First Day of School

I am running a bit behind with the blogging lately...one might think that with the two older kids back in school I would have more time to do these sorts of things...but at the same time the older two went back to school, our littlest one started walking (as you may have seen in our earlier post), and therefore, time to sit at the computer and blog has all but disappeared in an effort to keep Hadley from ingesting things like dishwasher soap packets (a treasure she discovered last week under the kitchen sink).

It is hard to believe that the first day of school was almost a month ago.  Connor and Kylee have both had a great start to their school year.  Both were excited about who they got for their teacher (Connor got Ms. Groff and Kylee has Ms. McPherson).  There are familiar faces in both of their classes, which helped ease the transition.  Both kids were ready to start back to school after a summer filled with adventure.

Here are both the kids in the beloved "first day of school pictures on the porch" poses.  Connor wasn't interested in a new outfit for school ("I don't really care, Mom"), and Kylee chose a cute little outfit from the Gymboree outlet.  However, the main event of this ensemble are her shoes.  After months of watching commercials, we purchased a pair of Sketchers Twinkle Toes shoes.  These are the holy grail of tennis shoes if you are a girl between the ages of 5 and 10.

From the porch, our first day of school ritual has come to include frantically jumping into the van (we never leave quite when we plan to) and racing to Alexander Doniphan.  Connor didn't need us to to walk him into his classroom (that would have been totally uncool), so we snagged a picture of him outside his classroom with his teacher, Ms. Groff (We have now entered the realm of our child's teacher being younger than we are.  Now I know how parents of my college students at William Jewell feel when they see how young I am!).  We walked Kylee into her classroom and watched her put her things in her cubby.  She was a pro with the routine after being in Miss Mac's class for summer school.

The walk back out to the van is always quiet.  We move through the halls of the school and Brandon watches me closely, trying to discern if it's better to offer comforting words or just leave me alone as I struggle to hold the tears back.  This year, I found that my emotions stemmed not from sadness, but from feeling so blessed to have three great kids who are healthy and eager to learn.  Getting to spend time with them over the summer allowed us to create some wonderful memories together that I will hold onto as the years fly by.  Reflecting on these memories warmed my heart as the doors to the school closed behind us.

And, of course, God gave us this little angel, too:

Brandon's going to need a wheelbarrow to haul me out when it's Hadley's turn at Alexander Doniphan...