Bubby and Bean ::: Living Creatively: Our Special Back-to-School Shoe Shopping Adventure

Thank you to Famous Footwear for kindly sponsoring this post. All opinions are 100% honest & completely my own.

As you guys probably know by my constant gushing here and on my Instagram, my daughter started Kindergarten a couple of weeks ago. I won't get into the myriad of emotions that have gone along with this, but I will say that I am so proud of her and incredibly excited for the adventures she's going to have. And she is downright thrilled with the whole experience so far. Even though it's bittersweet to watch your baby head off to big kid school for the first time, all independent and growing in countless ways, I truly couldn't be happier for her.

To celebrate her starting school, I decided to encourage her excitement by taking her to pick out a brand new pair of school shoes. (I mean, new shoes are pretty much the best way to get pumped for anything, right?) So two of us headed to Famous Footwear for what Essley called "our back-to-school shoe shopping adventure." She was completely mesmerized by all of the choices, and, as anyone who knows her would assume, immediately gravitated toward any pink shoe she could find.

We took our time browsing, trying on her favorite styles (there were a lot of them), and asking the (super helpful and friendly) Famous Footwear associates all sorts of questions. While we shopped, we talked about her first day and the things she was most looking forward to, the things she was nervous about, and everything in between. After a while, she finally chose the perfect pair for her first day. (Okay, okay, so it ended up being two pairs. She was too smitten with both to just choose one, and I don't blame her.)

She was so excited about her special first day of school shoes that she asked me to change into them as soon as we walked outside of the store, requested that I take her picture, and jumped up and down with a huge smile on her face right under the Famous Footwear sign. If shoes can make her feel that happy and confident, I knew she'd do just great on her first day. (Spoiler: She did.)

I'm so grateful that Essley and I were able to have that special shoe shopping date to pick out a pair for her very first day of Kindergarten. Her walk to the bus stop was done with a pretty flower print dress, a ballerina backpack (filled with her first real school lunch), and her new school shoes from Famous Footwear. Most importantly, it was also done with a huge smile. I couldn't possibly ask for more than that.