it's my party!

Before I left for Love Affair Workshop Mike and the kids made big plans for my birthday.  They decided that it would be best and the most fun if they put together a little 70s party (the  year I was born).  

When I walked in the door (after I heard a lot of clomping and whispering and craziness) the BeeGees were playing, a disco ball lit up the room with colors going wild all over the walls, my kids dressed in their best rendition of 70s giddup, and dancing with great John Travolta moves.  I couldn't have asked for a better start to my big birthday.

As soon as I came in the house they kids gave me a treasure map to follow.  It led me outside 30 steps this way, 15 steps this way, X marks the spot.  They gave me a shovel and I dug up treasure.

And really.  It is treasure.  Inside the box was a sweet note from each of my kids and Mike and my thoughtful parents that included a list of 10 things they love about me.  It was wonderful.

We danced, ate cake, ate dinner, and so many other fun things all day. 

My birthday was fun and creative and thoughtful and perfectly the way I had hoped it would be.

Thank you to my perfect-for-me little family.

birthday. LOVE.

 funny.

How in the world did I get lucky enough to have this crazy girl be my daughter?  

She is funny and silly and is always full of wonder.  If I see a butterfly and say, "Ooo!  Look at that butterfly!" She'll be the first to chase it.  By some kind of beautiful miracle she's maintained that awe and fascination that she had when she was 2 years old.  I love her never ending interest in the world.

This crown she's wearing fell apart.  She didn't let it bother her she just decided to rework it and make into a bonnet-y kind of thing with a tie under the chin.  She was so proud of it she was happy to work it for the camera.

She loves to be dramatic but I have to catch her at the right moment for her to be okay with the camera.

She nurtures others to the point of mothering and in the same instant can tease without mercy.

She laughs until she cries and never wants anyone to see her crying.

She comforts someone who is hurt and rarely takes offense or is hurt by others.

She is quick to forgive and quick to laugh.

She loves to make sure that the people she loves know they are loved.

She plays with wild abandon and tries to avoid work by giggling in a hidden corner.

A day cannot hold everything she wants to do and yet she can be content with very simple things.

She loves completely.  There have been many times that I can tell that she feels her body can't hold the amount of love she feels.

She is full of contradictions.  She's pretty crazy and boisterous and enthusiastic and all over the place.  And at the same time she's so reserved.

I love her for her sweet and nurturing and kind self and I love her for her out there wild ideas and funny insights and her wonderful laugh and all of the other opposites she holds inside her.

I love her because she's a one-of-a-kind Emma.  No one in the world is quite like her. She has no duplicate.  I love her and her just being Emma is enough for me.

mom. LOVE.

the cobbler.

I was perusing my pictures...the ones I've taken of my family.  They are all still mostly in their original raw format.  Some of them I actually ran to jpeg.  Most of them I've not even looked at since I downloaded them and backed them up.  

I'm like the cobbler whose children don't have nice shoes or the carpenter whose home is never complete.  I'm the photographer who doesn't edit her own family pictures.  I take them.  I vow that one day I will look through them, convert them to jpeg, edit them, etc.  Really, though, they sit there.  Crying in the corner wondering if I'll remember that they too want loving care and attention.

It's become a thing of gigantic proportions.  I've made a new plan because I find this sweet photo gorgeousness (above) called Grace.  These two images are from almost a year ago.  I remember this day. I remember shooting these photographs.  There are so many more perfect pictures on this lovely fall day, we had gotten apple cider donuts rushed to us from my parents in New Jersey and I had every intention of blogging that wonderful, exciting delicious surprise...

And I've thought I would blog almost every day of my life since then that I've photographed...although that would bore you to tears...if I blogged everything I've ever wanted to I would have one blog reader. Me.

So...hopefully, I'll be boring everyone here soon with a parade of family pictures because of my new plan.  

The new plan: that I will spend my evenings (when my awesome husband is working to bring home the bacon) on my own family pictures. One folder at a time I will rescue them from the abyss they've fallen into.

So get ready.  I'm going to bore you.  I'm committed!

family. LIFE. 

it can't be the first day of school already.

Every year the 1st day of school is difficult for me.  It's filled with all of the reminders of the things we did all summer and the things I wished that we had been able to fit into the too short summer days and the months that felt like they had wings and moments that happened before I even realized.  Seconds that played out and that I hoped to capture but that seemed to fly away before my hands could reach out and cup them careful to place gently into a mason jar.  So many of those summer days of lemonade and swimming and drive in movies and just being now feel like the fireflies we tried to catch...chasing after t hem, reaching into the gathering dusk for their light, hoping that when we opened our hands we would have one to keep...

I have all of these sweet summer memories in my mind and I can't help but want to have them in my hands where I can live them all again.

I loved this past summer.  It was a summer filled with things I hadn't expected.  My kids all grew up more in the last 3 months than they have in any previous summer.  Everyone one of them gained inches.  Emmett is now taller than me...that seemed to happen almost overnight.  Emma and Miriam both grew so much that now when I put my arms around them they I realize that they are less my little tiny girls and more grown up. Grace has gone through 2 shoe sizes and lost 2 teeth and gained 2 inches.  How does this all happen so fast?

I also didn't expect that this would be my first summer that I would have days where I looked to the first day of school and hoped it would come quickly...

Mostly, though I have loved summer.  I love the days of swimming at the pool, everyone hanging around the house engrossed in a great book, hearing my girls play endlessly together, laughing from another room in the house, happy kids running in and out of doors, girls making lemonade for a lemonade stand, boys making every color waffles for all of the neighborhood kids, doing sprints in the mornings with Miriam and Emmett, whispering voices coming from beneath blanket laden kitchen table forts, princesses being chased around the house by older brothers with light sabers, watching kids ride off down the road on their bikes together, walking to the school, playing at parks, exploring trails, paddling boats, eating ice cream, laughing under starry skies on our back deck, planning our 4th of July party, being silly with Grammy and Grandpa, picking very small and very few tomatoes from our garden, making salsa, taking meals to people with the cousins, creating cardboard villages, painting masterpieces, feeding giraffes and rhinos, playing games, enjoying a fun staycation, eating more ice cream, and just hanging out and being together.

What I didn't expect was that my kids' personalities would become stronger than ever.  They've always, each of them, had strong personalities and I've raised them to be independent and speak their minds.  I'm grateful for that...most days.  Some days though, especially lately, I'd like at least one of them to please just back down from a disagreement, stop pushing each other's buttons, refrain from poking their brother, or maybe just try not to talk for 2 minutes...those were the times that I would look at the calendar and wonder when school was starting.  Because at this moment...it wasn't soon enough.

A few years ago my sister said to me, "How do you stand the fighting?  I just can't stand the fighting..."

I said to her, "My kids don't really fight."

She said, "Really?!"

I was surprised to hear that my sister's kids fought enough to make her crazy.  They are good kids and my sister is a great mom.  (I was leaving in an alternate reality, I'm convinced.  I'm not saying that my kids didn't fight...I'm saying they didn't fight enough to make me crazy.)  I said, "Really. They have occasional moments...but it's not too bad."

She's a few years ahead of me.  Her oldest is 2 years older than my oldest.

Let's just say...

I now know what she was talking about....

There's something that clicks as kids get older.  Even though my kids have definitely known that they have a voice in our home...it's been recently that they've realized more and more that their voice means something.  They want to bring it out more often and stretch it and exercise it and get a good look at what it can do.  They like to experiment and see what kind of effect their voice and actions can have on other people. It's part of learning...even if it makes me crazy.  I'm glad about the learning, the stretching, the trying things out.  It's a good thing...except when I can't take it any more. 

So I watch as our family changes and evolves and our summers become shorter and shorter and personalities and voices are tested and there are days when school starts looking appealing...

Today, I sit here wishing that this new school year would melt away and wait to arrive on my doorstep until another day.  Today, I want to put a book on my kids' heads and hope it keeps them from becoming another year older.

I want that.

And I don't.

Watching my children change and become these amazing, outspoken, thoughtful, sensitive, kind, crazy, funny, soulful, aware, smart, wonderful human beings is also thrilling.

Seeing them try on being older and more grown up just to check the size like it's a pair of pants that is a size too big makes me smile a very, "I'm so proud of you even if it makes me crazy" kind of smile.

And when they occasionally leave those one-size-too-big pants discarded on the ground, I smile because I get to hug them just a little more and hold them just a little longer.  I know it's only for a second and they're going to try on being older and grown up again too soon.

And that's what makes every 1st day of school difficult.

It means that all of my kids are going to bust out their "I'm older and more grown up" clothes.  There's less and less looking back as I drop them off at school.  There's less sad faces when I leave and more excitement about what's ahead.

And that's the way it should be.  It's the way I want it to be for my sweet kids.  I want them to seize new opportunities with gusto and excitement.

And from outside their classroom doors I watch them and I listen to the voices behind doors as I walk down the long school corridors...

and I smile a very "I'm proud of you even if it makes me miss you" kind of smile...

school. LIFE.