Monday, May 18, 2015

Our Life in Squares

I look at my blog archives a lot because when I do I immediately feel a drop in my blood pressure and can sense my body relaxing.  I think I read somewhere once (probably on the internet so who knows if it's true!) that looking at old photos really does relax people.  I believe it.  It works for me.  I am so glad I started this blog six whole years ago when I was staying home with toddlers.  It has been so therapeutic to me to be able to go back and read about moments I most certainly would have forgotten had I not written about them.  I have gotten out of the habit though and that makes me so upset with myself.  The first couple of years I blogged I wrote around 100 posts a year.  In 2015 I've only written 5 so far.  That's just sad.  There are so many moments worth writing about and remembering. 

One good and bad thing that I have done is to take a lot of photos with my iPhone and Instagram them.  I think it's been good because if I hadn't I would only have a handful of photos from our lives this past year.  It's been bad because I've gotten lazy about using my real camera and actually sitting down to write about the stories that go along with the photos.  

This is a catch up post.  I downloaded all of my phone photos to my computer for that past year and I picked out my favorites.  If I wrote about every single photo this would be the longest blog post known to man, so I won't.  I think these photos will just have to serve to jog my memory and I'm hoping that will be enough.  Luckily my kids are old enough to really help with the remembering now.  I read somewhere (I'm sure it was the internet again!) that kids' brains don't really hold on to memories until they are about 7 years old.  I guess I feel a little better knowing my kids are both older than that, so hopefully some of these moments will have stuck.

These are from Spring of 2014, when cousins came to visit, teeth were lost, there was lots of golfing, my kids' first boat ride, Easter, and a trip to Panama City Beach.

More from Spring 2014 with Panama City Beach, golf, and good friends visiting.

Summer 2014 with more beach fun, their first time on a plane, a trip to Ohio, some pool days and some napping on the beach.

Fall 2014 with fun at parks and the farmer's market, a bff visit, a trip to the Smokey's, short hair in preparation for chemo, and another trip to Ohio.

Winter 2014/2015 came with beautiful moments enjoying nature and a visit from family.

In Winter 2015 there were plenty of beach days, a birthday girl and a friend's wedding.

Winter/Spring 2015 brought more visitors from Ohio and lots of hanging out at Grandmama's house while enjoying the beautiful weather of Florida.

As I was labeling these I just had to laugh about how hard it is to tell what season these are from!  Florida problems. :)  Glad I did this before I really forget when they are from.

Thursday, May 14, 2015

Easter 2015

Easter this year was super low key.  We had an egg hunt a couple days before with my niece and nephew who were still in town.  It was really hot so it didn't last too long.  We had dyed real eggs instead of using plastic eggs and the dye was melting off of them.  Next year we'll remember the plastic eggs for sure.  On Easter Sunday we headed to church to celebrate and worship and then went to my mom's for Easter dinner.  On our way home from church we stopped at home to change and my mom was gracious enough to take some photos of the 4 of us for me.  I have been avoiding the camera as of late because I feel like I look horrible.  I know people say I look great and when I see photos, I know I look fine, but when I see myself without all my makeup and hair in the mornings I look like a cancer patient.  And that image is hard to shake during the day.  I know I need to get in photos now more than ever though.  I mean, if this has taught me anything it's that you cannot take your life or health for granted.  I don't want to be just the person behind the camera watching my family, I want to be remembered on the other side as well, as a part of it, even when I don't feel like it.

I got a few shots of the kids too.  I haven't been taking my weekly photos of them like I used to and they were really not used to it and didn't have much patience for me.  I need to get back into the swing of things so we don't all get rusty!  Here are a few pics of us in our Easter finest.

I love this boy.  My kids hardly ever dress up now that we live in Florida, the land of shorts and flip flops, so it's nice to see him in a tie.  That's about as fancy as we get anymore.

My pretty girl.  She wanted to wear the dress that her daddy got her for her birthday, but I thought it was kinda plain so I found that sash at a fun French market they had one weekend near here.  It looks even cuter as a headband.


I'm glad I got this shot from the side so you can see how cute her hairstyle was.

Sorry for the extreme close up, but my boy took this photo of me.  He was having fun with my camera.  I think it turned out pretty good.  I hated it at first, because I can be one of those women who nitpicks everything about a photo of herself (the kind who drive me crazy when they are one of my clients, ironically!), but in the spirit of embracing photos of myself, I'm posting it anyway.

I just love his crinkled brow in this, so I'm posting it too. :)

Here's that photo of the 4 of us I was talking about.  See, we all exist, not just the kids!

Here's my normal shot...just the kids.  Gotta have this shot though, as every mama knows.

I'm actually all caught up on my blogging for the most part!  I hope to get back to a more regular schedule of posts soon.  I'm going to take my girl out for her 11 year old photo shoot now that I finally found an outfit I like for her.  I can't wait!

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