Zane: Three Years

Zane,

I am in shock right now. You are three!!! This year has flown by even faster than your first two years and it scares me to think about how fast you'll be at age four.

You are truly one of the most creative kids I know. Your love for music has stuck around and everyday you want to listen to music, play music and be in a band. Whether it's the guitar, drums or whatever you make into drums you're constantly finding a way to make music. This would be the crazy reason we gave you drums for your birthday, because we want to see you do what you love.

The way that you talk to us has changed so much. Not only do you repeat everything, you also seem to have a sense of humor. You come up with things to say, look at us and then tell us that we're silly! You also have a way of repeating the discipline wording we use with you. Your favorite is to say back to me, "No Mommy, you stop doing that!" Ugh...this phrase gets you in time out a lot. When you get all worked up and start crying you yell "I'm JUST CRYING!" and then when you finally calm down you ask us to wipe your cry away. This still makes me laugh after every tantrum. It's like you know we need a break in that moment.

You are a huge hit at your preschool. You've made best friends with one of your classmates and your teachers adore you. You great them with a huge smile each time we drop you off and your teacher says your enthusiastic like that all day.

I love that you play differently with Daddy and I. You and Daddy wrestle, play music, read and wrestle some more. You and I run around the house trying find a new object to learn about, stand outside and catch snow in our gloves and talk about it and snuggle and read. You love both types of play and it makes me smile when you ask one of us to do what you know we love to do with you.

You have also discovered the things that annoy us! Like blowing bubbles into your milk and yelling "WHAT???" when we ask you something. You want to eat yogurt with sprinkles every minute of the day and we have to limit your intake of it. You actually ate a salad with sprinkles on it but you ate the whole thing. Gross! I think we watched way too much Elf during Christmas time.You also want to read the same book over and over and over again! While we know this is good for you I would love to read something more than the 10 Friendly Fish or Harold and the Purple Crayon. You know both books by heart and correct us if we try to read them fast.

I think you are starting to pick up on what Daddy and I do for a living. When I'm leaving for a session with all of my camera gear you'll ask me if I'm going to take pictures. You walk around and will pretend to take photos of things around the house.

Zane, you are just amazing. We might complain about the tantrums and we for sure complain A LOT about the potty training, but you continue to reel us into you even more as you become so comfortable in your own skin. I love that you don't think twice about singing out loud, really loud, or about running without the thought of harm. That you say hi to everyone you see and smile at everyone who passes. I don't want you to lose that yet I know as you get older some of those things will fade as the world tries to teach you to conform to what they say is normal. I'm here to tell you that normal isn't the best thing, be yourself and continue to live like you can bring joy to everyone.

We love you Zane. Welcome to the world of three.

Momma & Daddy

Here's a little slideshow of Zane's last year which of course is set to his favorite Tyler Bender Band song.

Zane's Big 3 Birthday

We celebrated Zane's third birthday yesterday. I am in total shock that he just turned three! I'll post a letter to him soon so I'll save the sappy stuff for then but I know there are a lot of people who really want to see his reaction to the drums!

He woke up the morning of his birthday and the house was silent. Minutes later, our house would never be silent again! We are so thankful that someone gave these to us free! Or maybe we should be sending them our Advil bill. :)

Many of you probably see these drums and think we're crazy. Yes, we are, but Zane truly does love it and if it's something he's passionate about, we will continue to support it, even the loudness. Pat and I don't have a clue about anything related to music, other than we like to listen to it, so it's nice to have friends who can help us out with encouraging Zane.

Here's Zane's reaction when he first saw his drums.

He got a little bashful for a minute. It might have had something to do with all the photos I was taking and that Pat had the video camera on him too.

But he warmed right up and went to business.

He said, "These are like Brian's drums, but they're mine!!!"

Later in the day Daddy and Zane had a little concert of a Tyler Bender Band song.

Zane's Grandma C made him a drum cake.

Zane was very protective of his cake. He didn't want his cousin touching it.

He smiled the whole time we sang to him.

And this year he didn't touch the candles. But look at his other technique to blow out the candles. No one wanted to eat that side of the cake!

Zane sharing his old drum with Camden.

Zane got all kinds of goodies for his birthday and his Uncle Justin was trying to help him figure them out. His Uncle Spencer tuned Zane's guitar and was trying to get the drums to sound a bit better. I bet we see Spencer here more often wanting to play the drums!

Thanks to all the fun birthday messages everyone sent Zane!

Nine Months: Charlotte & Reagan

I cannot believe these little girls are now nine months old! They have changed sooo much this time! They are a big ball of energy and are absolutely hilarious with each other. They're grabbing stuff from each other and slightly picking on one another. They also make each other laugh. It's just so cute. Here's Charlotte and Reagan at nine months.

Ms. Charlotte

And Ms. Reagan

Look at those legs!!! Total baby adorableness!

"Sharing" a toy.

Their older sister Emme just turned the big three. Here's one of her many funny faces.

Emme's growing like crazy too.

We couldn't resist this one.

I love how Libby and Chad just go with my crazy ideas! :)

Girls, you are just the cutest!

Tearful Moments

Here's the last of our 2009 moment slideshows. We've been a part of a lot of tearful, touching moments. We always feel so blessed to witness these moments and capture them for our clients to remember.

Thank you for watching all the 2009 slideshows! Onto capturing some 2010 memories!

Confident Moments

We hope you're not sick of these slideshows yet. There's just one more after this! As we were thinking of moments we like to capture I kept thinking about how taking a photo of an individual can lift up their confidence. It's not always easy as most of us are uncomfortable in front of the camera but there seems to be a time during every session that the person becomes relaxed and pure confidence exudes from them. There's something so powerful in that. We just had to share those moments from this past year.