First Day of School: First and Third Grades!

I can't believe I am typing this, but today is Mollie's first day of FIRST grade and Baylor's first day of THIRD grade!  Seriously?!  Yup, seriously.

Yesterday morning Amalia decided to wear her favorite dress to school, a dress I refer to as her Babe Didrikson dress (it's long on her now and was even longer on her when she first wore it).  We even had enough time to do her hair in pigtails this morning!  She asked me which color of hair ties look the most "adult", and since the blue ones were the only ones that weren't neon that's what we went with.

Baylor didn't really pick out his outfit so much as approve the one I grabbed for him, but he seemed excited for the day and that's all I can ask for.

We headed outside and they started to get into the car when I reminded them that we usually take an outdoor picture, too.  Here's our first attempt:

The second attempt went much better ... or at least the silliness was more positive anyway.

I can't believe how big they're getting!

And, of course, we had the obligatory bunny ears picture; the kids are in that stage of life that makes bunny ears the funniest thing ever!

This was a great morning, so full of smiles and laughter.  And it was so unlike first days of school for me when I was a kid; almost all my first day of school pictures involved eyes puffy from crying and forced smiles.  I didn't like school, so the first day was tough and full of anxiety for me.  I cannot tell you how happy it makes me to know that I haven't passed this on to my wonderful children, that I haven't burdened them with my anxiety.  Yeah, they were nervous this past week or so, but when it came down to it they were brave and happy and ready to go.  Even when they didn't get to walk in together because they are now on different playgrounds, they still bounded off in their separate ways, just happy to be there.  I am amazed by and so proud of my children.  

And for a look at previous first days ...

Baylor in preschool.

Baylor's first day of kindergarten.

Baylor's first day of first grade. And Mollie's first day of preschool!

And I just realized that I never did a blog post about last year's first day of school!  But here is the picture from last year's first day (Baylor in second grade in Mollie in kindergarten):

Yup, they ran in together holding hands last year!  And the thing is, they did that for months!  It warmed my heart like nothing else.

Here's to a great first day of school and a great year to come!