First Day of School

What kind of mom would I be if I didn't post some pictures of the kids on the first day of school? (The non-embarrassing kind, probably. And where's the fun in that?)

(Note: I took most of these with my nice camera, but I haven't had a chance yet to do any post-processing like color balancing, contrast adjustment, or cropping. When I've done that, I'll post those pics to Flickr.)

First, a nice standing pose:

Then, one that probably captures their relative feelings about the day a little more accurately:

An anecdote worth saving: At orientation last week, as Alex and I were walking down the hall together, I said, "Are you excited to meet your teacher and see your kindergarten class?" and he said, "Mommy, I've been waiting for this my whole life!"

And then one with the pseudo-stepsiblings, which I think of the six bajillion pictures the three adults were taking, may be the only one that got all four kids a) looking generally in the direction of the camera, b) not blinking, and c) not making a goofy face:

And, of course, the obligatory bus stop picture (this one via my cell phone, because the nice camera's battery died on me):

I did, in fact, get just a little choked up as the bus pulled away -- that's my youngest off to kindergarten, and my eldest starting her very last year in elementary school. It's the end of an era.

But more than nostalgic, I'm excited and happy for them. And, also, relieved to not be paying daycare tuition for a while...