Thank goodness for pictures

I just spent the last couple of hours (of course it takes longer than it should because I'm interrupted a ton) sorting through our last Costco run of pictures, dating them and putting them in the childrens' books.  I'm a little crazy about their photo albums.  When we had Jayna, it was pretty simple, I would print pictures and every picture with her would go in her album and if I had a picture that didn't have her in it, there was another general photo album for that.  While now with the twins, I have chosen to have an album for every child.  If Jayna and Davin are in a picture, then I print it twice and put it in both of their books, if all three are in it, then it's printed three times.  I think you get the point.

Throughout this process, I have noticed a few things.  One is that we still take a lot of pictures, but not as many as when we just had Jayna.  The twins are not lacking for photos, but it was so much easier to whip out the camera and photograph Jayna when I didn't have three kids to watch out for.  Also, we used to print pictures monthly after Jayna was born and now we wait until Costco has their prints on sale for cheap and we print 100-200 at a time.

The other things is that I'm so thankful that we take the pictures that we do.  I don't have a lot of pictures of me growing up, but our kids will have a lot of great memories to look back on.  Who are we kidding?  It's mostly for me.  I remember putting Jayna's pictures in her album when she was 2 months old.  When I would do this, I'd always look at the book from the beginning.  At this point I looked at the first pictures and realized that if we hadn't taken pictures, I would have already forgotten what she looked like when she was born.  I feel this way with the twin's newborn photo shoot with Robin.  Every time I look at them, I tell Derrick how I don't regret a penny we spent on them.  They are precious and we never would have been able to capture what Robin did.  We are also waiting on pictures we had done a few weeks ago and I will post some of those once we have them.  Here's the first picture we took of Mara and Davin and then a more recent one.

With the new school year beginning, it's been making me think about how much things have changed over the last 9 months.  9 months ago I was still freaking out about having twins and fearing the unknown.  Now, we have settled in and are enjoying watching all three of our turkeys grow.  With two kids crawling, it makes for interesting times and their personalities are showing through more and more.  Today, Mara and Davin have been playing together a lot and it's been very cute.  I'm pretty sure Mara's the leader and trouble maker and Davin will follow and be the sneaky one.  Everyday, the twins are getting closer and closer to pulling themselves up and the dynamics between Jayna and the twins is always changing, but for the most part, she's amazing with them.  There is no doubt she loves them a lot, but sometimes they get between her and her toys.  Watching one child discover the world at this age is amazing, but watching two do it at the same time is even more impressive, even if that includes one of them choking on a penny and a nickle already (thanks for the heart attacks Mara).  Oh yeah, when you only have one little one, you don't get to watch them wrestle.  Davin has got some awesome wrestling moves and we don't even watch WWE.  They should have napped longer today and I was annoyed, but now they are playing so nicely, I can't even be mad.

The school year starting also makes me think about my life returning to "normal".  My first day back to work is November 5th.  I will have been off for 13 months already and I can't wait to go back.  I know things are going to be hectic, but at least I will get a break from my children.  I can't wait to return to my job that I love and the people that I love working with.  I miss laughing really hard while at work every day.  This working mom is ready to return to work!