Happiness is a day spent back-to-school shopping with a 4 year old who is embarking on one of life’s first big adventures: kindergarten. Last week everything came back to this one little word. There was school shopping and orientation night and wrangling around the schedules of three little people which has completely flip-flopped to fit ‘big’ sis’s school schedule. And, of course, there was (dum…ta…dum!) the first day of school.

I’m back to task this week, still trying to keep my brain straight on everyone’s schedule and how it all fits and meshes with work. Maybe I’m over-dramatizing but I had no idea kindergarten would be so huge - as in, the grade itself and all that goes down - what they learn, their responsibilities (my responsibilities!), the schedule - and how it would interact with our oh-so-nicely-defined and scheduled life (it’s true, I’m one of those mom’s who lives and dies by “The Schedule”). On orientation night, I looked around my daughter’s classroom and saw a glimpse of so many years to come and had this rush of happiness for her - for all the experiences, all the knowledge, all the fun that awaits her (and us, I’ve been told :)).

In any case, here are a few pics from my handy-dandy powershot taken during our girl’s day of shopping. For my daughter, I’d have to say, and as you can see - Happiness Is: chocolate milk at 10am in the morning (while we waited for the mall to open).

I’d actually love to photograph someone against this wall. But here’s my daughter doing some sort of cha-cha, gymnastics, who-knows dance. I love it.