First Day of School and John's Birthday

I'm going to interrupt my summer vacation posts with a post about the busy couple of days we have had.  Wednesday was John's first day of first grade and it also happened to be his birthday.  When we told him that the two events were in one day he said, "That is the best birthday present anyone could ever give me."  What a cutie.  I hope he loves school this much for a long time.

This is John's friend Mason.  Mason just happens to be our next door neighbor.  John and Mason have been in the same class for two years.  Mason is tall and John is very very short.

 Gus waiting for the bus.  He can't wait until he can ride the bus.  I'm already worried about John and Gus riding the same bus.  How many days do you think it will be before the sweet bus driver will revolt?

 Anders with his buddy Audrey.  Audrey is Mason's sister and therefore is also our neighbor.  She loves Anders.

I believe John was the first one on the bus.  No back to school blues for this kid.

When John got off the bus after school he ran up to me, gave me a kiss, said, "Hi, Mom.  Can I play with my friends?" And that was it.  He was off.  He said school was fun and exciting and not much else.  Later in the evening we celebrated his birthday.  When I asked him a week ago what he wanted for his birthday dinner he said, "a feast."  I asked what he wanted as part of his feast and he said, "Oh, you know...pizza, mac and cheese, chicken nuggets, fries, chicken legs, mashed potatoes..."  I finally had to stop him and tell him that he really needed to pick one main dish.  He ultimately chose pizza, but he wanted the kind we could make ourselves.

 The goofy birthday boy with his Mickey Mouse birthday hat, a Disney birthday button and a special birthday sticker.  

The presents.  These weren't even all of the presents since John got to open the presents from his grandparents before school.

 My grandparents wrapped a little gift for Gus and Anders so they wouldn't feel so left out.  They were much appreciated.

 John has an elaborate cake picked out for his birthday party, but for his actual birthday he simply requested chocolate cake-pops with whipped cream icing.

We also had chocolate peanut butter ice cream in waffle cones.  John was one happy camper.

The day after John's first day of school it was Gus's first day of school!  As excited as he seemed to be about the big day, I thought for sure there would be tears when I dropped him off.  But I was wrong.  He was pretty excited to go.  We actually went to Gus's school to meet the teacher last week.  When we were leaving, we asked Gus if he knew what was going to happen the next time we came to his school and he said, "Yeah, you're going to leave me."  I had to keep telling him we weren't leaving him, just dropping him off.  All the same to him.

Ready to go!

He said I had to show you his cool Spider-man backpack.

His teacher, Mrs. Best, sent a picture home today.  He looks so happy.  What a big boy!