Family Mores

If you're a member of our family there is at least one constant.

We go on walks.  It's just one of things we do.  A lot.

Sometimes these girls fight it.

But mostly they have learned that that's just what we do.

We believe strongly in being active, using our bodies, and just being healthy in general.

So these weeks when I haven't been able to do a whole lot has been hard.

It was nice for a few days, but not any more.

This walk was with Ryan.  I asked if he wanted to take the camera and was so pleased when he said yes,

because he got some great shots, showing off these personalities we call our family.

We are inching our way into a routine.  

A new routine that is sometimes chaotic.  Okay, usually chaotic.

But as we sat surrounding our round table for dinner, us eight, it felt complete--overwhelming, but complete.

I still haven't been able to do more than 2 dinners in a row, but we'll get there.  I love how little demands Ryan puts on me, and accepts that some days are more productive than others.

Today I got the white load of laundry folded and put away.

Yesterday I even got some sewing time!  I have some fun things in the works I can't wait to show you.

I'm also making an effort to get photo albums done and up to date for each of these girls.

You would think as many photos as I take I would have them done, but I quit about the time Olive was a year old.  

Azure needed a photo for her Kindergarten class of herself as a baby.  With no photo album to draw from, I had to dust off the boxes stacked in my closet and pull out the mounds of photos to see if I even had anything.

Fortunately, after spending about 20 minutes in the closet with the photos I took back when I shot with actual film, I emerged with once suitable for her to take.

That's when I decided that she needed a photo album of her own, one that she can hold in her lap, covering her legs entirely, flipping the oversized pages and pointing out the times she remembers and how cute she was as a baby.

That was always one of our favorite Sunday activities growing up.

I think I'd like to add it to our list of things we just do.

So we can pull out these photos and laugh how Olive sneezed mid shot,  how Clover is giving a suspicious look, the disgust of Divine, Azure's funny pose, and Pearl, who usually is the ham of the group, is looking surprisingly normal.

And how they'll tell Ryan they got prickers in their feet when he asked them to all sit on the log together for a photo.

Family mores, even the small and simple ones, are important.