Thursday, January 29, 2015

B by the Tree


I loved capturing these precious moments of my baby girl by our Christmas tree. She would just sit and look at it, gingerly touching it as if she knew it wasn't something to mess with. Every now and then she'd get brave and remove one of the ornaments and try to replace it again. I love her little pointed toe as she tried reaching up.

Happy Birthday to the State of Kansas!

Happy Birthday to the state of Kansas! I will always remember that little piece of Kansas trivia I learned growing up—Kansas entered the Union Jan. 29, 1861 as a free state. (More Kansas Info)
I've actually always had a pretty good memory for numbers and such. When little J was marking off the day on his calendar this morning I mentioned it was Kansas' birthday. He said, "Well, we should have birthday cake for dessert tonight. You have to have birthday cake when you celebrate a birthday!" Oh I love that kid! (I also remember it's my cousin Coy's birthday—so I guess another reason to celebrate, ha!)

I have come to love the state of Idaho. In fact, I didn't realize how much I really love learning about history, but I can't get enough of it, especially after going through Idaho history last year when MJ was in 4th grade. And now that I'm working on the cattle history book, there is just so much cool stuff to learn from the past. I guess it shouldn't be a surprise though because I've always been sentimental and big into preserving memories.

I'm all about learning as much as I can about the state I reside in now, but I will never forget my home state of Kansas, especially western Kansas. I am a Kansas girl at heart. Wheat fields, sunflowers and beautiful sunsets will always remind me of my home. And you know I bleed purple...go Wildcats! It's been awhile since I've been in a Kansas wheat field; so glad I have these images to remember it!




Monday, January 12, 2015

Blogging

I started blogging to help my family and friends far away to keep up with our growing family. It was getting harder to find time to scrapbook, so our personal blog became my online journal of our lives as the girls were growing, then we added another little one to the mix when J was born. Then life became even busier. I joined Facebook, quite reluctantly after a friend sent me several requests. I finally gave in. I loved my blog, but I realized I was spending so much time with it. I got caught up in reading lots of other blogs from all over the world. II was connecting with other people, but it took so much time. And I couldn't figure out who I was blogging for or to. Did I want to grow my blog? Was it just for family and friends, was it just for us? Then once social media came, my blog went by the way side. Now I look back and wish I had kept up my blog. We added a fourth child to our family and her first two years have not been documented nearly as much as I would like. I had even printed out blog books and my kids love looking back.

I need to connect with the little people in my real life. I have a love/hate relationship with social media. I don't miss it when I'm away from it, but I enjoy it when I'm on it. I just want more time and I know I won't get more, but I have to create more space in my life by letting go of some things. I'm in a real journey to find what it is I have to let go of. Work is so busy and yet I keep adding to my plate.


I've been wanting to start blogging again. I need a place to share stories of the kids and to put my thoughts down. I have been trying to journal every night, but truly I type faster than I write. Maybe if I get back into blogging then I'll also get back into scrapbooking. I will probably be random and weird and all over the place. I'll try to get all my grammar correct seeing as I am a writer by trade, but I'm sure they will be occasional typos. (My mom will catch those.) I may write to you (whomever happens to read this) or to myself or to my kids. I'm just going to do it; if no one reads it, no big deal. I just need to stop putting off keeping track of our life and our memories. I'll have professional pics and phone pics. Sometimes I worry that since I am a pro photographer all my photos should be perfect. But really, nothing is perfect and something is better than nothing. I take phone photos all day capturing my kiddos, our life, funny things, food I make, etc. Better to put them somewhere than continue moping because I've done nothing with them.

And because I said I was going to be random, here is a random photo. I guess you can post photos from your phone so I clicked on it. This happened to be the only photo that came up. Our little guy, probably around age 2 at the time. He'll be turning 6 next week, oy! Can't believe that! But, what a fun memory right here.