In between photo shoots, editing photos, Christmas shopping, two Thanksgiving dinners, a birthday party, laundry, bill paying, and just generally putting out fires in every direction I turn, we somehow managed to get the Christmas Tree up and decorated. To be perfectly honest, I put the tree together, strung the lights and garland, and then pretty much let the kids go crazy with the ornaments. I put a few up toward the top where they couldn’t reach, but mostly just let them go with it. They were thrilled, and continue to re-arrange it on a daily basis. We have yet to find the time to hang the lights they begged for on the house, but we’ve still got a couple weeks for that.
Every year I swear I’m going to not let things get so hectic this time of year, and every year it does. As I scanned through the few snapshots I took of the kids while they were decorating the tree it struck me just how much they have grown over the last few months. They both required new shoes again last weekend as their feet just keep getting bigger and bigger. My babies are not babies anymore. Even Evie, who is still only two for a few more months, talks and acts well beyond her age at times. They just look so big sitting there next to the tree.
I also realized, as I was uploading photos to Flickr, that I took very few photos of my kids over the last month or so. Very few compared to what I normally take anyway, and it makes me a bit sad. I know I overdo it on the photos most of the time, but I absolutely love looking back at all those captured moments when – on days like today – I realize just how fast they are growing and changing.
December is certainly not slowing down. I have so many things I want to write and post here, but there is so very little time to accomplish that. This weekend I’m doing two photo shoots for friends/family, have a birthday party to attend, and then hopefully can squeeze in some time for my own family’s photos. Next week we have our first appointment to start evaluations on Zach for his sensory issues, then my cousin’s wedding that weekend where I am also helping take photographs. The next weekend is my nephew’s birthday, and then my in-laws are coming to town and suddenly we’re at Christmas.
Somewhere in there I need to finish buying /making Christmas gifts, edit all those photos I’m going to be taking, AND try to find time to hang out and have some fun with my own family. The kids are so excited about Christmas this year and I really want to enjoy that with them, including fun things like making cookies, watching Christmas movies, writing out their wish lists, as well as reading and talking about the story of Christmas and helping them to understand what it is really all about. I wish I had a giant Pause button so that I could get all of the things finished that I need to do, then catch back up with my family.
Whew! I’m not sure how that all reads, but I’m talking a mile a minute in my head as I’m writing. That is how rushed I am feeling with everything right now.
