"Other things may change us, but we start and end with family"

I was browsing around the new babycenter community yesterday, and decided to check and see what the suggested journal topic was. Thes suggested photo journal topic was "Generations" Seems simple enough. Knowing my fondness for posting pictures, I thought I would take advantage of this topic and post some here.

This first picture is three generations of men in That Guy's family- That Guy, my FIL, and The Boy. We took this picture when we were visiting Scotland with his parents way-back-when (I was pregnant with The Girl during that visit). Most of our visit that year consisted of visiting areas of the country where That Guys ancestors used to live- and the three boys in the family stopping at each location to take a picture of "three generations of Lastname men" My FIL got a huge kick out of that. Three generations of Lastname men walking on the same soil that Lastname men lived for many generations. I have to admit- I thought it was pretty cool too.

This second picture is of The Boy and my Aunt- his Great Aunt, taken while I was still pregnant with The Girl. It was, unfortunantly, the only time she met him- and she has never met The Girl. My mother's family all lives in New Jersey, so even growing up I didn't see much of them. And I saw her family even less after I got married. That didn't stop my aunt from driving to the airport in Delaware to spend some time with The Boy and I while we had a layover on our flight home. She gave up an entire day to pick us up from the hotel, have breakfast with us, take The Boy to a playground so that he could run off some energy, and spend hours trying to kill time at the airport just so we wouldn't be bored.

One of my absolute favorite pictures of The Girl is this one- she is 4 days old and being held by Grandma Lastname, her great-grandmother. Grandma Lastname was 86 years old when this picture was taken, and I am thrilled that she got to see her tiny great granddaughter. She's still with us, but her eyesight is gone now- so she cannot see how much the babies have grown. From everything that That Guy and his family tell me, she was always a fiesty, strong-willed woman, and I see a lot of that in The Girl. If half the stories about Grandma Lastname are true- I would be thrilled if The Girl grew up to be like her.

This picture is the counter-balance of the multitude of pictures of the three Lastname men in Scotland. My family also immigrated from Scotland- my mother's father came over when he was 16. So when we took a trip with my family- we made a point to stop in some places that my own ancestors had lived generations ago. And now I have a picture of three generartions of Maiden-Name women standing in the garden of a castle that was once owned by my ancestors. It's in interesting picture to look at, and the idea really just makes me smile.

Here is my father, "Papa" to the kids- on Father's Day back in 2006. It was the tail end of a visit to England to see us, and he really wanted a picture with his two grandchildren. I love both my parents, but I was always a little closer to my father. So I love this picture- the older generation that taught me and guided me through early life, and the younger generation that I have to figure out how to teach and guide.

I know he was thrilled to be able to take this photo- it's still in his office now. He hadn't seen his grandchildren in over a year at this point- and the last time he had seen The Girl she was just 2 months old. Things certainly changed!! Honestly, that is the only thing I disliked about our time over-seas- spending so much time away from family. I hate that our parents and friends missed out on so much with the kids. They never got to see them gowing up, and I know they have regretted missing out.

Last Christmas That Guy's family decided that we were long-overdue for a multi-generational family portrait. So we got three generations of the Lastname family together and had some portraits made. The Boy and The Girl love to look at this picture. It helps them to try and remember all the people in Daddy's family- they point to each person, say their name, and usually tell us one thing they remember about them too. "This is Nana, she has two dogs" or "This is Papa- he has a funny hat". I know my MIL was very excited about this. She had her three children, two spouses, and five grandchildren all in one place.

This last one is a "just because". Here is the younger generation of the Lastname family. The Girl is sitting on her oldest cousin's ("A") back, The Boy is next to him, and then there are two other cousins- "T" who is just 6 weeks younger than The Girl, and "M", who is three years older than The Boy. Getting all five children to sit still and look at the camera at the same time was an impossible undertaking- so four out of five wasn't too bad!