First Day Fun....

I love summer. I love the slow and easy of our days followed by the non-routine filled nights. I love that we spend hours at the pool, play pretend, eat too much ice cream, and cozy up on the couch watching movies. We make some of our best memories in the summer... we even tried to talk the kids into selling everything and just homeschool. 

And it almost worked except they love school which works out since the back to school rush of life has started! 

I can't believe that those signs say "5th, 3rd and 1st"... what world allows kids to grow up so stinking fast?

There is no kind of crazy like first-day-of-school crazy but this year was record setting. We had to park and walk up to school which was extra fun when we ran into the Baileys!

I love CHE for 100s of reasons but one of my favorite may be this sign.

I was a little sad that we were back down to two Kings posing in front.

Radley wanted to walk them in and I considered forcing him to be a 4th grader for just one more year. 

Instead, we dropped off these two cuties with their brand new teachers... Emmy came home full of first-day stories. My biggest hope for them in school is simply that they enjoy it. That they feel safe and cared for and eager to learn new things and having amazing teachers is one of the things I'm most grateful for as a parent. 

We hugged their necks... 

as they latched on to their friends... 

and then Rad gave Emmy a "you're the oldest King kid here now" speech and then my heart exploded. 

We loaded our big kid back in the car and prepped to just DROP AND GO. 

As if he was some kind of reliable grown-up totally capable of finding his own way through a giant maze of halls. As if he didn't need us. Or want us. I MEAN CAN YOU EVEN IMAGINE?

WE ARE HIS PARENTS. 

But I rallied and we pulled up, kissed him on the cheek and just watched him walk away. 

And I may have cried a little. 

But y'all. This was the first time since he was five months old that I didn't walk him into school on his first day. I get to cry. But honestly, these tears are less about being sad and more about being proud of the human that he is and about being excited about all the things he's going to do.  

So those are teensy sad, but mostly proud and excited tears!

The night before, a friend had sent me a text inviting me to breakfast with a whole bunch of moms. I knew about 1/4 of them and the rest became fast friends. At one point when I was looking around I couldn't help but tear up at the solidarity of it all... no agenda, no plan, no big agenda... just a bunch of moms celebrating the beauty of the journey. 

Here's to another year of fun