school's out for summer!

Thursday

i have been waiting for this day since april.

i really do love having my kids home with me. i miss them when they're gone.

like always, with a new move, this new school year started out a little rocky.

we had to get used to a new school,

new friends, 

new home,

and try not to miss our old home too much.

and now?

well, now, the kids are okay with staying for another year.

they made great friends,

had great teachers,

and loved riding the bus.

however, i am so done with school.

i've been done for a while now.

the mornings are so stressful - who wants to get up at 6am every morning? humbug!

i am ecstatic i don't have to sign homework papers right before the kids are running to catch the bus.

i am thrilled at the possibility of the decrease of emotional breakdowns over misplaced library books, shoes, umbrellas, school folders, homework sheets, yadaa, yadaa, yadaa.

we can finally have a calm and collected breakfast at a normal hour of 8am, sheesh, is that too much to ask for?

so, with all the happy feeling adrenaline running through my brains, i got up, got dressed (which i usually never do until everyone is out the door, sometime around 11am), made breakfast, and took these lovely last day of school photos.

...but not before we had one last meltdown of homework sheet signing.

really?!

it's the last freaking day of school!

fine, fine, gimme that.

and then we were off... wha-hoo!

so... i don't know if you remember how the first day of school went.

but, i can happily say, that there were no poop disasters of any sort today. 

thanks, babies, i really and truly appreciate that.

the kids usually ride the bus to school, but i wanted to take them the last day and snag a couple shots...

and give hugs and kisses at the door.

well, maybe not at everyone's door. 

this guy gave me a quick smooch at the start of the hallway and then said, 

"okay mom, you don't have to walk the whole way..."

but i did anyway, and gave him a cool wave good-bye.

after i dropped the kids off, we made our way to lacrosse to pick up a few end of the year items.

it was a drizzly and foggy day - so beautiful!

i just had to stop and take some pictures.

i really do love living in rural wisconsin. this place has grown on me.

we prepared our little summer surprise, and then went back to school to pick up the kids.
i was a little late, but i was able to get a photo of isaiah and his classmates and teacher.
i didn't have time to get makayah's class - they had all made their way to busses and parents, but her teacher sent home a class photo earlier on in the year.



thank you mrs. milne for being an outstanding teacher!



thank you mrs. banse. you were fabulous!



we gave lots of hugs, said lots of thank-yous, and gave these amazing teachers a beach bag full of summer goodies. they totally deserve it.

we drove home, and the kids were met with this end of school surprise.



let the summer festivities begin!

they had mixed emotions about the last day of school. they were excited for summer and excited to be home. however, they also felt a little sad about leaving...especially since our plans are so up in the air right now. will they see their friends next year? we have no idea.

until then, popcorn and m&m's are gonna have to do the trick.

we saved our silly string fight for when daddy came home.

it's just 100x more fun when he's here.

although, mosiah thought the whole event was zero fun.

in fact, he cried when he was blasted with the silly string.

post string war disaster.

the day ended with glo-stick baths.

thank you for coming, summer. i thought you'd never get here.

today i am grateful for:

*a near perfect day of wonderful start-of-summer fun.

*the great school year we ended up having

*the end of signing homework sheets...for now.