First day reflections

July 11th marked the first day of our second year homeschooling. Our feet are wet and we're excited dive into a new year together. In addition to our new first grader, we added pre-K with Bennett bear and a class pet-baby Asher! Haha, just kidding! Though, spoiler alert, I do see a live animal or two in our classroom this year. ;-)

With one year under my belt, I'm learning to embrace the sometimes messy reality that is staying at home and homeschooling with three little boys. This year July finds us in a new city, with a new school room set up and a newly mobile baby to boot. If I was to choose a theme for the year ahead, the word "flexibility" wins the golden ticket. With that in mind, our first day was a great one!

For starters, I cut myself some slack in the breakfast department. You see, expectations are a killer and the first day of school is heavy with them. I myself have spent an embarrassing amount of time pinteresting the perfect "first day of school" printables for those all important first day photos. Back to bacon, I knew the morning would be jam packed and I was in no hurry to add dirty dishes to it. Instead, I served myself a spoonful of grace and set us up for success with breakfast bars and bananas. No smiling pancakes on good plates till Saturday haha! No worries, we are making new traditions here-like ice cream for dinner! How's that for a sweet incentive?!

Here's Bennett learning about the happy letter "C." C is happy because he's a cookie and someone took a-CRUNCH- bite out of him!

As I said earlier, the morning was a great one. Asher took a rare but true long nap and the excitement over new books made for a very productive school time. After our work was finished and cleared from the table, we enjoyed the rest of the afternoon at the gym and pool before heading to Coldstone for our cotton candy cones. When you school year round during the southern summertime, the pool makes for the best recess!

Fast forward...

It's been two weeks since our first day, but we've really only logged a week in the books since we spent the greater part of last week at the beach with family. Almost everyday I find myself ironing out small wrinkles here and there as we find a new groove together, but I'm pretty sure that's par for the course. We are loving this new place of ours and have found an abundant amount of amazing educational resources in our area. Moreover I am so excited to dive into our local church and community homeschool groups. As we are settling into a new church home I have already been so encouraged by new friends and homeschool mamas, and am looking forward to the year ahead. Cheers to a new school year, to getting it done and having fun!