Why must they grow up so fast?

Was able to visit over coffee with Jo, a sweet bloggy friend, tonight who has the sweetest teeny tiny bundle of joy! I can remember each of my kiddos as tiny bundles ... those newborn smells and new born noises ... they grow up and learn so much so fast! I know thats not a bad thing ... its how God designed human beings, but every now and then a momma has to sit back and sigh as she remembers those sweet newborn days. My youngest is now 2, but her newborn days are well recoded on her blog

Do you ever wonder about your grandparents or great grandparents and how many of them never even owned a camera ... so never really had any pictures to document their kids growing up. My grandma has one 6 month portrait of my mom, but then almost nothing else till grade-school. Its a different sort of thing for me to imagine... but then my kids tell me I am addicted to my camera. They have to withstand several photo sessions each year and I love to look back over them.



April 2009:


Dec. 2009:


July 2010:


Dec. 2010:


And how is it that my sweet little bundle



is now this wildly active 2 year old



And how could THIS sweet little bundle


be 15 years old already?!?!?

my absence

Well, between another miscarriage(back in Aug) and getting kids settled back to school(in Sept) and all the chaos of keeping up with this wonderful family (everyday) I've been lacking in keeping up with online stuff ... my apologies... but then not really cause this crazy chaotic beautiful family is my primary job :-)


I have managed to continue snapping pictures as we go. I've been posting those over at memoriesfortoday.blogspot.com Please visit us over there. And I am planning to begin participating in the new Bloom Book Club book study over at thebloombookclub.blogspot.com. I hope you will join us there too!

Veteran's Day

I was so excited when my boys brought home the red, white and blue papers from school to fill out. Their school was planning a special Veteran's Day Chapel Service and they wanted the kids to fill out papers about any relatives they might have serving or who have served in the military. We are very proud of our family's military vets, so we set right to work filling in dates, ranks, and listing who served in which branch of the service. I was also able to find photos of each family member in their service uniform.

Their daddy, my wonderful husband Allen, served in the Navy for 8 years in the 1990s, on a submarine:



Their Papa Roger served in the Army, in the Signal Corps in the 1960s:


Their Great-Grandpas (both my grandpas) served in the Navy and Air Force during the 1940s and WWII:







I'm so pleased that the school my boys are attending has chosen to honor our service members this way. I mentioned to my dad that we were going to have this special Veteran's Day service and he offered to pick up my Great-Grandparents (who live an hour away) and bring them down for the morning. How wonderful!!! They had a fantastic time. And Allen's parents (who also an hour away) drove to be here this morning also. And Allen used his last vacation day of the year, so he could attend the service with his boys too.

I'm so proud of these men in my life ... I wish I had even remotely appropriate words to express my gratitude, but at the moment I can not find any ... so I'll let the pictures speak for me:

Fall Photos!

I figured that if I shared the photos that did not turn out in my previous post, I should probably also post the ones that did turn out! I think we did good:

My sweet Rosebud


Our adorable Gus-Gus


Very handsome O


Z-man, our champ!


And tiny little Mary girl


All of us together:

My family and photographs ... hmmm ...

Hi, I'm Heather and yes I can admit it ... I'm a photo-aholic. I love photography!!! I love photography books, photography classes, those great coffee table books of gorgeous pictures, and of course taking my own pictures (especially pictures of my children). Unfortunately for me, my children do not share my love of all things photography ... I mostly blame their dad for this and he gladly accepts the blame. He does not really like having his picture taken and his attitude has certainly rubbed off on our offspring. Hopefully they will also inherit his lack of allergies and very gifted mathematical senses ... I guess we'll have to wait and see about those.

But it was a gorgeous day here today and we have almost reached the end of the beautiful fall colors, so I wanted to get my crew outside to take some family pictures. Now, never mind that half of us are coughing and the other half have runny noses and sinus headaches. Boy am I glad that today is a Not Me Monday!
Becasue I could never be the mom who takes her kids out and snapps dozens of pictures of them while they are not feeling 100% Nope not me! And just what might happen ia a mother might think of doing that? I'm so glad you asked, this is what might happen if a mother might choose to torture her kids in such a way:

turned heads


closed eyes


itchy tushies


and adorable tounges hanging out



And if that was not bad enough I would certainly NOT then try to put the camera on a tri-pod with a timer and get a full family picture with my hubby and I in it too ... I would know better than that:







And after all that fun I would never turn to my hubby and say "its just the location ... lets try a different spot" Why would I ever think that would help?





Boy! Am I glad that today is a Not Me Monday! Please join us over at MckMama's blog for tons more fun and therapy with Not Me Monday! cofessions

Mary/Mikayla

Pictures of Mary today in a dress that Mikayla wore 13 years ago.
Yes the picture that Mikayla is holding up is a 13 year old photo of herself!
 

And if you think of my girls this week please pray for Mikayla as she is on a week mission trip with Youth Works and Mary and I are missing her terribly!!!! (yes we know she only left a few hours ago! But feels like a week already)