True to Life

You've heard me mention Life in Moments Photography before since my good friend Jami takes pictures of all the biggest moments in my life.  We were recently in need of pictures for the extended Fife family, and we couldn't wait for warmer, prettier weather, because my brother-in-law, Tony, moved out of state on April 5th. 

So we headed to Wheeler Farm in late March to take some pictures.  The day was sunny, but not exactly warm.  Nobody minded too much except for poor Dylan.  We tried to keep him bundled between pictures, but it was still a little too much for a tiny munchkin to handle.

Jami snapped this shot (since we couldn't get any good ones of my boys), and I'm actually kind of glad it turned out this way.  A really great picture of my boys would have hung on the wall for a year or so until I updated it, then been filed away and forgotten. 

This one, I think I'll always remember:

And just for fun, here's a few other great ones from the shoot.  I'm so glad we went with a color scheme and lots of texture (per Jami's website instructions) instead of matchy-matchy.  Oh, and thanks to the grandkids getting taller, I don't look so ridiculously short amongst the Fife amazons.  :)

2:52 a.m.

In the dead of night, I awake to a screaming baby.  Sadly, this is not atypical.  I drag my drowsy self out of bed and across the hall for what should be a standard "binky replacement" mission.  As I approach the crib, I think to myself that Dylan's screaming is a little more intense than the normal lost-my-binky cry.  Sure enough, as I peer over the edge, I am met with a not-so-standard sight.

Dylan rolls over easily from back to front and front to back.  He rolls several times per night.  But apparently, this time when he tries to roll (presumably back to front), he is too close to the side of the crib.  He is stuck on his side, face pressed to crib bumpers, little legs flailing, trying desperately to complete the roll-over.  He looks like a fly on its back, spinning in fruitless circles.

I laugh.

I pull him to the center of the crib and help him get comfortable. I replace the must-have binky.  I think of him stuck there, flailing helplessly.

I laugh again.

Why is this funny to me? 

I'm going to go with sleep deprivation.

Baby's First Tie

Yeah, I also try to track all the normal milestones, too, but in our little testosterone-heavy family, one of my favorites is "Baby's First Tie." 

I remember well the tradition of Easter dresses and how much I loved to dress up in something pretty on Easter Sunday. 

We've had to tweak that tradition a little (thanks to Burlington Coat Factory for selling such reasonably priced, adorable, and high quality little suits), but here are our boys, all dressed up in their Easter finery.  I don't think I've ever seen so much "handsome" packed into one shot!

What a Week

I spent this past week in Boise, Idaho hanging out with the good people of Starlight Mountain Theatre.  They asked me to come up and be the music director for their spring break production of High School Musical 2 Jr.  Basically this means that on Monday morning, I met 70 kids between the ages of 5 and 18, and in 6 days they learned all the music, choreography, lines, and blocking for the entire show and performed on Saturday night.  Crazy?  Yes.

Even more fun than hanging out with loads of teenagers who share my same passion for musical theater, however, was getting to spend the evenings with my grandparents who live in Boise.  My kids had a great time getting to know "Nana and Papa" (see below for a story about that), and Aunt Tammy.  We packed the week full of fun and then drove back home on Easter morning so we didn't miss any festivities.  Here's our quick week in review.

The kids and some cousins who were in town from Florida all piled on Grandpa's lap.

The cast of High School Musical 2 (approximately 70 kids)

Coloring Easter Eggs with my Aunt Tammy (Tammy is handicapped but lives in an apartment within my grandparents' house with the assistance of around-the-clock nursing staff.)

Spoiled Rotten!  Grandma and Grandpa kept bringing home gifts for the kids.

Happy Easter at the Fife house.  All 10 grandkids!

Our family (minus Dylan) with the Wayts family.  Kirk baptized Tabitha (the mom) when he was on his mission.  They were in town for Conference, and we were able to spend our Easter dinner with them at my parents' house.

And now for the "Nana and Papa" sidenote for anyone still reading...

Almost all of my cousins (I have 40) call Grandma and Grandpa Nelson "Nana" and "Papa."  In my family, we never have.  But since my kids are so blessed to have so many living grandparents, it sometimes gets confusing to keep them all straight.  I thought maybe if we start calling them "Nana" and "Papa" it would give them their own little place in the kids' minds. 

I tried.

I can't do it!

It just feels like baby talk to me.  (I'm guessing this is why in my family we always called them "Grandma" and "Grandpa.")

So "Grandma and Grandpa Nelson" they shall remain.

Too Cute to Skip

Here I sit, carefully "filing" all my digital pictures so I won't miss a single precious moment when I put together each of the kids' year-in-review scrapbooks.  As I noticed how many cute pictures I was filing away without so much as a 2-day spotlight on my blog (and then reflecting on how word-heavy my blog has been lately), I decided to bring you these special moments:

Adam came to tell me he had a loose tooth.  Whatever.  I attempted to wiggle the tooth he'd indicated.  No movement.  Kirk thought maybe I'd tried the wrong one.  I wiggled the adjacent tooth.  Yep.  He really does have a loose tooth.  Hm.  I don't think I'm ready for him to be that old! 

Alex recently turned three, and part of his "Thomas the Train" birthday cake was decorated with black frosting.  Which Alex used as mascara.  Yep.

It's not often that the pets make the blog, but here is our cat, Roxie, stealing the left-over paper from my primary cut outs.  I tried to take it from her, and she scratched me with her hind claws.

And finally, this is not what I expected to see when I opened the door to check on a supposedly sleeping baby.  Thankfully, Dylan is learning to entertain himself for small stretches of time.  I call these moments: heaven.

Nothing to Hate

I recently had the opportunity to attend a meeting in a gorgeously decorated home.  I paid little attention to anything that was said, because I was so busy looking around me.  I finally decided it wasn't that I loved any particular one thing; I was just a fan of the whole concept.

Each room was decorated with no more than 3 colors, and these three colors were used in large spans of solid color.  I loved that.  It didn't hurt that the colors were some of my favorites like chocolate brown and slate.  Mmm... love me some dark neutrals!

What really struck me most, however, was the "artwork."  I have the hardest time finding anything to hang on my walls, because I can never find anything that I like enough to put it out there as a representation of me. 

My favorite piece in this gorgeous house?  A big, white, plain rectangle hung on the wall. 

What does it say about how picky and opinionated I am if all I am capable of loving is a plain white rectangle?

And then I finally discovered the secret to finding pieces for my own home.  I am going to stop looking for things that give me something to love and start looking for things that give me nothing to hate.

Addiction

I just read an interesting email forwarded by my father in law.  The writer tells about a stranger who has lived with them for the past 50 years.  Despite the morals of the parents and the rules of the house, this stranger was allowed to swear, to drink, and to make smoking and sex look cool.  He often interupted family meals, and the children were far more interested in his stories than in listening to their mother.  The punchline?  "We called him simply... TV."

I thought for a moment.  How great would it be if I didn't allow the TV to say anything I wouldn't allow my kids to say?  (Insert mental picture of me on a high horse here.)  Easy to enforce for the kids, I think.  Then I thought about the shows I watch.  (Quick dismount from said horse.)  I'm not sure I can think of a single one of my "shows" that fit this standard.  If I truly did decide to raise the bar for TV viewing in my house, what would be left to watch?

When I think about turning my back on my favorite TV shows, it kind of makes me panic.  What would I do with my time? 

And then that thought kind of makes me panic.  Am I addicted to TV?  Could I stop watching it?

Then sadly, I start to think, "If I really did that, everyone would think I was weird.  My kids would be made fun of."

Do others' opinions really mean that much to me?  Am I seriously factoring that into the decisions regarding the eternal salvation of my family?

I'm not saying I need to turn my back on TV.  And I'm certainly not saying I'm going to.  I'm simply asking myself if I even could, and the answer scares me.

The definition of addiction:

"Being abnormally tolerant to and dependent on something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming."

Hm.