them fed and do homework in the evenings.  Since Evan started back to school on July 11th, we are currently less than three weeks away from our first quarter break in September so we are definitely looking forward to that.  For Evan, he has just matured so much this past year in all areas.  I have been so impressed with his physical abilities as he has been through some pretty intense conditioning training to get him ready for his first season of football.  I can really begin to see the teenage years approaching fast, and I definitely have mixed feelings about that.  Sigh.  I think 4th grade in our state is a pretty fun academic year.  Evan will enjoy learning lots of NC history and will get to go on some fun field trips.  I still remember our 4th grade field trip to tour our state capital, Raleigh.  For us, it was a fun "far away" trip since we didn't live in the Raleigh area.  I know that it will be different for him, but I still think it will be fun.  It is like a "rite of passage" trip for fourth graders in our state.  Evan is also proud that he is finally on the last Harry Potter book, the Deathly Hallows, although he is also excited to read the newest book/play too. He is just growing up so fast!

Family pictures!

 

I made him stop and pose for a picture on the way into school. 

Yes, he wants to be some kind of engineer and thinks nuclear engineer sounds cool.  We do live down the road from a nuclear power plant.  Haha!  We also finally gave in and let him get Minecraft when it was available for Wii U.  He still doesn't play it on any other devices.  He and I have built a pretty impressive city with skyscrapers, roads, apartment buildings, suburbs with houses, and even a Target, grocery store, movie theater, and gas station.  Haha!  Hey, I may be pushing him more towards being an architectural engineer. 

He loves being in a pirate themed room this year.

Getting to work.

I think I was most excited to see his stack of textbooks for the year. 

His teacher sent us pictures of their first group project of the year making a model of North Carolina out of yummy treats that represented different aspects of the three regions of the state, mountains, piedmont, and coastal plain.