They Grow Up So Fast!

Last night, I had trouble sleeping.  For one thing, my husband left for a three-day trip to Paris, and I was feeling a bit lonely and restless in my big old house.

On top of that, the light bulb finally went on yesterday afternoon, thanks to a demonstration by my husband on the easy way to move the pictures from my camera onto my computer and then organize them into folders.  (It has pained him all these years watching the way-too-complicated process I've used to move my photos around since I got my first digital camera in 2002).  The reason he decided it was time to finally make me understand how magical and helpful computers can be is that at a meeting a few days ago, we volunteered to put together a picture CD for the athletic director who is retiring from our boys' high school alma mater.  This is a man who had a huge impact on the lives of so many students over the years, and our boys adored him.  There's going to be a big party in his honor, and the organizers were looking for pictures to put in a scrapbook and use for a video slide show during the event.

Well, my husband was right!  I can't imagine how much longer it would have taken me to make that CD using my old methods.  After about four hours of scouring through all of my many, many picture CD's to come up with 145 really great shots for Mr. L's scrapbook/video slide show, and feeling all excited about my newly acquired computer confidence, I got motivated to clear off the crowded memory card on my camera, make folders for all of the haphazardly stored photos in "My Pictures," burn the folders onto CD's for back-up, and arrange the CD's in attractive faux leather storage albums.

I didn't get up from the dining room table until my bottom started to go numb from sitting so long.  And I'm here to tell you that as magical and helpful as computers are, there is no way to do what I set out to do last night without spending lots and lots--and lots!--of time on it.  It wasn't just missing my husband that kept me up until the wee hours of the morning.

My brain is not working all that well this morning, as you might imagine, especially since after retiring at 2:30 a.m. and not really reaching the snoring stage for about an hour after that, I had to set the alarm for 6:30 in order to get the garbage and recycling out to the curb on time.  So if this post seems a little disjointed, I apologize.  And I'm going to go and lie down for a bit here, but I just wanted to show you a few of the pictures I unearthed last night during my big photo organizing project.

Here's my oldest son with his daughter, Cutie Pie, just a little over a year ago at Christmastime.

And as if that isn't the cutest thing you've ever seen, here's my lovely daughter-in-law with the other half of the matching set, Bonny Babe.

These two chubby little blue-eyed angels weren't even walking yet and could barely gum a cracker, and now  they run, jump, climb, say two-syllable words, and know the alphabet.  (I think they might even be teaching themselves to read, I kid you not.)  And on top of all that, they're about to become big sisters to a new baby any minute now. How did this happen? Where did the time go?

[Sigh.] They grow up so fast.

That's exactly what I was thinking about my own babies when I came across this photo of sons #3 and #4, who were teammates growing up as well as brothers.  This was taken about 10 years ago (and it made the cut for the AD's scrapbook!).  I know they look pretty grown up here, but believe me, they've changed a lot.

Excuse me, but my eyes are getting a little wet.  It's probably just because they're burning from lack of sleep, I suppose, but I really must go and get myself a tissue.

Squeeze your kids today!  Because before you know it, they'll be all grown up and having kids of their own. (But you know what, there's something to be said for that, too...)