On My Mind

I take my role as a mommy pretty seriously.  I actually feel pretty lucky to be able to stay home with them even though I have days that I wish that I didn't.  Lately I feel like I've had a lot of little "moments" with them -- spontaneous crazy dancing when our favorite songs come on or racing each other to the other side of the house just for fun.  Sometimes we start art projects and before I know it we have covered the counter and floor with papers and supplies.

Anyway, lately I've been thinking about the importance of family unity.  Jake and Marley are pretty good little buddies and have fun playing together and I seriously don't think anything makes me more happy.

I've been thinking about my fondest childhood memories.  I would love to incorporate some of them into our family traditions.

Growing up we didn't have a VHS player.  On the weekends we would go to our local video store, Sounds Easy, rent a VHS player and pick out a movie.  We would get take-out pizza from Pizza Factory.  It was always canadian bacon, mushrooms, olives, and green pepper.  It's still my favorite pizza. :)  I totally looked forward to this every week.  I'm not sure if it was meant to be tradition or even if we did it every week, but I totally looked forward to it.

Often on Sunday afternoons we would load up in our car and drive through nice neighborhoods and look at houses.  I loved doing this.

My grandpa Smith would often invite all of us over to the house to watch slide shows.  We would laugh and tease each other.   I loved seeing pictures of my mom growing up.  My grandpa loved to tease her and would always try to find funny pictures of her.  I think it's one reason I love to make home videos of the kids and family trips.  It was such a fun thing to me.

On another note, here are some cute pics of the kids I took the other day.