Say cheese :)

  My kids got used to being lined up and photographed….how could we resist?  And most of the time they were this cooperative.  There were times, however, when one of them would throw a fit.  And we would take the picture anyway!  I have many pictures with everyone all happy and one of them screaming, but that was reality.   I was pretty consistent with picture-taking…I resisted the old saying that the first child gets huge photo albums and the last one just gets memories.  And I was big on taking pictures of moments that were not so fun at the time.  Ashley throwing a tantrum about wearing a skirt to the theatre, Casey’s head with stitches after being pushed by one of the other kids (I am not saying who), Carson very sick and not able to walk suddenly, Dustin hanging over the rail of his crib trying to escape…you get the picture. 

Sometimes when everything was totally chaotic…I would grab the movie camera and just film the chaos!  After all, that’s part of the adventure.  I am a little bit sad that my kids don’t remember every bit of their childhood, but I know every moment has become a part of who they have become. 

We looked at photos and movies all the time as they got older…..and I’m convinced that some of their memories are from looking at the pictures of those events rather than being at the actual event.  My new plan is to dig out all of those old pictures, choose the best of, scan them, and create slideshows to just have scrolling on the TV at family gatherings.  It’s on my “to-do next” list.   Make memories and document them….all of them….it has worked for me.