Blogging has become about #59 on my list of things to do, and it is getting lost amongst the craziness. I do not want to let it get too far away from me though, because this is my one definite and relied upon (aside from Facebook) means of recording memories and photos of our family. I sure hope that some day I can print out my Facebook “stuff” into a nice yearbook style format like I have with this blog in the past.
Anyway, what have we been up to? It’s sad that I do not even remember my last post.
Just last night we visited Mr. Claus himself and not a single child balked or cried or so much as sniffed back a tear!
Last year, even though Mia had just been born I was determined to get out a Christmas card. If you all remember though, that was NOT a reality and the few decent pictures we did get of the three little ones didn’t make it past the digital format on our computer! Soo, here it is for your viewing pleasure, in case you felt left out last year (sorry!)
This year I was MUCH more on the ball, and we did a little photo shoot at home. Matching PJs was about as creative as I could get with these three crazy goons! As you will notice from all these outtakes and despite my frustration at times, it was quite an episode of America’s Funniest Home Videos!
Here was my first thought, have all of them stand in front of the fire place and quickly retreat back to my spot and snap a photo, hopefully with everyone smiling…
Mia decided that was not going to work, she would much rather come after me and the camera. Scratch that idea. Onto the next…
How about sitting sweetly together in front of fire place…
Negative. Okay, how about we confine Mia to a wheeled push toy, just to keep her in one spot long enough for me to snap a photo?…
That’s not going to work now is it?
Okay, children, sit your bums down on the couch…
I think this might have been the runner up, but as the unofficial rule goes, if you have more than one child, it is virtually impossible to get all of them to smile/look at the camera all at once (or if they ALL are, at least ONE of them will look like Jim Carrey or Napolean Dynamite.)
About 65% of all my photos look like this…
Okay, just for toots and giggles, let’s try to get a Norman Rockwell-esque pose in front of the fireplace, reading books like sweet little well-behaved angels…
Precious, isn’t it?
You really wish this had made our card this year huh?!
One more time at the couch…
My genius idea to get all of them to look at me with decent smiles was to sing familiar versions of songs with a whimsical twist where I substituted typical words with potty humor…The older two just thought this was way too hilarious and gave me goofy smiles and giggles…
“A B C D E F diaper, H I J K L M N O Pee my pants….”
This was a runner up for our card this year, but instead it has landed itself as my desktop image on my workroom computer.
And before it gets too lost in the shuffle of our lives…
Tom and I thought about sending out a sweet little Christmas Card this year (along with the photo) that included little snippets about our year. However, we could not get over the fact that we felt shame and sadness about a certain event of our lives that I will explain here.
Our family card would have said sweet things like, “Ty is a reading, bike riding, basketball and tennis-playing Kindergartner with many dear friends” “Marlo is our dirt-in-the-skirt-Princess who will also lasso you with a batrope and name off every single Superhero known to man. She loves Preschool and is quite the Daddy’s girl.” “Mia is our BIG BUDDHA! She’s a walking, (baby) talking, eating machine and loves her big brother and sister.”
Also, our family card would have to say, “We got a dog in the summer. And we got rid of our dog in the Fall.”
It is true, we had to come to the realization that we simply could not handle having a dog. Our hearts and family life longed for another “Banks”, which we know now can never happen. We did try our hardest to make having a dog a reality for us, but we just could not surmount the extra workload it required. It pained us to feel like we failed at this, but perhaps the best and worst part of all of this was that we just really did not develop a bond with him. The kids rarely saw him, played with him or pet him…which made his absence less of a sting to them. It was very matter-of-fact when he left, and the kids did just fine. Tom and I still have moments where we just shake our heads but we certainly learned our lesson. There is not a worry in our hearts or minds about JJ’s new home, he is in the best possible place for a dog, and we will probably be able to see him frequently if we so choose.
Well, hopefully I can keep this trend up and update this blog a little more, especially with the holidays quickly approaching!
