The Speedy Photo Catch-up (Part 1…)

I just recently completed the process of totally clearing my camera card, phone, and hard drive of random photos that have been building up over the last year (or two).

Everything is organized and backed up on SmugMug and on an external hard drive and if I wasn’t 30 weeks pregnant I’d feel light as a feather right now. 🙂

There are few things more energizing than a clean slate! I realized I’ve been reluctant to take any pictures lately because I dreaded adding to the backlog already solidly in place. My kids are growing fast, though, and my pregnant brain can’t seem to catch and hold onto everyday moments as much as I’d like, so I’m glad to feel inspired to grab my camera again here and there and capture life.

The blog has definitely taken a backseat in the last few months, but I love it as a tool for reflection and reminiscing so I’m going to do some speedy catch-up posts from the last year to make things more current here.

Before I start blogging chronologically, I’ll call out a few things I noticed as I sifted through more than a year’s worth of photos at once.

One thing about Mackenzie

My oldest daughter likes order. I present the evidence:

She got out all our preschool puzzles and put them together her way one day.

Pattern blocks are a great match for her and she comes up with beautiful (and always symmetrical) designs.

Every once in a while I try to speak her love language at lunchtime. It’s an easy way to delight her:

We have yet to actually play this game, but placed the tiles on the board to make patterns:

Perhaps my favorite example from this last year is the gift she labored over for Scott’s 34th birthday. It’s a beads and button cake:

(Keeping that cake intact with 2 and 4 year old siblings was at least as tricky as placing all those beads so meticulously!)

One thing about Caitlyn

Caitlyn went from being a reader to also trying her hand at writing this past year. She’s showing signs of being a leftie and doesn’t do so well yet with a pen and paper, but she made me this:

Can you see the Mama Llama in there? She’d never written a thing before and it was utterly adorable when she proudly brought me in my “birthday cake” last year (not on my birthday, and magnetic letters are not as delicious as chocolate, but I appreciated the offering nonetheless.)

Several months ago, she was using my iPad to do Khan Academy and I noticed as I walked past that she had clicked the “Send Feedback” link and was carefully typing out a note.

I’ll bet the good people behind Khan Academy appreciated that along with its sister note sent several minutes later:

“Thank you for the world and the Wild West.”

(She asked me how to spell “world” for that one. 🙂 )

One thing about Daniel

He is still a food-focused kid, which is why this image had me cracking up:

Can you read his little picture he colored in nursery (and then promptly started eating?)

It says, “I can eat good foods.”

I’m not sure paper qualifies, Buddy…