TBC Smiles...49 Months

I'm writing this month's Smiles post a day early because tomorrow we'll be delivering the second of our Freshers off to uni. It's been a more emotional time than I anticipated, I think I might even miss having to come downstairs at 2am to tell them to be quiet.

We gathered 6 of us together for a 'goodbye meal' of Veggie Tacos which my daughter made with me. It was lovely to spend the time with her before she went. I'm definitely going to suggest to our other two uni students that we cook something together too, maybe at Christmas. Cooking together is something we've always done and you don't think about the fact you'll miss it, until you realise it won't be possible.

One of our young adults has already gone to uni and the 3rd will be back to his uni within the next fortnight. Then, for the first time in 19 years, I'll only have 2 children in the house. It's going to be a real change and although it's always been what we always hoped would happen, I'm really nervous and it's a big step. I'll really miss them all.,, I won't miss the washing though.

If you are a student returning to uni or a Fresher just starting, or if you are a uni parent wondering how that little baby got so big so quickly, I hope it goes as well as you hope and your year is a great one.

This month we've had plenty of smiles and so have you guys. Thank you to everyone who has shared theirs - they are a pure joy to look at. Anyone can join in, just tag a smile on Instagram #TBCSmiles If you feel in need of cheering up, go and check them out.

Here are 9 of the biggest, boldest and brightest from the last month....

Thank you to the people who shared these gorgeous smiles:

MrsShilts / ChocolateAndWineAndIllBeFine  / life_with_the_monster

Jessa67 / Hollybobbs / SophObsessed

EmmysMummy1 / PaigeWallbankxo / MummyAndMooseBlog

We had plenty of smiles of our own, despite it being a very emotional month with exam results, university places allocated and taken, and World Suicide Prevention Day, for which I wrote a quite serious article, Why We Should Talk About Suicide. I followed it with a very light-hearted post about my date night with Gary the cat (oh yes, I really did) That created many smiles and a lot of laughter off camera, mainly because he turned out to be incredibly good at playing Cobra Paw and rubbish at Exploding Kittens...

If you can't find your smiles they are always there, but sometimes you just have to really look....

I am still not a crazy cat lady.