Little brother turns 30

My little brother turns 30 today. I say little in that he's younger...he's certainly taller than me and has been since he was a teenager. I'm not sure if it had to do with how close we were in age (he's only 11 months younger than me), but Kenny and I were pretty close beginning around junior high. Before that time, I was slowly but surely emotionally pulling away from my brothers. By the sixth grade, I really didn't want them around me and my friends. There was no hatred or animosity. It was more like apathy towards them.

After I graduated from the sixth grade, the Lord moved my family to Idaho where I didn't end up having any friends. That's a pretty shaky time in life--brand new junior high girl but with no friends. As I'm sure the Lord intended it, my brothers became my friends.  Whatever the Lord's purpose for moving my family, I'm certain one of the reasons was for me to become closer to my family. From that point on, my brothers were no longer bothers that I didn't want around. Mind you, we weren't perfect. We had our fights. But now my brothers were my friends.

Kenny and I enrolled at BJU as freshmen together. We worked in the same department at school for our first two years there. I remember many a late night talk between us during those two years we were town students. After that we lived in the dorms and obviously started to grow towards our own separate ways.

That's inevitable...siblings are closer when they're under the same roof. Now we both have our own families and live many miles and states away from each other. But the bond will always be there. One of my favorite things about getting together is reminiscing about the past. Memories that will never fade no matter how far apart we are.

Happy Birthday little brother.

Kenny's about 2 1/2 months old here. That blanket he's sitting in became his most special blanket when he was little. As most treasured toys/blankets do...it became a ragged mess! That's me, of course, giving him a kiss.

Another picture of Kenny. I had not seen this one until recently. Dad had a bunch of photos of us kids on slides. This may be one of the slide photos.

I've always loved this one of the two of us. One of our tender moments.

My brothers and I on our couch at home in NH.

And my favorite picture from our college days. A friend shot this and gave it to me later. We had no idea that it was being taken. If I'm remembering right, it was taken while Kenny was playing on the BJU dining common softball team.

Happy Birthday, brother!

Since 2008

Greg and I have had family pics each fall since I got pregnant with Paton in 2008. Above is our first family pic when I was about 4 months pregnant. Our photographer friend offered to do family pics before we started having kids. He said we'd appreciate it later....he was right! Ever since that year, I've made it a priority to get our family pictures each fall so that we'd have something to use in our Christmas letter. So now it's tradition, and it's one that I love.

This same photographer friend took next year's photo when Paton was about 4 or 5 months old. Our family dog, Dolly, was still with us then.

Next year's photo was taken in Utah a few months after we moved here. We didn't have a photographer friend in UT yet, so I set up our camera on a tripod and tried to get the mountains in the background. I remember Paton being particularly naughty that morning.

The next year we had made a dear friend in the church who took our family shots. I didn't actually plan our outfits to match...that just happened. I was 4 or 5 months pregnant with Charlotte. Though it was October here, the weather was rather warm.

This year, the colors in the mountains were beautiful! Not sure why this turned out so blurry on my blog. Paton is three and Charlotte is 7 months old. Love our photographer friend!

We're definitely going to keep this tradition alive. I really love looking back and seeing how our family has changed over the last few years. The Lord has been so good to us.

Fall

Paton got an axe from Nana to go with a fireman suit she sent. Since Paton has watched Daddy chop wood throughout the summer, he was very excited to practice with his very own axe.

Charlotte is getting bigger and bigger. She now loves the bouncer where once she really hated it. I can leave her bouncing for over 30 minutes and she doesn't fuss a bit!