Family

This post is going to be picture heavy.  Who am I kidding?  MOST of my posts are picture heavy!!  I've been playing around with the digital scrapbooking thing & got some new actions, too.  The actions are from The Coffee Shop Blog, and there is a button over there ------->  so you can get your own!!

I've been waxing nostalgic of late & lamenting my poor parenting skills.  Did I praise the boys enough when they were younger?  Was there enough laughter in our home?  Do they know how much I love them?  Here is a quote I found on Pinterest:  "It's not a parent's responsibility to have godly children, it's a parent's responsibility to make sure their children have godly parents."  I struggle with this daily!!

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of things I did way better when my older kids were little than I've done with the littlest one.  Reading with them,  spending one-on-one time with them, playing games with them.  I have evolved as a parent, and it's not all good.  In part, I blame electronics, but that's just passing the buck from my onto something I gave the kids.   I want all of our kids to have fond memories of growing up & not just remember the sucky parts or the times they think they got the shaft.  I think that's why I've always taken a ton of photos.  I want them to remember being little, & I want to remember them being little, especially as they are all quickly outgrowing me.  Do you see that 2 of them are at least a foot taller & 2 are within inches?  My saving grace is that the little one is only 5.  I figure I have 4 or 5 more years before he outgrows me.

Moving on, I've been editing pictures from our most recent shoot again, with the new actions.  Now I want to dig out my old pics & scan them in, too! Some of my original pictures are really good, if I do say so myself.  Some of them, not so much.  Part of that is due to the fact that most of my children have decided I no longer need any more pictures of them, which makes them wholly uncooperative.   Some of these pictures are the same as I've shared before, but some of them are different ones that I decided were really good.

And here is the eldest.  He hates having his picture taken.  This is the only usable one we got.

And here is the 2nd eldest. He also hates having his picture taken.  To make things worse, he was recently forced to cut his hair.  I think he imagined himself as Samson.   This first pic is him staring into your soul.  Which only reinforces the whole thing about redheads stealing your souls.  

This is our daughter & one of my favorite photos I've ever taken

She has also decided that she's done taking pictures.  I have other news for her. 

The is the next to youngest.  He still cooperates, for the most part.  Both of these are pics I haven't shared before.  He's a little impish.

And we come to the baby.  I will probably always call him "the baby," much to my mom's chagrin.  

He is precious & precocious.

Both of these are new pictures, too.  I might have gotten his eyes a little too alien-y in this one, despite having the eye bright turned down to 30% or so.  

That is the extent of my productivity for the day.  Hope you enjoyed the edits!!