Skip to main content

My special day

According to tradition in my family, when it's my birthday (notice I don't say when it's anyone elses birthday), no one can refuse my request. My one request? That my children come with me and sit for this picture.

Photobucket


Well, this one was taken with my cell phone camera. The real one is coming in the next week or so. I've had them taken each and every year since 1989.

That means this girl on the right has been photographed with that jolly man in red every year for 19 years.

Photobucket


The Boy? Every year since 1991.

Photobucket


These two? Every year since 1996 and 1998 resepectively.

Photobucket


I have all the years of Santa pictures in a large frame with beautiful matting. I've filled an entire one up and am three pictures deep into the next one. I hang them up each Christmas and then spend a few moments marveling at the march of time across the faces and bodies of my children. It brings home to me how much has changed---but one thing hasn't and won't ever change. My love for them.

After the Santa picture, we engaged in another family ritual: The purchasing of Christmas ornanments. Each year after the picture, the kids get to pick out one ornament. We hang all the ornaments on the tree each year and when it comes time for them to leave and have families and trees of their own, their personal ornaments will go with them. Ally picked the 2008 Barbie, Ash picked a Hannah Montanna ornament and Chris and Steph each picked snowflakes. We bought the kids gyros and then dropped them off at home and then Lance and I had some alone time.

We drove to the International District, picked up some Japanese food then took it to Highland Park on Queen Anne overlooking the Space Needle. My cell phone doesn't take a great picture in the dark---and it was breathtaking in person---but you get the picture. Sort of.

Photobucket


We watched ferries, all lit up and sliding across the blackness of Puget Sound. Lance sat behind me with his arms around me as we remembered coming there when we first began dating oh-so-many-years ago.

All in all....my special day was a good one.

Comments

  1. "All lit up". You or the ferries? I thought I admonished you to be sober this year?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Did I say happy birthday? I can't remember. I'm sure I must have.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ahhhh....
    Seattle is a beautiful place, filled with beautiful people like you and your family. I LOVE you guys and miss you all!

    Happy birthday!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Oh Satako, we miss you tooooooo! It's not the same without your pretty smile and your laughter. Please keep in touch and come back to visit if you can!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Vicus, being all lit up is fun! You should try it sometime.

    Oh wait....I think I've seen pictures of you and Tommy all lit up in the 60's. ::grin::

    Dave, yes, I believe you wished me a happy birthday on facebook, but I'll take the second one too! :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. what a perfect day!
    happy birthday pam.
    i love those pics you took of your gorgeous kiddos.
    and we're going saturday to do our santa pics for the 15th year. yikes!

    ReplyDelete
  7. I love those traditions for your birthday! A great way to focus on your family while getting what you want and marveling at your legacy!!! But, no fair, making me miss Seattle even more...man, I need a trip!!!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Thanks Kelly! Wow...fifteen years of pics. Where does the time go?

    Rebecca, you DO need a trip. Although I have no room to put you up when you come this time! :( We're kinda sorta cramped right now. But come!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Go ahead....tell me the truth :)

Popular posts from this blog

Wheeeeeeee!

Today I was awakened to the not-so-delightful sounds of enormous dump trucks, (you know the ones that are a dump truck and they haul a trailer behind?) dumping truck load after truck load of dirt behind my house. Then the most incredibly noisey and squeaky (do they not grease the tracks on those things??) grader began shoving the dirt and rocks around. I had to fight the urge to throw a can of WD40 over the fence to the driver. It wasn't even eight in the morning. It wasn't even 7:30 yet. So I reluctantly arose from my bed and cleaned up the kitchen. After it was spotless, I went back upstairs to my freeze-zone (the only room in the house with AC) to do some online banking and make calls to check on medical bills, etc. As I was finishing up, in walks my husband! At first I had a moment of Oh-no-he's-lost-his-job terror. Then it passed after he smiled. Seems they ran out of work for the day. Odd, but then that's Boeing. So hubby was roped into going school cloth

Peace Begins with You

In my readings this week, I came across a video of Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin. He gave a talk entitled, "Peace Within." Who doesn't want peace? Who doesn't crave peace within their soul? In their lives? In their hearts and in their homes? How often do we have complete peace? I'd say my answer would have to be that there isn't enough peace in my life, heart or home. It's not like I live in a warzone--I do not. I'm blessed to live in a nation where I have freedoms granted to me by the founding fathers and I do not risk being struck down by bombs or shot by snipers when I venture forth from my home. My neighborhood is relatively safe, so much so that I take solo walks. The peace I speak of is something different. It's the peace that can be with me no matter my circumstances. I crave that peace. Elder Wirthlin says that peace begins in the hearts of righteous individuals. How does it begin? With a relationship with our creator. In ferven

She's Something...

Most of you know that I've got four children. My eldest is seventeen. Oh heavens...how did that happen? Wasn't I just seventeen the other day? I'm sure I was.... Well, she's amazing. I know the majority of mothers have very high compliments to pay their children--and rightly so. However, my baby girl is astounding by anyone's standards. She is going to high school and college at the same time. In high school she's taking mostly AP (Advanced Placement) classes, which also count for college credits. She gets up at five a.m. every morning, goes to Seminary, then goes to school, she works four hours daily as an office manager at Winderemere Real Estate. She speaks Spanish, plays piano, guitar and flute. She goes to the gym daily and it shows. This was her yesterday. This is a picture I just took of her, after getting her braces put on. Now, having said that she is gifted and talented, I should ammend this post to tell you the following. She just got home