Weeks 23, 24, 25

Week 23: The Good Old Days

You know, the days when Utah was just a place I visited to hit the slopes. Just kidding. But little did I know when we spent all those winter weeks in skiing at Brian Head that I would live just three and a half hours north one day. Those were the days when it was my own mom who spent all the time bundling us up just to have us need to go to the bathroom ten minutes later. 

That's my brother--boy did growing up do him some good. (Just kidding, Jon. Mostly. Of course you're still in the habit of calling me Hose Head and throwing me in pools so I really don't feel the need to flatter you.) I thought about not addressing the third person in the shot and waiting to see how many people inquired about the sister I've never mentioned.

In reality, that's my cousin, Amanda. She's all grown up now and we tried to go on the Amazing Race together but never got called. CBS has no idea what they're missing. Seriously. We'd make good TV.

Week 24: Black & White

Hi Babies! I love you so much you make my heart hurt. This theme was posted while we were in HI and I declared, "Oh, so I'll just post a picture of my kids." Although, really, in this house, we generally refer to people as "peach" and "brown" because that's what Garrett starting saying and we're letting our kids take the lead on when racial lessons are appropriate. I've had a question or two regarding this approach (i.e. what if something happens and you could have prevented it by talking about racial issues earlier?). But I am not going to be able to prevent race related issues from happening simply by talking about them. While I agree that we need to prepare our kids to deal with them, I've read several sources written by African Americans that suggest that the best approach is a kid driven one.

This picture was taken one of our first days on Maui. Garrett had a tattoo on his chest which came off in the waves only after he'd tanned around it. Thankfully we were there long enough to fix that bizarre tan line.

Week 25: Rise & Shine

Hi again Babies! How long will you let me call you that? What's that you say? That was so two years ago? Well, tough. As long as you're living under my roof I'll call you what I want to, Babies.

We took this picture in our hotel at Disneyland last summer. They were very tired from their festivities. Garrett still sleeps with that blanket and an elephant which might be the blue blob by his hair. That green blob on the right side of the shot is Franklin, who lives at Grandma and Grandpa's house and is one of Garrett's favorite things in the entire world. Matthew still sleeps with that blanket and that monkey. I am pretty certain that both boys are going to be packing blankies and stuffed friends to take with them on their honeymoons.