Once upon a time I had a hard-drive. On it was my entire life. All of my graphic design work, every photograph from the girls life and countless home movies. Yes, I had much of the content uploaded and preserved on the blog, but there was still plenty that only existed in that one place. A little over a year ago, I plugged the hard-drive into my computer and the light didn’t come on. Once day it worked and the next day it didn’t. For months, I didn’t do anything about it. I secretly dreaded hearing a computer guru tell me that all of those moments were lost. I felt like I was putting off the inevitable. In the meantime, I worked to build up my design work again and recreated so much work for new clients. A few weeks ago, I buckled and asked our IT guy at work to take a look at it and tell me what to do. Instead, he brought a hard-drive to me with all of my lost data backed up! I have since carefully organized and backed up (again) all of those precious memories.
That first day I cried a lot. I was so happy to have these little moments back, even though they wouldn’t be precious to anybody but me. There were videos of baby spit bubbles and plastic french fries and medleys of our favorite songs sung by our favorite four year old. Josh and I sat up late that night, showing photographs and videos to our girls that they had never seen before. I have never laughed and cried so much in the same moment. I know they aren’t your kids and maybe you don’t care about their earliest performances, but I thought it would be fun to share five of my favorite flashbacks today!
First up is one of my favorite Ella performances. In case you’ve wondered about her love to perform, this one might help you understand her obsession with the stage. When I was on maternity leave with Sophie, she spent countless hours in this same spot singing me every song I could come up with. Sometimes they were accompanied by dance moves, high heels and sparkly tiaras and sometimes they were followed up with a little comedy. I’ll bet you can’t look away!
This isn’t the first time Ella met Sophie, but it one of my favorite memories from our hospital stay. This is a few days into our stay and Ella came to spend the whole day at the hospital with us. I remember them laying just like this — looking at each other — for hours.
This makes me laugh so hard. Even at this age, Tazzie was so spunky and full of personality. I love that toothy grin almost as much as that fake temper tantrum she throws.
Oh, Kamin. I’m so happy to have you as my sister for so many reasons, but I cannot deny that I am beyond thankful for the vast collection of images you’ve captured over the last eight years. I will never be able to convey my gratitude for the memories you have preserved. This is Sophie’s nine month session and I could not love this photograph any more. This is the first photo shoot where somebody wasn’t wearing a smocked gown and I love how casual and informal they are.
And I couldn’t let it go without one more little performance. You’ll have to excuse Ella’s daddy (and me) for singing in the background. Instead let’s discuss how cute she is bobbing her head once she catches up on the lyrics! Videos of the girls singing along with the radio are some of my favorites. And that hair! Gosh, I miss those curly locks.
Thanks for indulging me on this walk down memory lane. I’m thinking I might have to do this once a month or so and share more of my favorite flashbacks with my favorite girls.
