Taking Pictures...Refrigerator Houses

       

HAPPY BIRTHDAY UNCLE MAL!!!

I have a distinct memory of my kids being 1, 3 and 5 and having the stomach flu. My husband had to come home from work and I was in my room all day, taking trips to the bathroom. But in between "sessions", I seized the opportunity to read "The Lovely Bones", a book that I had been given months before for my Birthday. Finally, I  had time to read. 

     I read the whole day but I had about 30 pages left. So, a few days later, when I could stand upright, and hubby went back to work and life went on, I took the kids to the Gym, put them in the  nursery, and sat outside on the sofa and finished the book!

Pictures are so quiet...

      I was often teased in the baby days about my obsession with taking pictures of my kids. These were BEFORE the days of DIGITAL, and blogs...the "old" days having to take rolls of film to be developed. Lots of outtakes...It was a commitment, things could not be erased. And we did not have cameras in our phones...

Handsome Uncle Jason, long before he became a Daddy himself
...with Baby Tate...

      And I honestly, like so many of you , I DID MAKE an effort to slow down life, we did not rush the kids into too many activities, etc, but I am convinced that it is just a Very Busy time, 

whether you pack it all in or lay low, 

kids keep you busy. 

Period. 

     So for me anyway, capturing the little moments on film was an excellent way to freeze life when I barely had time to see it grow up before my sleepy face, or shower...so at least I wold have them to look back on later.

Phoebe always had a bandaid somewhere...still does.
Look at Coopers cute little legs and those sneakers!

dance mates...understandably Coops HATES this photo, but it reminds me of when all he wanted was to do everything his sissy did.

     My favorites are not the pretty pictures all dressed up for Christmas or Easter...but the moments caught on film, the candid shots...in the kitchen, on the swings or the  table or in the backyard, making a house out of a refrigerator box, or as in the case below....

high jacking all the sugar in the house in the kitchen...

This is my favorite picture if my kids, of ALL time. 

Caught on the act of a sugar binge. 

See Phoebe's arm tattoo and their brown legs, 

and of course, Tate who hates to get messy delicately eating marshmallow, 

and then there is baby brother picking up the scraps...

this may sound morbid... but I want to be buried with this picture.

    There have been times where I have taken out a random photo album from the baby days and whole days have come back to me, days previously escorted to "I'll get back to you when I break a leg or have some time"...section of my brain. 

Hanging out on Grams back porch...I miss Gram...

      And I thank GOD that I was obsessive about documenting all the moments that fly by so fast, times when the kids change whole faces in a week, or had a 3 day fantasy of being a cat and had to dress like one morning noon and night, or when Cooper wore a tutu to the grocery store...the list goes on of those normal little days, days I might otherwise have forgotten... for unlike the days of parental nightmares like 105 fevers and broken arms and near misses by cars and angry dogs, which I cannot forget...those "forgettable" days simply are happy and boring and do not make a big dent in my otherwise over saturated brain.

 Those are the days that build a childhood.

at the beach...that summer they  would not take off those zip up bathing suits...they loved them!

        blogging for me NOW is another way for me to record these days. Still so busy, in different ways.These days are precious, and if I get to throw a bit in there about beauty and decorating...bonus! There is beauty is all of it, the good the bad and the sticky.

and there is nothing better than

 a Refrigerator Box House

its all good...