Picture Perfect

Last Saturday the boys and I headed to my parents' house to spend the day with my brother and his kids.  Craig unfortunately had to work, but we ended up having a great day.  My brother's crew is moving back to Portland at the end of December, which is a little sad, but also opens up some new opportunities.  It was nice having them within driving distance in New Jersey.  We actually never made it down there--which is sad, I know--but in the end it was just a timing thing.  Coordinating schedules and already spending so much of our travel budget on lacrosse trips proved challenging for us.  But they were able to come up this way a few times a year, usually during school breaks.  Now they'll be farther away, and some family dynamic changes could make it harder for them to come here, but I hope at some point we can take a trip out that way.  I've been wanting to get back to Seattle to see Chihuly Gardens and Glass, so maybe we can do another combo trip to both cities like Craig and I did in 2006.  We flew into Seattle, did the touristy stuff, then took a really cheap and very lovely train ride to Portland.  I'd love to do that again, and this might be our chance!

Of course, seeing the kids interact this time made me even sadder that they won't see each other much.  Carter and Max got along really well, and Kate and Jacob got along better than I would expect, too.  I guess we'll have to start relying on technology a bit more if we want to keep them closer.  Definitely a challenge, but it's one I think we need to take on--however it may need to be done.

Despite having to be up early that day for Jacob's entrance exam for his new school next year, everyone was in good spirits! 

Kate and Max opened some presents from my parents, and the kids had fun playing Operation and digging back into a few of the toys my parents have kept around.  We had a lazy afternoon (my mom is still recovering from shoulder surgery but doing well), and of course we had to snap some shots of the four grandkids while they're all together!

You have no idea how hard it was to get even one decent shot!

I was going back and forth from my real camera to my phone, as you never know which one might work better for the lighting!

Even with the limited amount of time they spend together, they can still be silly together!

Switching up the order!

After dinner I randomly mentioned that I asked the kids on the drive in what their favorite Christmas memory was.  We had my car and therefore no DVD player, so we needed conversation topics!  Neither kid really had one--so perhaps we've failed--although I did offer a couple up to Jacob (his Playmobil soccer field and his Calgary trip) and he admitted those were pretty good.  But then my brother said he didn't have any specific ones either.  In case you're wondering, my top three were seeing the tree and presents (including my first bike) when I was four, getting my Hot Looks doll when I was nine, and sharing my first pregnancy with our families via a Christmas-wrapped ultrasound photo.

I know the picture of memory #3 exists, but I can't figure out where I just recently saw it again.  It had to have been at my parents'?  Anyway, when my brother said he didn't remember much, but did have a recollection of a slot car track, I pulled out my computer to find it in the family pictures I scanned.  I initially looked through each folder for Christmas shots, but then started clicking through all the photos in between because Kate was sitting next to me.  I figured it was possible she'd never seen many pictures of her dad as a kid, so this was a great opportunity for her!  She got some good laughs at her dad's expense, and we had so much fun looking through the memories.  Ironically, the Fisher-Price Little People Airport the kids had just been playing with that day was my brother's big gift for his second Christmas, so that one's hitting 43 years old this month!

I had actually forgotten that my parents didn't have the pics yet.  We started copying them to a DVD which errored out on the first try, so then we opted for a hard drive.  From there they went on my dad's iPad, and he spent the next few days looking at all of them.  That resulted in a flurry of emails and Facebook posts as he relived much of his adult life.  He probably hadn't looked at those pictures at length in years, and with so many relatives passing away in recent years, I think it meant a lot to see some of the old ones in better times.  I've now been instructed that the pictures were enough of a Christmas gift, so I think it's safe to say they're enjoying them.  My brother took a copy of them, too, so at least he has them now, as well.

When I scanned them, it honestly was mostly for me because I was worried about something happening to them and all of those memories getting lost.  I'm sort of weird and neurotic about memories and wanting to be clear on them, and in many cases the photo proof is all I have.  It's why I take a ton of pictures whenever I can, because I want--no, need--to remember.  But I figured others would benefit down the road, and I'm so happy we have them now.  Scanning 5,700 pictures seems like a lot of work, and it was, but it was worth every minute (and not nearly as painful as it sounds). 

It was sort of surreal, though, to look through those pictures and see John and me as kids, and know that we now have our own kids at those ages.  We've officially been passed the torch, so to speak--and have had it for a while, I guess--but when you really sit and think about it, growing up can really blow your mind.  I've been thinking about this a lot lately--that sometimes we have expectations in life, and barely even recognize when we reach them.  They probably don't always look the way we imagine, so they may be easy to miss.  I guess it's like that saying, "Life happens when when you're busy making other plans."  We get so wrapped up in dealing with life that it's hard to appreciate it in the moment.  I mean, I still marvel at the fact that I'm 40, and sometimes it hits me anew that I have two kids or that my house is really my house.  All these things I wanted as a kid, and now I'm like, wow, I'm really a grown-up.  Yes, I mostly feel light years away from being that awkward girl who just wanted a boy to like her, but sometimes it's amazing to think that it's been 20 or 30 years since those moments.  How did I get here?  And before I know it, it'll be my kids at this stage and we'll be as old as our parents are now.  It's happening, faster than we realize.

Case in point, the other day I took in the kids' new school pictures to put at my desk.  My frames are double sided so I always leave the last picture in on the reverse side, but when I pulled out Carter's I realized I'd never cleaned his out at all...so I had every picture of him still there.  It completely took my breath away.

To go from the picture on the left to the picture on the right seems crazy.  Look at him!  He looks so grown up in his Kindergarten picture (probably more than real life, but still), and while I barely remember life without him, I can't believe the bald baby days were so long ago.  My sweet little baby is such a big boy now.  Still mostly sweet, thankfully, but oh...my squishy cheeked, smiley baby.  Sigh.  We don't always see the changes from day to day, and yet we get here anyway. 

These days, at the store, I pass by all of the baby toys, and now even the little kid toys.  Then I pass by the toddler section of clothes entirely.  Daycare days are over and now it's just "school".  Somehow I find myself firmly in the big kid era, and it's crazy and great and scary and sad all at the same time.  And at this time of year it's even more important to savor the moments and embrace what childhood is left, because this is one of those prime memory-making times.  I'm going to capture those moments for my kids, and I hope someday they appreciate it like we did this past weekend.