West of Whimsy: Back To School - A Retrospective . . .

** This is the last year of "first day of school" photos for my older son - so I'm re-posting this with the updated photo from today. **

After a five day teachers' strike, last Thursday was the first day of school. The boys were with their Dad, so we did photos this morning. To honor the first week of 12th grade (older son), and 9th grade (younger son) here is a "Back to School" photo retrospective from the last ten years!

2006 (Kindergarten & 3rd Grade)

2007 (1st Grade & 4th Grade)

2008 (2nd Grade & 5th Grade)

2008 gets an extra photo shout out because the little one had an excellent broken foot + boot! (That was one crazy outfit he had on . . . right now I'm thinking, "Did I really let him go to school like that?" Apparently I did.)

2009 (3rd grade & 6th grade)

2010 (4th grade & 7th grade)

2011 (5th grade & 8th grade). I think they're starting to get annoyed with my tradition . . .

2012 (6th grade & 9th grade)

(7th grade & 10th grade)

My mistake last year was not realizing that on the first day of school only Freshman have to be at school at regular starting time. My kiddo was SO MAD at me for making him get out of bed two hours early - and all he could muster as far as an outfit was a wrinkly t-shirt and slippers.

(8th grade & 11th grade - someone is going to be way taller than his brother. Just saying!)

Last year I actually did photos on the second day of school. Clearly my older guy was still not amused, but at least he wore something on other than jammies.

And here's the best one from this morning:

(9th grade and 12th grade.)
Let's just say I'm going to keep trying and this post may change in the next couple of weeks. Last years' photo turned into our Christmas card - it's one of my all time favorite pictures of my boys. This one? Not so much. But here they are in their glorious grumpiness, running late as usual.