Photo 365 #43

September 19, 2014September 19, 20144 Comments

Cricket and I were looking through some of my Instagram pictures tonight. He kept asking who the people were in the pictures on my feed, so finally I flipped over to my pictures and asked him who the people were in the pictures I’d posted. He did pretty well, though I think sometimes he answered wrong just to be silly.

Cricket’s nothing if not silly.

But then we came to this picture:

And when I asked him who was in this picture, without missing a beat, he said, “Um, that’s my godfather and his princess.” 🙂

Photo 365 #42

September 18, 20146 Comments

I had to go pick the kids up from Faith Formation (CCD for all you old-schoolers) last night and, as the sun is setting a little earlier each night now, I couldn’t help watching the western sky out my window as I drove north to church.

septembersunset

No, I didn’t take this while I was driving. (If I had, it wouldn’t have turned out so well.) I did take a couple others where the trees weren’t in the way, and they turned out just as nicely as these.

I love sunsets. And fall. I only wish the hint of green I could see in my rearview mirror would have shown up because the setting sun gave the clouds a faint rainbow appearance last night that was just magical.

Photo 365 #41

September 17, 2014September 18, 2014Leave a comment

Cricket always yells for me to save him when Daddy starts tickling him, but this time, our roles were reversed:

daddy's boy

I was the one doing the tickling and Daddy was the one doing the saving. Apparently, though, Daddy was also supposed to save him from having his picture taken.

So much for that idea. 🙂

Photo 365 #40

September 16, 2014September 16, 201410 Comments

Today was a beautiful, glorious day, the kind of day that makes you feel glad to be alive.

As I was wandering my yard this afternoon, I happened upon these beauties. I suspect these are the last tomatoes we’ll see this year (in our garden, anyway), but there are still a few apples clinging to a half-dead tree in the yard.

I love fall. 🙂

Photo 365 #39

September 15, 20149 Comments

Took the boys shopping with us over the weekend, and for a few minutes, there was peace in the cart.

brothers

Now if only this had lasted for the duration of our trip…

Photo 365 #38

September 14, 2014September 14, 201410 Comments

Apparently I’ve spawned a Borg…

I hope I won’t be assimilated in my sleep. That would make for a really rotten Monday come morning. 😛

Photo 365 #37

September 13, 20143 Comments

Our bunnies, Oreo and Midnight (one guess what they look like) got new homes today. Now they have their own room to hop about and curl up and eat and drink and just be.

But today’s post isn’t really about the bunnies.

We took the boys out to see the bunnies once they were all settled and Thumper got distracted by the kitties roaming the yard. He feels compelled to pick up the cats every time he sees them, and if he has to chase them in order to pick them up? So much the better, in his opinion.

He loves his kitties. 🙂

Photo 365 #36

September 12, 2014September 12, 2014Leave a comment

Bubbles is a goofy boy:

shirt

This is one of his other birthday gifts. Apparently he’s pretty excited about the prospect of going hunting in a couple of years. I was excited that I caught this silly expression on film (in a manner of speaking, anyway).

Photo 365 #35

September 11, 201410 Comments

I was 17 when the twin towers fell. It was one of the scariest days of my life, and I was nearly 1100 miles away from Ground Zero.

I watched the events unfold that day on the news. I saw the first plane hit just before I left for school, and I spent the rest of the day watching the news – no one seemed able to turn it off. Everyone was in a panic.

Propaganda abounded in the days that followed – I still have a few things that circulated after the attacks. “Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue” is still a favorite song, and every time I hear it, I’m reminded of the days and weeks after September 11, 2001, when patriotism was at a high point and all my friends wanted to enlist to kick Osama where it counted.

But these stickers also hail from that era, as do the ones beneath them. And every last one depicts a peace sign, whether it’s one like in this picture or a frog holding up two fingers. I was afraid the attacks on New York would hurtle us headlong into a war the likes of which hadn’t been seen in sixty years. I feared my home would be the next target. I feared a lot of things, but I also prayed for peace.

Even at 17, I knew that not all Muslims are the same, just as not all Jews are the same, not all Christians are the same, not all Hindus are the same. Extremists and terrorists exist in all cultures, all religions, and we shouldn’t judge the majority of a culture by the acts of the minority. I hoped that my country would emerge from the ashes of that day stronger and more resilient.

Tonight, after supper was cleaned up and Bubbles had opened his birthday gifts…

Photo 365 #34

September 10, 20142 Comments

Our annual family photo book arrived today, a day earlier than I’d expected. So to celebrate, here’s a picture from said album:

Cricket riding Daddy around the room proved easier to capture than a nice picture of everyone in front of the Christmas tree.

I use Blurb to create these books each year, and the quality is fantastic. (This is in no way a promotional post; I’m just really happy with the quality of their products.) I ordered the first one for our first wedding anniversary as a way to document the first year of our marriage; I wish I’d captioned those pictures, but I didn’t really get into the different layout designs and caption options until the following year. I looked through the 2013 book this afternoon after it arrived and was surprised by how much I’d forgotten about the events of last year, and how much the kids had changed.

Every time we take a picture that comes out particularly hilarious now, we tell the kids it’s going in the book. Of course, with Miss Tadpole the reigning Queen of the Funny Face and Cricket and Thumper hamming it up at every opportunity, that means I have my work cut out for me when it comes to choosing which pictures make the cut and which ones don’t. Still, it’s a lot of fun making these books, and the kids love looking through them year after year.

Do you do anything like this in your family?