Am I the only mom who has a box like this?

PS - My children are all in their 20s. 

Time Goes Too Fast

As I sorted through old photos today, making piles for each of my children, I felt wonderful, and sad at the same time.  To all of the mothers of young children, you will miss these days.  The days of wiping snotty noses and poopy butts are also the days of tremendous hugs and slobbery kisses.  Hold tight to those wiggling ones, all too soon they are taller than you and making you a grandparent.  

Shown above from left to right: Gage age 3 years, Haden 5 mo, Britney 6 1/2 years and Mikal 5 years. 

Missing the chaos

For the longest time I was so good about snapping a photo of the crew when we managed to get them all together. However, this last year I haven't been as good about it. I think they're out of practice. . .notice Haden is under the couch, lol.





Falling. . .



This was the last time we'll have them all together for. . .well, I'm not sure how long. . .my daughter and her family moved back to Missouri last weekend. I miss them all terribly already. :(  Our gatherings of 10 have been cut nearly in half.  And the baby of the group is now 19, instead of 3. :'(

Impromptu Gathering

Mikal texted me, "Will you be home Wed?" and it grew from there. Sure, I'd be home, and Dennis would be home from work earlier than normal, so it was decided he'd throw some burgers on the grill. Well, if he was cooking out, I'd invite Britney and Nick. . .

So they were in. Well, I better call Khris. . .sure, he could make it. When I inform Dennis all the kids (and significant others) could be here. His first response was, "Great!" (smiling), quickly followed by, "I better get more meat." lol

How true! I grew up an only child, the lonely only. . .but I gave birth to four wonderful people who keep adding more wonderful people to my life, and simply having a cookout with the kids can quickly grow. But it's all good! Imagine what it's like when we try to go to a restaurant!

When I passed all this info to mom (in Missouri) she said, "Better take a picture." Of course! All four kids had not been here at the same time since Thanksgiving! So, we grabbed the p&s and snapped a few in the backyard. We'll be getting better photos taken in about two weeks, when we all look snazzy at Mikal and Amy's wedding!

It's been a while since the kids have been on the blog so, let's introduce them again (left to right):

My middle son, Khristiaan and his girlfriend Ashley.

My youngest child, Haden (in the brown shirt).

Nick and my daughter, my oldest, Britney with their two children (Tristan in red and Adrianna in mama's arms).

Then, my oldest son, Mikal and his fiance, Amy ~ They are getting married June 26th, time is flying!

Introducing my Kids

Originally posted September 5, 2007

We tried our annual photo shoot of the kids a little differently this year in that we just told them to “go over there and be yourselves”. This meant that in order to get a shot like this:


We had to first go through a lot of this:


It had been a few years since we were able to get all four of my kids out at the same time to take photos so I was really happy to see this:


Dennis managed to capture my youngest son’s spirit perfectly and this one will go on the wall.


Haden is 15 and has always loved the outdoors. In the photo he has a crawdad (crayfish) in his hand. He’s had stitches seven times and broken a couple of fingers. He loves to hike, bike, camp and anything that involves outside and bugs or snakes. I once almost lost him because he stopped to watch some ants. He’s all boy all the time!

Shockingly enough, we managed to pry my middle son away from his computer long enough to spend a couple of hours at the park.

Khristiaan as he likes to be called now - it is his first name I just spent the first 15 years of his life calling him by his middle name, Gage. He’ll always be Gator to me. Khris will be 18 this month and is looking for a job, anyone need a hacker? All of his life he has woken up with a smile and when he’s not annoying the crap out of you he’s pretty funny. He was everywhere!



The main reason we went out was to get some photos for Mikal and Amy (We’ll be doing it again in a couple of weeks for Britney and Nick). Hopefully, they like theirs.



Mikal is my oldest son, he’ll be 20 in December. He and Amy have been dating for 3 years and I think they look really cute together. Mikal loves playing with photoshop and loves his Scion TC. He was always my hyper one and maybe a little clumsy. He’ll talk your ear, especially if it has anything to do with computers or Scions.



I keep wondering what Mikal asked for to cause such a look on Amy’s face.



Britney is my oldest, 21, and her little one is now 6 months old. You’ll be seeing more of her in a couple of weeks when we do her family photos. She’s my only girl, my firstborn and the source of every grey hair on my head. Ok, not really. She’s a very protective mama of little Tristan. I thought she was going to give birth to a cow when I suggested we put him in the baby swing, “Does it have germs on it?” I wonder what she’ll do when he takes that first mouthful of dirt, and you know he will.

Most important of all, Tristan had fun at the park.


If you click on any photo in the mosaics you can see the full photo. They got cropped a little weird but I had so many I wanted to share it seemed the best way.

Fun getting things done Monday

Southern Doll would like to know how we’re doing on our Bucket Lists. I think I’m doing pretty good, how about you? (all these photos have been taken in the last week) There are words to go with the photos, if you put your pointer on the photo they should appear.

Remember all of the photos were taken within the last week. :)