It’s time for the latest “The Way I View…” blog circle!  I’m participating with some amazing photographers from Clickin’ Moms again this month and this time we’ve captured the way we see sweetness and love.  Please make sure to click over to Julian Evans’ blog and see what she has for you.  Once you’ve clicked through all of the blogs?  Hopefully, you will be inspired to photograph the sweetness and love around your house, too.

For this month’s challenge I was drawing a blank.  Actually, that’s not entirely true.  I had a lot of ideas, but simply couldn’t decide on what to photograph.  Too many thoughts swimming around in my head made me dizzy and I just couldn’t come up with what I wanted to do.

Then?  I decided that the greatest sweetness and love that I feel and know?  Is right here in this house with me every single day.  However, with day-to-day activities, chores, routines, meltdowns, laundry, etc….. I tend to forget how wonderfully blessed I am.  I am absolutely so in love with these that are around me all the time, so I thought, what better way to express sweetness and love than through words and images of my most favorite people.

Sorry.  It’s about to get wordy.

Emily is the oldest.  Nine years old going on twenty.  She’s the one that taught me to be a mommy.  The first one.  The one that was patient with me as I learned to change her diaper.  The little one that taught me to stop and burp during bottle feedings.  Emily is the one that changed me from a wife…to a wife and mommy.  Emily was the most perfect babe.  One day before my due date I was grocery shopping.  Getting last minute items before our girl arrived.  I had a cart slammed full of food (hey…I was hungry at nine months, I guess) and I started feeling pains.  I panicked and thought that I was in labor.  I dropped that entire cart in the back of the store by the milk and just left.  I remember telling an employee…”I’m sorry…gotta go….cart’s in the back…” as I thumbed my finger over my shoulder and waddled right on outta there.  It turns out that I wasn’t actually in labor, but whatever.  We finally ended up at the hospital two days later with the cutest little babe in the world.  I remember crying and telling my mom that I didn’t know what to do with a baby.  WHAT WAS I GOING TO DO?!  She quickly responded, “All you have to do is love her and everything else will just come.”  So?  That’s what I did.  That’s what I’m doing.  Because most days?  I still don’t know what I’m going to do.  Emily is my helper.  She is the one that will dress her littlest sister for me.  The one that will take the dog out without being asked.  She’s the dishwasher emptier…the mail getter.  She is a jokester and an artist.  A music lover and a Phineas and Ferb watcher.  She loves to try and stay up late and chit-chat, but still gets up first thing and walks the dog.  She’s shy at first, but ends up being the leader of the group.  She’s fit to be a lawyer because she won’t let anything go.  Emily is a sports girl.  She loves basketball and being outside playing….anything. She’s my sweet helper.  She’s Emily.

Allison is the middle one.  The one that is stuck trying to be a big sister and a little sister all at the same time.  I’m certain that is hard.  Allison is the one that rocked the boat for us.  We joke that we didn’t even like her until she was two and a half.  She was far from the perfect baby.  Then again, she was probably very much “normal” (whatever that is) and we were just fooled by Emily and her by-the-book-babiness.  Where Emily was doing everything as expected when expected?  Allison was just the opposite.  She didn’t sleep through the night until she was nineteen months old.  That’s NINETEEN months…if your counting.  She was very vocal and dramatic, but oh-so-funny even as a baby.  I remember she’d just started sitting up and Emily (then 2 and a half) took a toy from Allison.  Allison grabbed another toy and whacked her sister on the head with it.  That’s when I knew that she wasn’t going to put up with anything.  Allison speaks her mind.  She will let you know if you’ve bothered or angered her.  She’s very good at expressing her feelings and when she gets mad?  She heads to her room and squeezes her stress ball.  Allison?  Is spunky.  But, on the other hand?  She is the most tender one in the family.  She loves hard.  She tells people that she loves them often and gives kisses and hugs freely.  She’s very sensitive and feels others’ sensitivity, too.  She just wants to love everyone and please everyone at the same time.  If one of her sisters is upset over not having something?  Maybe a toy or a certain snack?  We often hear Allison say, “It’s okay, it looks like she wants it more than me so she can have mine.”  She wants to do what she wants to do and she has no problem letting you know that.  She rarely wants to play camera with me, but when she does she is completely into it. Allison is feisty, but she is amazingly amazing all around.

Caroline is the baby.  The baby that is about the be four years old.  *sniff sniff*  Caroline is a mommy’s girl.  She wants to be with me everywhere and all the time.  She is gentle and loving and tender.  Caroline never has a cross word to say and is nothing but a sweetheart all day and everyday.  By the time she rolled around we were a settled family of four with a little doggie, too.  When we brought Caroline home?  It was like she’d always been here.  The big girls adored her and doted on her daily.  She was given hugs and kisses and more hugs and kisses.  Caroline is a good listener and is great at coloring.  It’s one of her most favorite things to do.  She’s a climber and a dare devil and isn’t afraid of a thing. She enjoys her bedtime books and stories and prayers.  She loves “mac-a-moni”, orange juice and fruit snacks.  Mostly?  She loves to love.  It’s like she can’t get close enough to us…me especially, as I seem to be her favorite.  She wants to always be touching me.  Holding my hand…rubbing my cheek…patting my leg.  She is a hugger and kisser and I completely eat it up.  It breaks my heart to think that she is growing so quickly.  The days go by slowly, but the years just fly by.  Why is that?  I always tell her, as I’m  holding her and she’s rubbing my cheek the way she does…”Carolina Gracie?  Please don’t grow. Please?”  And she’ll squeeze her little body against me and say, “I try not to, Mommy, I really do, but I just can’t stop.”  She loves to let me photograph her and she always wants to pose just like this.  She’s Caroline.  And she’s a dainty little hugger.

So, that’s my take on sweetness and love.  And for the record?  I wanted to include my sweet and adorable husband, but he threatened to take away all of my Dr. Pepper and chocolate if I photographed him and wrote sappy stuff about him on the blog.  But…he’s my main man.  My high school sweetheart.  The one that listens to me and understands me.  The one I love to smooch and joke with.  He’s the perfect one and I love him best.

Don’t forget now!  You need to head on through our blog circle and see what the rest of the CMpros have for you this month.  I bet it will be fantastical.  Here’s Julian and her amazing work.