first day of first grade

today was hayden's first day of first grade!!! i thought for sure that i would be sad to see him gone all day, but after a full summer with the boys at each other most days, i was more than happy to see him off for the day!
i actually did get a bit sad when i was packing him his lunch last nite though. last year i never got very sentimental about it, maybe because he'd been going to school since he was 3 and even took the bus to preschool the year before. so kindergarten just didn't seem any different than preschool. but while packing his lunch, i started feeling the way i felt when a new school year was beginning. school has really started for him. he's in the big leagues now.
unfortunately for him, erwin orchards started picking their honey crisp apples today so he wasn't able to go. we actually didn't even tell him we were going to do that just to make sure there wasn't a full day of him at school complaining that he wanted to go pick apples!
so this morning at about 8:15 or so, mom came over so she could take some pictures and see hayden off to school with us. he was in a great mood this morning until dave was messing around with him and he turned his switch. he then became grumpy and difficult until right when the bus was coming when he actually asked for his picture to be taken.
he hopped on the bus, waved goodbye and headed off for a full day of school.
once he was gone, we all headed to mom's house (well, dave headed to work) and then we all went to erwin's to pick some apples. at about 3:45, i drove home to pick up hayden from the bus and then drove him back to mom and dad's so we could all have mom's apple pancake dinner.
when the bus pulled up, the bus driver looked out and said "we're just waking everybody up from their naps!" and hayden slowly stumbled down the steps with a big smile on his face. apparently he was OUT and he had no idea he was at home.
hayden said he had a great day at school, and just as i figured, he didn't really eat anything for lunch except for his batman fruit snacks. he did eat a pretty good dinner though!
so...so far, first grade is treating him pretty well. he was able to stay "in the school zone" (the behavioral light changing system starts in the school zone then gets moved to green, yellow and then red) even though "i did some bad things, but they didn't change my light!" ahhh, that's our hayden.





dave wanted to have his picture taken with hayden which is what sent hayden into his grumpy mood for the next 1/2 hour:
he was thrilled that i was still taking pictures:


the bus is coming! the bus is coming!:

off to his first full day of school:

after getting home from his first day of school. i couldn't take a picture of him getting off the bus because he was so groggy i had to help him down. so this is what i got:

first grade orientation

labor day was pretty late this year so the school year got started later than normal for most kids. but for hayden's school, it is starting even later than most other kids in michigan. most kids went back to school the day after labor day, but hayden still hasn't even started yet!
this afternoon we went to hayden's school for his first grade orientation. we were able to meet his teacher, mrs. taurence, went on a little scavenger hunt in his classroom, learned a bit about what he would be doing this year, colored, took a tour of the building and then made a skunk magnet (as he is in the skunk room this year).
his teacher seems really nice and he is so excited to have his own desk that he is able to put all of his school supplies in. he is in the same school as last year, macgowan, as it is redford union's kindergarten and first grade school.
tomorrow is hayden's first day of school. it starts at 9am and ends at 4pm. so he'll be leaving our house around 8:45am and he won't get home until after 4:30pm!!! he says he is ready for a full day of school and is excited to eat lunch at school. i'm guessing he won't be eating much lunch during the school year as he'll be too busy trying to entertain his classmates!

hayden's desk:

mrs. taurence's first grade classroom:

it's magic, michael

the end of july marked the end of the summer reading program at the redford library. hayden had a great time participating in all of the activities and ended up reading over 13 hours in the month of july! he was able to go in and get 3 different prizes!
on monday, the library had a party for all of the kids that met a goal. you could go in at 2 or 7. i quickly decided taking talan, especially during nap time, would be a horrible decision, so hayden and i headed out for the 7 o'clock party.
the library had brought in a magician, baffling bill, to perform a show for the kids. hayden was sitting front row, center and LOVED it. it was a GREAT show. i don't know that i've ever seen a kids magician like that that was so good. i mean, he was no gob, but he was good!!
hayden, of course, was upset that he wasn't picked to be one of the assistants throughout the show, but he was the only kid that was able to pet the dove.
after the show all of the kids were able to go out and pick a book to take home, pick up their reading certificate and pet the magician's bunny.
it was a great time and we are grateful for all that the library did throughout july. now that reading month is over it's time to turn the tv back on! (that was a joke.....the tv has been on all along.)

bats, man!

this evening the whole family went to the library for the last event of the summer reading program (before the big party on monday). hayden had been waiting all month to go see live bats.
as soon as we got there, hayden somehow managed to get the front row, center seat (well, i'm sure it was through being pushy) and dave, talan and i took our seats in the chairs.
we really couldn't see hayden the whole time, but never really heard him, other than a laugh a couple of times. after the presentation hayden had the biggest smile on his face and kept saying how cute all of the bats were. he LOVED it.
talan wasn't too fond of sitting and dave eventually had to take him out. but while he was in the room, anytime they would show a picture on the screen up front talan would yell "butterfly!" i would say, "no, it's a bat." and he would yell even louder "BUTTERFLY!"
apparently the bats live at the cranbrook museum so we'll be taking a family trip there soon so hayden can get his fill of even more bats!

lego's at the library

we've been spending a lot of time at the library this month since they have the summer reading program. usually once a week we go for a special event and then several other times a week to pick out new books and turn in hayden's reading log and pick up his prizes.
we almost missed out on the event hayden wanted to go to the most, the lego building event. you have to register for each event the week before. when we went into the library to register, it was already full. luckily, the librarian told us she knew of at least one person that wouldn't be coming so she put us in the book.
they called to tell us to bring around 50-60 legos. dave and hayden decided he would build a castle and they put a big bucket of lego's that he would need together. it turns out that the lego event wasn't exactly what we had expected and a few tears came with it.
it turned out to be a lego building challenge. they had the kids separated by age groups but they still all competed against each other. they were told they could only have 50 legos, so we had to count out 50 of the pieces he thought he would need/want. the librarian would tell the kids what they needed to make and then tell them how much time they had. some things were a ridiculous amount of time like 1 or 2 minutes. the kids at hayden's table (the youngest kids) were not happy with this. hayden had a lot of castle type pieces which didn't help in some of the challenges.
hayden is very precise. when told to build the tallest tower, he couldn't simply just stack legos on top of each other to make it as tall as possible. he wanted to build a good sturdy and good looking tower. so in the end, he basically had nothing built. at one point he started crying and said "i'm NEVER going to get a medal!" as they were passing out 2 medals for each challenge.
one of the challenges was a BLINDFOLDED challenge in which they had to build a cube in 1 or 2 minutes. yeah...that one certainly wasn't the favorite over at our table!!! eventually hayden calmed down a bit and he even ended up winning the robot challenge. he was so happy to get a medal!
talan sat in his stroller the whole time and played pretty quietly with his own legos.
in the end, all of the kids got a goodie bag filled with legos, lego candy and lego stickers. they even gave one to talan.
hayden ended up having a DECENT time, but i know he wished he could have just built the castle that he had come intending to build. i must say, his adjustment skills are getting a bit better.

the blindfold challenge. they had to build a cube with no pieces sticking out. hayden didn't even have any pieces stuck together because he couldn't get it perfect:

the rocket ship challenge:
talan thought he was a part of the action too:

the tallest tower. hayden's didn't get any tall than this:
so happy to finally win a medal:
the medal winning robot:
the bridge challenge:

vandalism is fun!

the library is having it's summer reading program through the month of july so we went and signed hayden up the last week in june.
when a child reads 3 hours they are able to go to the library and get a prize. something hayden was able to do about a week into the program. he got a baggie filled with candy, a pencil, a bookmark and other fun things. once they meet that goal, they are then also invited to the big end of the program party in august.
once they read for 6 hours they are able to go and pick from either a frisbee or a bag. hayden only has about 25 more minutes until that goal, so we'll finish that up today and then head to the library for his prize this evening.
the last goal is 10 hours where they will get another prize.
besides all of the reading, the library has a whole calendar filled with fun things for the kids to do. many of the events are for certain age groups but some are for all ages. each week we are able to register for any of the events that we want to participate in for the following week.
the first event was a puppet making workshop. they were able to make as many as they wanted out of the 6 different stations. hayden went in and very quickly made a paper plate puppet and then decided that was all he wanted to do. after a little bit of persuading, and letting him know that there was nothing else going on that day, he made a couple other puppets. i helped talan make a paper bag dog puppet that he still carries around the house.
the next day, hayden was able to go to the library and paint on the windows. we got there bright and early so hayden was able to get a great window! he ended up painting a picture of thomas the tank engine (and thomas' name) and a robot. he also wrote his name next to both of his pictures.
after he was done painting, we stood in line to have his face painted. he has never actually gotten his face painted before. he has always opted for his arm. this time he kept asking "does it have to be my face? can i just get it on my arm?" but then eventually decided he would try it on his face.
i suggested that talan get a drum on his cheek and hayden decided he wanted a drum and a guitar.
hayden was up first and sat perfectly still for the lady. then i pushed talan's stroller up and talan kept saying "drum! cheek!" but as soon as the lady started to draw on him he freaked out a bit, so we just walked away. he had about a half of a circle but he really thought he had a drum on his face. he went around all day pointing to his cheek saying "drum!"
we then went over to the bubble area for a bit before heading home.
hayden had a good time and was very proud of his pictures. yesterday, talan and i went to the library without hayden and talan was so happy to see hayden's paintings. and i know hayden is looking forward to seeing them again this evening when we head over to pick up his second prize.

claiming his prime window spot:






face painting:



this was the drum talan got:
fun with giant bubbles: