These are so much better BIG. Feel free to click to make them so. Cosmo Cricket sent me the entire awesome Get Happy line and I got to playing fast. I used the Get Happy and also the Buck Naked Lacing Cards.

This line is so perfect for my son. He is so LOUD and cheeky and feisty and full of LIFE that this modern, edgy, striking paper really does it for scrapping about him. The photos are a quick collection of some of my favorite five year old pictures. Rather than scrapping the posed, cute-boy shots- I went for the more spontaneous, goofy, laughter filled shots (of which there are so many). Since this is a mini project, I could even shrink the size on some of the slightly blurry shots and have them come out neat. Vivacious living doesn’t make for crystal clear, crispy photography, and even after six years of begging, Jonas still cannot hold still for a shot.

Speaking of six, Jonas just has his sixth birthday last month! How did that happen, eh? It is kind of funny, because the older he gets, the younger he seems to me, as if each year he moves forward I am reminded more that he is still a little boy. I have always been very milestone-centric with my firstborn, and I wonder if that is common with firstborns. Parents are so thrilled for the firsts and so quick to push for new experiences and growth and maturity; with my second I am so much more cautious, having realized that this is painfully fleeting. I charged through Jonas’ babyhood, proud and in awe of my little man, and then clung to every last shread of Maggie’s knowing that it would be the fastest memory I’d ever make. Each birthday I lose a little something about their childhood, and am always astounded at the people my children are becoming and also about how they are still uniquely them.

Much debate happens over Nature and Nurture, and when I was younger I wishfully planned for Nurture, expecting that I could create a person to my own standards and measurements. I heard of the molding power of motherhood, and planned to use every ounce of my influence at the potter’s wheel to create someone awesome. How shocked I was when Jonas arrived, already very much his own being, infused with a temperament and zest that I never had a hand in putting there. He was all him, and it was difficult for me, as a person of a controlling, type-A temperament to relinquish my wants to understand him and who he was. There were times when I really wondered if I was a good mother, as Jonas was filled with so much determination and spunk that I often felt powerless to influence. There were, and still are times when I felt overwhlemingly inadequate to meet his needs. I was almost convinced that perhaps I was just really, really bad at this mothering thing: and then Maggie arrived.

Her nature was so much softer than Jonas’. Although full of life, she has a calm within her. She knew how to nurse, how to comfort herself. For heaven’s sake she knew how to SLEEP! It took very few weeks raising two children to come to the very stark realization that I had very little to do with who my children were. They came that way. I could coddle, and instruct and teach them as many correct principles as I could make them listen to- but who they are and how they will approach life is all up to them. I am merely a loving tour guide, trying to teach them the ways of this strange world and how to get along with the natives.

Ultimately, they shine far brighter than what my limited abilities could have formed them into, and I am certain that this is because they are already exactly who God created them to be.

So Jonas Bonus, my cheeky little guy, what an adventure you’ve sent me on! Life is so different than what I imagined. Thank you.