Starting Kindergarten

We got the package of books and materials about a month ago. Last year for Pre-K, it was a medium sized box, filled 2/3. This year, it was two large boxes filled to the brim with more books than I could fathom! I pulled out the teachers guide about a week and a half later, once I dealt with the shock of so much material, to be blown away by the literal size of the teachers guide! I brought it inside to show Caleb and he was like "WOW, that's HUGE!" I was so glad to have someone else with me who understood the magnitude of this guide, literally no one else would understand. We both knew at that moment how much work we had ahead of us.
I brought the books into the living room and there they sat, until I got up the nerve to go through them (due largely in part to my sister-in-law Janelle looking through them and telling me how fun it all looked!). So, the day we came back from Caleb's fifth birthday party, I went through all the books, organized them and decided to start TOMORROW.
So we have been doing this for a little over a week now. There is a lot to do everyday, but we seem to be getting it all done with no more than a decent amount of effort. Josiah has to entertain himself through part of it and we save some of the reading for Josiah's nap time. Once we started, he was all of a sudden able to hold a pencil correctly, amazing since that was definitely not in the cards just a few months ago. I love how surprising the development is at this age. They can either do something, or not, and if they can't, they may be able to a few months down the road. This is why I love homeschooling. I know when something is just not going to happen now and return to it a bit later.
Pray for us as we start this year. We will have some "school vacations" at odd times, hence the very early summer start. I plan to take off a few months when the baby is born. Caleb is really learning right now and it is so fun to see.