The Donoghue Family: Back to School

It's the start of another school year with Maggie as a big deal 6th grader, Evie a 4th grader and Ben our little kindergartener (Jamie still can't seem to get through high school, so he's back there again).

Ready for school!

Maggie really loves being at the middle school. There is more independence, class switches, a lot of new people - she's thriving!

Her perfect first-day-of-school outfit, with her
Swifty necklace

The gang got to visit the school before the year started

Evie has a teacher who is new to the school and this is her first year of teaching... so I'm a little nervous, but Evie seems comfortable. She has several friends in her class, and is doing great!

Sassy as always!

Ben has the rockstar kindergarten teacher who has been teaching over 50 years! His classroom is so cool and he is absolutely loving it, gushing about everything they do each day. He's also really exhausted by the end of the day, still adapting to the new schedule!

So excited to start school

Our last kindergartener!

His teacher gave everyone confetti to put under the pillow
the night before school started to help with the jitters -
he was tickled

We had a big pool party for all the girls' friends the weekend before school started - good times!

Summer vibes

Chatting in the shallow end

Karaoke

Before school started we took the kids on their first trip to Cedar Pointe! I am definitely old and get really queasy on roller coasters, so I spent most of the day with Ben in the areas for little kids. Maggie and Jamie hit all the big coasters. Evie started the day on the Raptor and was terrified... so we tried the Gemini a little bit later - also not a success. Iron Dragon was finally just right, so she went on that like five times!

Evie was a very accommodating big sister for Ben

So sweaty, so fun

Waiting for the Iron Dragon (again!)

Charlie Brown

This kid belongs at a carnival

Before the Raptor

Our two thrill seekers

Ben and some other random kid

Evie having a total crisis

Jamie is still doing Thursday evening classes at Atelier art studio, and they wanted to pilot a "paint your partner" night. So we got a fun little date night, and attempted to paint each other's portraits. I think we did pretty darn good, you should have seen some of the other couples! Most people there would not consider themselves artists (me included) and their final paintings were absolutely hilarious, it was a fun night out!

We both opted for eyes-closed paintings - way easier in my opinion!

The Tigers retired Jim Leyland's number, so Jamie and his Dad went to that game and had a great time:

Cheers to the Skipper

Good times

Jody's crew visited Michigan for a few days in August, so we had a fun family get together!

Some of the grandkids

The less young generation

We just had a family party to celebrate the end of summer and also Pops' and Jack's birthday. Jack just started his first year at Michigan State, so it's cool to have him closer!