2 Weeks?

Wow, where does time go? Is this a sign of the time of the year we are in? The last 2 weeks have been spent with Jonathan & Andrew's 14th Birthday, basketball scrimmages, Natalie's first BB game, 8 people home for Thanksgiving for 5 days (!), Christmas decorating, attic cleaning, lot's of cooking and baking, Christmas shopping and overall a sense that our time just isn't our own, or is it?

We have been recording our family home videos onto easily watchable DVD's and every night sneak in a few minutes from times gone by.....   Wow! What seems, at the time, to be an incovenenience to do sure is enjoyable to watch now!  Talk about getting your kids out of their bedrooms and into the family room!  This will do it!

We recently watched Jonathan and Andrew's first day of Preschool (2001) complete with instructions on how to behave at school, Natalie's homework assignment that includes her in first grade videotaping how to make mac 'n cheese, and Jenna running her first CC race as a seventh grader.  We've watched family weddings from a fun new angle and laughed about styles, hairdo's and how much older Mom and Dad look, but what I have enjoyed the most is when we videotaped the normal day. 

We had the camera turned on to talk to the twins when they were 2,  for 10 whole minutes.  It's not just about when they have the birthday cake in front of them or when they are out on the soccer or baseball field that makes it so fun to watch now.  It's about the bringing back of who they were. Watching their eyes, their mannerisms, and to listen to their voices and truly remember what it was like to have them young again.

Our entire family's favorite clip is still a 15 minute recording from 1998. The twins were not quite 2, Natalie 3, Lauren 7, and Jenna 8.  We were sitting in the family room in Toledo and the kids were dancing.  Complete with Brittney Spears music in the background, Jonathan with footie pajamas on and cowboy boots & hat and dancing with his stick pony.  (Smack dab in the middle of Toy Story and Woody days!) To anyone else it is 5 kids dancing in a room, but to us it is who we were and and that is a tough thing to give up.

Our goal is to record these 50 or so DVDs from the last 21 years and make copies for each child. My parents did the same thing when I was a kid, and I have these videos from my childhood too.

So, as we enter another Holiday season, remember the little things.  Tuck that Christmas Wish List from your 4 year old away, capture a picture of a moment unexpected, and enjoy all you have, for what they are today, and for what those memories will become.

  We do not remember days; we remember moments.  ~Cesare Pavese