Post #700 and over 75,000 page views!

Wow, 700 posts over the past 5 years and I couldn't be happier with this hobby of mine. Funny enough just the other day James asked me what my hobby was and when I thought about it for a minute I realized that this blog is totally it. I spend my evenings (when not totally exhausted from ball, work, strata, life etc) just downloading photos and coming up with upcoming blogs. It's not uncommon for me to have between 5-7 draft posts sitting waiting to be worked on. I think right now I have closer to 10-12. :)

When I write the really good posts that I know people will really like I am excited to hit that publish button, but for the harder ones that are more personal for me I always read and reread the post several times before hitting it. I wonder sometimes if people care what I write, but then remember that I'm usually not writing this blog for anyone but myself and Jim and the boys so I go ahead and share it anyways! I sometimes worry about whether James and Jordan will appreciate all the effort I put it into this blog or whether they will feel that I have invaded their privacy so if and when the time comes they tell me they don't want to be on it anymore I will look long and hard at continuing to do it, but until that time they are subject to my photos and musings. I am careful about what I share, both in stories and photos of them in hopes that years down the road they won't be TOO embarrassed by it. My biggest hope is that one day they ask me to show their special someone the old posts about them as little boys :)

I love how James knows about the blog and sometimes if he does something he particularly wants people to see he'll ask me to write a post about it. The other day he was talking to Grandpa Wayne and he mentioned that he was doing great at karate and James said to him "did you read that on the blog Grandpa?" He also asks at least once a year to see the posts I did about Jim's mom Tracy because he knows it has the video of him and her together and he loves it. He loves feeling connected to her and I love that I've created that memory for him to have forever.

I am happy that people that love us from near and far get to keep up to date with what we're up to and I've had acquaintances tell me that they feel like they know my boys so well from the posts they read about them on here.

In truth I'm really doing this blog because their baby books are lacking and I want to make sure they know I did what I could to record the milestones of their childhoods! I still go back and look through the old posts at least a few times a month and I hope one day they will too!

New favourite photo of my two loves...and I did not ask them to hold hands for the photo (and truthfully I didn't even notice they had until I downloaded it) 

SERIOUSLY....so adorable!