Now that we’re solidly entrenched in the third week of the school year, it’s safe to say this is going to work out just fine. I don’t mind saying we were nervous about starting this year… Jack has begun 6th grade and six-man junior high f0otball, and Dorothy has started full-day Pre-K three days a week. It hit me all of a sudden… my kids aren’t going to be KIDS for very much longer. It won’t be that long until Jack is starting high school, and Dorothy’s school won’t involve naptime, and… and… ugh. Ok. I just don’t like thinking about it.

Maybe next year, when I’m not so new at this whole “both kids heading off to school” thing, we’ll try for some sort of bigger Back to School photo shoot. This year, I was juuuuust able to keep it together for a front porch photo.

The great thing about starting school, though, is seeing how brave my kids are. Jack dives head first into each new year totally fearless, and he’s having SO much fun at football practice. They’ve had a scrimmage, and their first real game is this week… I’ll try not to be such a nervous mama about the whole thing. 😉

Dorothy LOVES her class and her teachers, and is bummed out every time we arrive to pick her up. She’s learning something new every day, and hearing that she’s sweet & helpful in school makes me so proud.

As crazy as these last couple weeks have been, I’m really glad we took some time “off” to slow down and really soak it up. We might just make this a habit from now on… the last week of summer and the first week of school are “no work zones”, so we can all get used to a new schedule. Because we love our job, we love our clients, we love traveling and creating art. But we will always ALWAYS love these precious kids more.

Actually, that’s not true. We did a quick “what’s in your bedroom” shoot for each kid after the first day of school, because they can both be found most often curled up in their rooms reading and imagining and dreaming. We’re not photoshop wizards by any stretch, but the addition of the castle to Dorothy’s shot seemed so HER… and of course, Jack has his trusty light saber featured prominently in his. We love these beautiful spirits.

Here’s to an awesome year!