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First, the prelude:

Molly’s school lets the kids come the Friday before school starts for a sneak-a-peek at their classroom and teacher. So, of course Jen and Molly weren’t going to miss the chance. Here’s Molly giving a sweet treat to her new second grade teacher, Ms. Diop, last Friday.

Then this morning, the big day arrived. Molly was excited as always. Here she is ready to go to her first day of second grade in a new dress made by Jen. She’s also got some new earrings that Jen surprised her with last night.

Here she is on the way. We still love being able to walk to school.

Molly had a lot of fun playing with the twins this summer (they live behind us off to the side). She was excited to find out Jordan was once again in her class.

Per tradition, a bunch of the kids from the neighborhood gathered for a picture on the first day of school.

Molly and Jordan walked hand in hand most of the way to school. Clearly that didn’t stop Molly talking with her other hand, though.

The Wildcat was on hand for the first day of school, and Molly was excited to take a picture with him.

And then she was off. We’re looking forward to a great year.

Finally, after a couple extra days due to all the snow, it was the last day of school for Molly. Here she is, ready to go finish out first grade.

For comparison, here she is on the first day of school this year. I'd say she's grown up a bit.

After school, we got a picture of the neighborhood kids just like we did the first day of school. There are a few more kids here than there were then, plus a few extra friends.

Here's that first day of school picture.

Leah’s ready to head out to her last day of preschool this year.

She looks much more grown up than she did at the beginning of this year.

For fun, here she is on the first day of preschool the year before. Wow, they grow up fast.

Molly had her Field Day at school, and I joined in the fun as a parent volunteer. It was a chilly, misty day despite hitting 90 degrees the day before, but the kids had fun anyway. I was assigned to one of the water/first aid stations, though I thankfully didn’t have any first aid emergencies to handle.

Here she is with some kids from her class at the softball/tennis ball toss. Molly’s the one in the pink hat, throwing the softball. Please excuse the pictures, as it was tough to shoot through the mist.

Molly and Grace race around the cones with soccer balls squeezed between their knees.

There were lots of activities in 3 primary areas (gym, blacktop, and lower field where I was stationed). I didn't see Molly too much, but I at least got a wave when she wandered by headed to another activity.

We were supposed to eat a picnic lunch outside, but the grass was wet so the teachers changed the plan to picnic in the classroom. So I joined Molly’s class there.

By the end, the kids were chilly, wet, and very dirty thanks to running around a muddy field. Despite that, they had a good time, and almost all of them were energetically participating until the very end.

Molly’s class took a field trip to Green Meadows Petting Farm. Non-chaperoning parents and siblings were invited to attend, so Leah and I drove out to meet Molly. The rubber duck races were a big hit with all the kids.

Molly and Grace had a great day at the farm together, especially on the extremely bumpy hay ride.

Those are some funny looking animals!

Grace was the first of the group to step up and milk the cow.

It took a bit of coaxing to get Molly to try milking the cow, but she finally was willing. Notice the stream of milk flowing in front of her.

The farm asked that only adults pick up the animals, but Grace was so excited to help hold a baby bunny.

I think the bunny decided that Molly needed a few bunny kisses. Note that Leah does not appear in any of these pictures with animals. She was perfectly willing to enjoy them from a distance.

Leah invited me to a Mother’s Day tea at her preschool. We enjoyed a lovely snack of cheese and crackers, strawberries, and Hershey’s kisses while donning a fabulous crown. :)

I was also given a special pillowcase created from Leah’s artwork. It was a wonderful morning!

Leah’s preschool had an art show for us to enjoy. They displayed several pieces of art from each of the students. Here’s Leah with the rocket she and I made on Father’s Day.

Here’s a close-up of our rocket. Ignore the label that says it’s a building. I believe we started building a tower, but then Leah decided it was a rocket instead when we were part way through.

Leah’s teacher said she was the most meticulous of all the students when creating her self-portrait. Leah made sure she had all her teeth, eyeballs including the iris and the pupil, eyelashes, and ears.

I like that her favorite color is “all of them”, rather than her usual answer of pink. And that she’s 4 turning 5 (her birthday's in 5 months). And that she wants to do really wide splits.

For much of the winter, Molly has been doing a gymnastics unit in P.E. at school. At the end of the unit, they invited parents to come in to see all they had learned. Here she is with her friend Grace ready to do some cartwheels.

Nice cartwheel, Molly.

It didn’t last long, but she did a nice headstand.

It's so nice to live right next to school, so I can walk over to see what she's up to. Next time, I might even find out the right time to be there so I don't show up half an hour early ;).

Leah's preschool class has a class pet of sorts. Quackers the duck (on the left) gets to go home with each kid for a few days. Leah was given instructions to take him on some adventures, and that's exactly what she did.

Before getting to any adventures, they had lunch. Quackers was very well behaved at the table.

Quackers then helped Jen sew a dress for Molly. Leah was there too, but chose to leave the sewing to her mom and Quackers.

Quackers was very excited when he found out we were having fish for dinner. Quackers and I thought the salmon was excellent.

Quackers joined us for Bingo night. He and Leah are ready to play.

Quackers was extremely focused, ensuring that Leah never missed a number on any of her cards. This is one intense duck.

Leah and Molly had ballet on Saturday morning, which sounded like fun to Quackers. He didn't get to dance, but loved watching the girls.

Generally our girls are not allowed to bring non-humans (toys, animals) to Sunday School, but since Leah’s assignment was to show Quackers some adventures, he of course came along. And he didn't have to worry about whether the teacher would allow a duck in the classroom, since Jen was the teacher.

Looks like Quackers got his beak stuck in today’s Sunday School craft.

After church we went out to eat at Qdoba with Grams. Quackers was very excited. I don’t think he’d had a quesadilla before.

After lunch, we went to Target so the girls could spend the gift card they won in the Bingo night raffle. They got a couple small toys and a bag of Hershey’s Kisses. Shortly after we got home, I caught Quackers getting into the chocolate. You’ve gotta watch this duck closely.

Quackers went with Leah to the gym to watch her show off her gymnastics skills. He loved watching her, but then snuck over to the pommel horse to work on his routine for the 2016 Duck Olympics.

Quackers also got to get frozen yogurt with Mrs. Christy and Olive. He said it was a lot of fun, though he felt a bit weird getting frozen yogurt when it was so cold outside. Sadly, I don't have any pictures of that.

The adventures were very fun, and Quackers was sad they had to come to an end. But, he was very excited to get back to school to tell everyone about all the fun he had with Leah. In fact, Leah and I made this story into a book that she brought to school so all the kids in her class could hear the story as well.

Molly’s school had a Bingo night for both kids and adults to participate in. Here’s a lineup of six first grade girls, and Leah at the end. They're all paying close attention to make sure they don't miss a number.

There were lots of people at the Bingo night. In fact, there were so many that they had to hold it at a nearby high school instead of Molly's school as we needed more space. There was also a duck, but you'll have to wait until tomorrow to learn more about that.

We have a winner! OK, she didn’t get Bingo. But, in between the Bingo cards they had raffle prizes, and Molly won a Target gift card. She was so excited she couldn’t stay on the ground, or stay still enough to be captured by a camera.

She’s still running around in excitement from the raffle win. She'd better zoom back to the table before they start the next round of Bingo.

Jen got Bingo! Unfortunately, so did two other people. In the Bingo-off, she sadly came up short of winning the scooter.

Who would have thought Bingo night would be such an emotional roller coaster?