Ten Times Two

Peter turned 20 in December and I still can't quite wrap my brain around it.

He got missionary things for his birthday like scriptures and the black suit he's wearing in the picture below. A benefit to him being on a service mission is that we got to celebrate with him. Sadly, he was sick on his birthday and it was pretty low-key, but we still made (and purchased) his favorite foods and he opened gifts.

I don't think I've been stunned by any other birthdays, but two decades of parenthood doesn't seem quite possible. I keep thinking that I have three teenagers at home, but I don't, I only have two. Peter is not a teenager anymore.

Time is weird.

All the Books

These two pictures popped up in my photo memories today. I was admiring how cute these little guys were when I realized something. This is Cooper at 18 and 19 months old. He's comfortably reading those books that have regular pages. I know we had board books available, but he had definitely been thumbing through standard picture books for some time. 

I chatted with a friend (she has five kids, her oldest is Topher's age) last night who told me that they've kept most of their books packed in boxes so their kids wouldn't destroy them. I don't think it occurred to me to keep books out of my kids' reach. In fact, I'm pretty sure I actively put books in their hands as much as possible. Have books been destroyed over the years? Yes, but mostly from overuse. We've had an occasional tear here and there, but it's generally been from excited page turning.

My purpose in writing about this isn't to say, "Look at my amazing children." Rather, I'm curious why they didn't rip up books the way some of their peers did. 

A Long Long Time Ago

Today is our 24th family birthday. We had planned to eat our traditional family birthday meal, but we needed to postpone it to Wednesday. Bryan woke me up at 6:00 in the morning to tell me that he was having a kidney stone. We think this is his ninth, but that's just a guess since we've kind of lost count. He spent the morning in the ER getting some very strong medication and the rest of the day going in and out of sleep, still on very strong medication.

This is not how he wanted to spend today.

Since the day went sideways, let us instead focus on this day twenty four years ago.

Aw, look at those cute kids.

In Flight

Nothing says happy Friday like a picture of teenage me jumping gleefully on a trampoline, right? Check out those bangs.

Not Triplets

Yesterday I shared a picture of my mom and her brother. Today I'm sharing a picture of me and two of my three brothers. This is me at age 5, Jordan at 2.5, and Ian at 4. Because Jordan was tall and Ian and I are so close in age, people used to think we were triplets.

Brother and Sister

Based on the year this picture was taken, this is my mom and her older brother Rick at her college graduation. My Uncle Rick passed away when I was seven, I only have a handful of memories of him. I was so happy to find this joyful picture of both of them.

Relaxin'

Among the old pictures and found this gem. This is my Grandma Bonnie and my mom on vacation in Mexico.

Buried Treasure

I found a trove of family pictures. This week I'm going to share some of them. This picture was labeled with my mom's name. She was darling! It feels like I've uncovered a treasure when I find an old picture that's new to me.