Survival and Accomplishment

Looks like we have survived the latest double ear infection requiring two rounds of antibiotics and a virus that gave Brigham a sore throat, high fevers, and a weird rash all over his body.  I'm becoming quite familiar with the pediatricians office with three visits in four weeks.  And Brigham is becoming quite accustomed to his syringe full of antibiotics morning and night.  After lots of naps, cuddling, whining, waking up in the night, and watching Winnie-the-Pooh, he finally seems to be getting back to his normal happy self. I had to share this cute picture of my brother taking care of the babies while my mom and I snuck away for an hour.  I was worried Brigham would give him a hard time because he had been so clingy and whiney with his sickness, but this is what we came home too.

Aside from surviving a virus and infection, I managed to finish a photobook with highlights from the first 12 years of my life.  This project has been on my list for quite a few years now, so it feels so great to finally have it done!  My brother has an awesome scanner that can scan photos at high quality and fast speeds.  It made this project so much easier.  Especially since my sister-in-law actually scanned most of them for me.  He is willing to rent it out if anyone is interested in a big photo project like this in the future.  These are a few of my favorites from the project.

 I just love the many rolls you can see in this picture.

Love how incredibly young my dad looks in this picture.  I'm not sure exactly how old he is (24?) but to me he looks like he is about 17.

 Love my cute sister and our matching nautical knit jumpsuits that we wore all over Nauvoo.

My very first trip to Disneyland!  Don't I look so happy?  I have pictures with all sorts of characters from this trip and it reminded me how nice it was when the characters just roamed the park and you could walk up to them and take pictures.  No waiting in long lines behind people getting autographs, only to get to the front of the line and have the worker tell you that Mickey needs a break and will be replaced by some other less desirable character.  But I suppose they didn't have fastpasses then, so I will take the fastpass improvement over the character photo opportunities.

I love these photos with grandparents and cousins.

 I also really like this one of me and Caleb.  Maybe because he looks like such a giant baby and his head is almost as big as mine.

Somehow my mom talked me into dressing like Abraham Lincoln for our 5th grade state fair.  I remember feeling ridiculous as a child (just like I felt ridiculous when she made me dress in a sheet and chains like Jacob Marley from the Christmas Carol to give my 4th grade book report).  But now I think it is pretty funny, and realize that my teachers probably appreciated our creativity.

This book project made me think a lot about the "less is more" idea when it comes to photos.  There are plenty of things I wish I had more pictures of from when I was little, but because I have less photos the good ones I do have seem to mean a lot more to me.  I'm extremely grateful for digital cameras and how easy it is to take lots of photos, but I've also been inspired to delete more and only keep the best so that I don't become completely overwhelmed with mass amounts of pictures.