It doesn’t always go as planned.

Life, that is. 

But in this instance, I’m talking about photography. 

As stated in my last blog post, the twins turned three last Tuesday.  They both had picked up coughs and colds a couple of days beforehand, so we were stuck in the house for quite a few days.  That’s okay.  I’m a fun mom.  We built forts, played games, and generally made the time pass by quickly.

We also made cupcakes on the twins birthday.

I had a wonderful vision of the twins eating their birthday cupcakes on the (clean!) floor….with messy faces and big smiles.  Something that I could preserve on paper.  Something beautiful and fun at the same time.

But, life doesn’t always go as planned.

Sammy, my normally sweet boy, has been testing the limits lately…..what he can get away with, how much can he whine….ya know, being your typical three year old boy.  Add into that that he wasn’t feeling quite up to par, so a photo shoot was the last of his list of fun things to do.

I still tried.  I have lot’s of patience.  I’m a mom of twins!

And I had cupcakes!

These images could best display his emotions about having his picture taken:

And this could describe Sabrina’s:

I assessed the situation.  Hugs and cuddles were given to Sam.  I understood.  He didn’t want his picture taken.  He wanted mama yes, but more so, he just wanted his cupcake so he could eat it and go relax.

Could I blame him?  Nope, not at all.

Cupcakes were given out.

Moods improved.

And I even caught some smiles:

Are they perfect pictures?  No.

But I think the display of emotions….from tears and protests to laughter and smiles (within moments) could accurately describe a typical three year old child on any given day. 

So nope, it didn’t go as planned.  But that’s okay.  That’s life.  And life is sometimes made up of bad moods and grumpiness…. and perhaps if we didn’t have the bad days, the good ones wouldn’t seem so great.

Three.

Three.

Three.

Three.

I guess I have to say it three times before it sinks in.  My babies are turning three today. 

Three!

Thr….oh, you get the point.

Time flies.  This is such a cliché, but so true at the same time.  I don’t think I really *got* how much time does truly fly by until I had children.  I can remember in absolute clarity the day that my babies were born, the night we brought them home, and when visitors came to see our new little family.

Big milestones stand out, of course.  When Sabrina rolled over for the first time around three months….and when Sammy cut his first tooth at six months.  That first year of their lives was filled with new things happening every single day, it seemed like.  I would hear people say, “Remember this, because time goes by so fast.”

It does.

But for me, it’s not just the big milestones that I have engraved in my head.  Not even close.  It’s everyday moments that are even more special to me.  Moments and memories that are so special and close to my heart that I will never ever forget them.

But, I will miss them one day. 

Time does fly.  And so I know that one day, not many years from now, Sammy won’t want me to sing “Over the Rainbow” to him or want me to play trains.  Sabrina will go from being the girl who is almost literally attached to my hip to a sassy adolescent who doesn’t want to have anything to do with me.

In the future, “mama” will turn into “mom”.  Hugs and kisses won’t be so easily received.  And time will be more sparse than it is in our present day.

I try not to think about things “yet to come” too much. 

Instead, I savor.

I hug. 

I kiss.

I play. 

I enjoy. 

For surely, time does fly by.  

Happy Third Birthday to my wonderful, beautiful babies.  You have changed my life in more ways than you will ever know.

Yeah...

Yeah...I did not complete my Twenty-Five days of Christmas.

I traveled back home to Michigan for about three weeks for the holidays, so blogging was last on my list of things to do.

But I will be back. Soon.

Day Four:

Today in the midst of errand running to prepare for our trip back home, we needed to stop by the mall.  The twins were treated to special chocolate covered pretzels from the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory.  They each had a small one and we figured there was no harm in letting them eat the pretzels on the ride home.

Lesson learned:  Chocolate covered pretzels are meant to be eaten ONLY at the kitchen table under proper supervision.

Otherwise, here is the fun result:

It’s alright though….with smiles like that, it was worth the clean up.

Day Three

On occasion, I can catch moments like this:

Day Two

I'm really trying people, really, I am.

Right now my computer is being reloaded by my dear husband. Which also means I can't get to my pics that I downloaded yesterday. Which means no Christmas picture for today.

Instead, I'll share a link of a Christmas video that I used to watch. I was almost positive that only me and one other person knew about this little movie, loved it, and laughed about it. When I got to YouTube I was proved wrong. There are apparently many people out there that remember this from their childhood as well.

To this one person, all I would have to say is, "The Christmas tree branch". No doubt this person would know what I am talking about.

Hope this brings a smile to all today. If you've never seen the full version, just give it a try. Yes, it was made in 1977 with muppets, but it still makes me laugh.





I'll be surely looking for a full version for the twins to try out.

Twenty-Five Days of Christmas: A song and a memory

So it begins, my twenty-five days of Christmas.  In years past, I have tried to capture a photo every day pertaining to Christmas.  This year, I will attempt the same...which will be interesting because I will be traveling back home and not have my handy computer.  I'm one of those weird people that actually prefers my desktop to my laptop.  But that’s a whole other topic.

I love Christmas and this time of year and not because of presents.  Yes, Santa will visit the twins and they will more than love everything they receive, I am sure.  But it's more about family and loved ones for me, remembering fond traditions and making new ones with our little family.

This weekend we put up our tree and decorations.  The twins both loved helping decorate, although Sabrina wanted to take part in every part of decorating--the lights, the beads, and everything in between.  I was finishing up some stuff yesterday and we had Christmas music playing in the background.  A song came on that instantly sent me back in time.

If there is anything that I have precious memories of when I was growing up, it was Christmas.  My family knew how to do right--and we also did it BIG.  You've seen the Christmas vacation movie, I'm sure?  Well, that was us.  Literally.  We didn't go into town and pick a tree from a lot.  Nope.  We trekked somewhere about an hour away from home and picked out a tree from a farm.  But it was never, ever small.  My parents had a large ceiling in the family room and a petite tree was never a possibility.

I remember always feeling excitement when we went to get the tree.  It was an adventure to me and loved being a part of it.  We would all bundle up in some warm clothing (it was Michigan of course, and sometimes unpredictable) and head off to the farm. 

It was always the same routine, though I wonder if my parents ever noticed that.  We would all spread out looking for that "perfect" tree, though it was usually my mom who had the final say so.  We would find one and walk all around it for inspection.  At one point my dad would tell my mother that this tree was way too big and it would never fit into our family room.  She would disagree and convince him to get the tree.  And so he did.

This one year in particular we had a whopper of a tree.  There were no words to describe it.  It wasn't just tall, it was WIDE.  We didn't realize how wide until we tried to bring it in the front door.
It didn't fit.  Literally, it was stuck within the door.  Now, you just need to get a visual here.  Imagine more than half of the tree hanging outside the front of the door.  And we couldn't really push it back out because some of the branches could fall off--plus there was just no where else to bring this tree in.  We certainly couldn’t return it either.

So, we brainstormed.  What my dad (and my brother, I think) came up with was pulling my dad's huge work truck around the house by the back door, putting a rope around the hitch of the truck and then attaching the other end of the rope to the tree.  Are you with me yet?

Then, driving the truck (slowly) a few feet to just get that darn tree in.  They did.

The rope broke.

Seriously.  Even now, when I think of this memory I laugh out loud.  How did we ever think we would get that tree in the front door?

More brainstorming.

A cable.  A cable can't break!  Wait…can it?  Now I’m not so sure…

So a cable was attached between the hitch and the tree....and slowly, very slowly, the truck was pulled forward and finally, the tree was in and the cable didn’t break!  I could hear the tree squeezing against the door and I swear the door was going to break from the pressure.

The rest of the night consisted of actually getting the tree up--which included wrapping a rope around the base and discreetly tying it around a beam so the tree wouldn't fall over.  And forget a regular tree stand.  Nope, we used a five gallon bucket to water that beauty.

And if memory serves, my mom never did admit that tree was too big.

The song I heard the other day that made me go back in time, was Charlie Pride's "Christmas in my Hometown".  We always had Charlie Pride on while we decorated the tree.  So I stood there and listened to the song and let my head take me back.  While the song was on I looked at my children, happily decorating, dancing, and smiling.  They were loving every second of it. 

I smiled at them.

I smiled at my memories. 

I thought about my mom.  She surely wouldn’t think this tree was big enough, I thought as I laughed to myself. 

But that’s okay.  It’s the memories that count, right?