Happy Birthday

Today is July 8th.  So first, a shout out to Kate Lim, who is also celebrating her birthday today.  She is a half Korean sista like me and CUTE.  Check out a slideshow of her one-year portraits here.

Here is a photo from her birthday party Saturday.  She and her mom are wearing the traditional Korean gown,  a hanbok.  We enjoyed a huge! Korean buffet.  Happy Birthday, Kate! 

(Kate's dad, Tanna, works with Daniel.  Her mom, Karen, is a creative inspiration to me.)

I usually just use the blog to post photos of Evan and Liam.  It started out as a way to share photos with family who live out of town.  Once I learned how to manage the blog (the basics!), though, I find that I have started to use this site as a way to diary about the day to day with Evan and Liam.  This blog has become something I want and need to do for myself.

Daniel has an idea to start an ongoing scrapbook that we will be able to work on together in order to record our lives and keep track in a both paper and digital form.  I'm very excited about this for two reasons.

  One: I still like paper.  The computer world keeps growing and I try to keep up with the basics.  But I like being able to hold things that are 3 dimensional.  To turn the pages of a scrapbook and see the days and months passing.

Two: One of my biggest fears as a parent is a selfish one...I want to remember everything.  I don't want to forget.  And I know I will.  I have a terrible memory.  I thought I'd remember everything about Evan's first year as we went through it because when I lived in those moments everything was so large.  When he started to crawl, first foods, first tooth, first haircut.  All of those things were so precious to me that I felt like they were all written in my heart.  But now, just two years later, many of those things are not as crisply recalled as I thought they would be.  Still precious, but a little fuzzy.  Seeing how fast Evan and Liam grow and realizing that my babies are becoming boys makes me want to be able hold those memories and treasure them.

So I turn 32 today.  Not a milestone birthday, but a growing older nonetheless.  I feel like its the quiet growing older during day to day living that makes us who we are.  And so, being so busy with life with two young children, I worry that the daily busy-ness of feeding, clothing, bathing, them etc. will leave me older this time next year but not having GROWN much.  Tonight I have managed to find some time to think and re-evaluate and make sure I am taking steps to lead me in the direction I want to go.  (Birthdays are good for that.)  The direction of being a fantastic wife and mother, but also in the direction of growing in skills and knowledge that I enjoy and will benefit from.  I think that's the dilemma of being a parent to young children.  Time is limited and so the direction of personal growth becomes a luxury and is expensive.

So, one thing at a time.  I changed the look of my blog!  I feel like its a fresh start into this new year of my life :)

  Next, I really enjoy photography.  I would like to improve my photography skills in order to better capture the moments of my children's lives that I am afraid I will forget.  So I'm beginning to investigate digital cameras that are a little more complicated than my 3.2 megapixel camera :)  And I'm starting to slowly read about photography technique and camera useage.  It will probably be a few years before there is a noticeable improvement in my photos, but I am satisfied, as long as I am taking the pictures...and growing.