saint nick delivers, 2011 edition…

This morning Caleb asked why Saint Nick doesn’t leave anything fun for Lynn and I to play with and I told him it was because Saint Nick brings for the kiddos. I guess I’m going to have to create a new December night time visitor who leaves things for the moms and dads so the kids won’t have to worry about the adults in their lives being left out. It’s the right thing to do . Heh.

As the kids get older (that’s Logan’s shoe on to the left of my Birk, *sniff*) this tradition in particular hits home just how fast time flies and how quick my babies are growing. I mean, intellectually, I know the kids are always growing, that we want them to be growing, but I suppose it seems less apparent in the day to day business of raising a family. I see it in the piles of out-grown clothes and in the fact that Logan is almost as tall as I am already and that I can’t keep Caleb in long pants to save my life. Even then it doesn’t feel like that big of a difference. No, it’s in these little moments like lining the family’s shoes up side by side for a tiny little tradition or watching my boy do his Scoutmaster interview at a camp-out that it hits me like a ton of bricks. It’s these little moments that remind me to slow down and pay a little more attention to the day to day things; to really appreciate the little things, and to do everything I can to help my babies keep growing strong and independent. So, to all you new-ish moms and dads: embrace your two year old redecorating the tree now, make a mental note of how tiny those feet are today and take pictures of those chubby little hands because one day you’ll be sitting down blogging about a family something-or-other, feeling a little sad that your babies aren’t really babies anymore and then just end up in awe of the whole thing.

After I posted the above picture to flickr this morning I went back and pulled up the previous years we’d documented this tradition and it just. blows. me. away. Click on the pic if you want to see our Saint Nick visits for 2006-2011…I posted annual pics in the comments section.