baby Indie

when I photograph my own kids, I lean (stylistically) towards the first photo. What do you prefer?

basketball

Michael just finished his first season of Jr. Jazz.
He tells me he was the 2nd best player on his team.
That may or may not be true; regardless, he did a great job.
He loves to shoot. He doesn't love to pass.
His coach told me that is common at his age.
(You'll notice how his tongue is sticking out in almost all of the pictures. He looks like my older brother, Dave, who always played basketball with his tongue hanging out, too.)
I hope this is the first of many basketball seasons to come.
(I happen to like basketball.)

and then Charles turned one

and he found the whole thing mostly...concerning.

Until he realized there was cake. Cake is very reassuring.

Happy birthday, Charlie! Now stop aging, this is pretty much perfect.

William turned 5, even though I told him not to

William had a hard time narrowing a guest-list for his fifth-birthday party, but I finally talked him down to 20 kids or so:


You can imagine how many he wanted. I was feeling awfully tired and harried at the time, and I wouldn't have done a party at all, but, honestly, this kid deserved a party. This funny, stubborn, compulsive, crazy, thoughtful, willful, difficult, lovely boy deserved a BIG party.

This is the face William makes when people are looking at him:



He wanted a chocolate cake with balloons on it. (Okay, actually he wanted a chocolate cake in the shape of a pirate ship, but HELL no.) ( Listen, I am willing to throw a party for twenty kids, but I draw the line at spending weeks of my life in the kitchen cursing and crying and trying to figure out how to bake a cake in the shape of a boat, I HAVE THINGS TO DO.) (also, does all that work make the cake more delicious? No, it does not.) (He loved his balloon cake.)

He blew out the candles:



I mean, he tried to blow out the candles:



and Christofer responded really inappropriately; there was just no need to flip off the children.


Finally he got it.



and there was much cheering and rejoicing and cake eating. Seriously, there was a ton of cake eating. I gave those kids huge pieces. Their parents all love me, I'm sure.

William opening his presents, surrounded by friends:


I'm always telling William I'm going to shrink him back to four, because I can't stand for him to get any older. That's not really true. As much as I'll miss the sweet and wild William he's been, I love the grown-up, independent, smart William he's becoming.

So. Don't grow up too fast, William, but truthfully I can't wait to see what comes next.

hi

Hi. Hello. How are you? I'm great. It's been awhile. And since it is now the middle of February and we just finished celebrating Valentine's Day, today seems like the perfect day to show you my Christmas video. Of course! Enjoy. and Merry Christmas Two Months Ago! I don't know what you're talking about, I'm totally on top of my life.


(I couldn't get the HD version to download. Sorry.)

(Also, I don't know why it says "Title Text Here" at the end. I swear on the computer and on my DVD it says "The End.")

(Also, don't judge my video-ing skillz. They are nonexistent.)