I have so many feelings about school starting again.
I deeply miss summer, and their brother already misses his three entertainers.
I also have a confession... I didn't buy school pictures last year.
I know.
Sign them all up for therapy.
Guess what?  I am FOR SURE not going to buy them this year.
Because Drew.
The awkward poses, after recess messy hair, neon blue backgrounds have nothing on what she captured.
The reader, the future missionary, and the class clown.  The red Vans.  Another little one in her sister's hand me down uniforms.  The school that we so deeply love, and are so thankful to be attending again.

I am not ready for homework, for emails, for early mornings, for laundry, for brushing SO MUCH hair, for packing lunches.

They are though.  They miss their friends.  They are excited to meet their teachers.  They have a love and passion for learning.
I love their growing minds.  I love their heart to learn about Jesus.  I love that they He is woven throughout their days.

I wish it was still July.  Since it isn't, I will do my best to entertain the wild little boy who is stressing out about how quiet the house is, and doing everything he can to make sure it doesn't stay that way.

We will get through the year. Somehow.  Someway.  And begin counting the days until summer rolls around again.

We are surviving summer.
The weekly schedule is causing STRESS (we have had to stray from it about every single day).
The daily schedule is saving me from descending into mean mom.
Thinking that we need to go the dry erase marker route with the weekly one.  Except I just don't have it in me to go to Costco right now.  Or the laminating store.  I just do not.
The kids are happiest if the day involves outside and water.  So we have been outside and in the water nearly every second of every day.  I am already on the fourth bottle of sunscreen.
These are the moments I hope they remember when they look back on their childhoods.
Because their childhoods are pretty dang rad.

There are so many great options to compile a years worth of photos out there.  Many that I wish I had the time and skill to tackle (ahem requiring overcoming my Photoshop fears, or total lack of printing out actual photos).  Taking into consideration the majority of photos I take these days are with my phone, and most are posted via Instagram, Shutterfly seemed the best choice.  I have made (and survived without crying) quite a few books through them, and they have the ability to pull photos directly from your Instagram feed.  Two birds.  One stone.
So far I threw together the beginnings of what will be weeks one and two in just a few minutes.  Now I just need to flip through my little journal, and type out bullet points that correspond to the pictures.  Part of me wants to be lazy, and just keep it clean and simple.  The smarter part of me knows better.  It knows that in years to come, I won't exactly remember why a particular Disney sunset was so bittersweet to our family (our season passes expired that day).  The extra time will be worth it.  So worth it.

So this is my plan.  Each day I will take a picture.  Each night I will jot something down.  Every two weeks I will brew a cup of tea, sit down at the computer, put my headphones on, and put together our small moments.  At the end of the year we will look back at the photos, the memories, the words, and be thankful for the hard days and the beautiful ones.

It's going to be rad.

Today I celebrate another journey around the sun on this beautiful, broken, planet.
Today I celebrate what was one of the hardest years of our life, yet one of my most favorite.
When we are weak, our God is strong.
He makes beautiful things out of us.
These are the moments that make it all worth it.  These are the moments that I hold on to.
My savior.  My husband.  My family.  My friends.
Undone thinking about the beauty that is this little life that we live each and every day.
Happy.  So very happy.

The girls both have marble jars in their classrooms, and we decided to start our own little marble economy.
Good deeds, obedience, listening, loving each other, helpfulness...  Marbles in.
Spicyness, disobedience, fighting, arguing... Marbles out.
The reward for a full jar?
A date day that they would get to plan with mom & dad.
Not toys.  We have enough toys.  We wanted them to earn something that they wouldn't get tired of in a few minutes.  We wanted them to earn special time.  Where we could be with them, celebrate them, invest into them, play with them.

They decided when their jars were halfway full, that they wanted to have their date together.
Awwwwww.  They didn't have to.  They wanted to.
We have been brainwashing them from day one that they are best friends.  It's working.  Yessss.

They chose a day at a local mini-golf/ go-karts/ janky rides/ arcade place.  With Wahoo's for lunch.  It's always Wahoo's.  Always.  I'm not complaining (hello Diet Pepsi fountain.)

I owned Jason at go-karts.  Just saying.
 He owned me at mini-golf.
 The worker dude had to rescue these two little chickens.  They had fun, and then suddenly THEY DID NOT.

 This was just awesome.  Lucy's screams.  The best.