Flashback Friday: Family Photos Edition

I decided that this year would be our first year to send out a family Christmas card.  I already bought the cards.  Confession: I bought them over a year ago.  There was this great stationary company going out of business so they had some bargain prices and I got the greatest cards ever for a steal! 

But I have a problem.  As everyone knows, the best part of a Christmas card is the family photo.  We don't really have any good ones.  I mean, there's a few that are alright, but none are Christmas card material.  While I debate whether to just use a candid shot or to have someone take some nice, fancy ones for us, here are a few of my favorite family photos from growing up.  (Please be kind and don't judge my pre-pubescent, awkward, chubby self.  We all had an awkward stage, right??)

 

Doesn't Baby Hope look just like Baby London???

Matchy Matchy

This picture is fantastic on so many levels...

My hair isn't actually slicked back, it's just in a clip.  Awkwardness.

Hawaii!

 

Baby Jack!

None of these are "perfect", but they are still oh-so-wonderful to me--even the one where it looks like I have slicked back hair like a greasy gambling type.  I love the people in these pictures and the memories they contain, and I suppose that's what counts.  But I would still like to look nice in our Christmas card picture.

Flashback Friday: Mini-me Edition

I get the question, "Who does London look like?" I get it a lot--not quite as much as the "Where is her red hair???" question, but still, a lot.  I think she is actually a really good mix of the both of us, and you can definitely see both the Snow and Carr sides in her.  But, I thought I would post some of my baby pictures next to hers so that you can see that even if we don't have the same hair, she is in fact my daughter.  In case the nine months of pregnancy left anyone confused...=)

This picture sends me to the twilight zone; I look like a carbon copy of my father.

 

Well, it's not like she's my clone, but clearly some of those genes are mine.  Also, my daughter is a much cuter baby than I was.  Must be those genes from her dad.

When she was first born, she looked a lot more like Dan.  But I think things are evening out a bit now.  (I would have posted some pictures of Baby Dan too, but we don't seem to have any.  Another time!)

Flashback Friday: Six months of Mommyhood Edition

My baby is officially half a year old.  She sits up all by herself and has excellent posture!  She's a regular little rolly-polly.  She has four incredibly sharp teeth.  She grins and laughs with me (or is at me?) all day long.  Everyone is a friend and she'll always show her little bashful smile to anyone who gives her the slightest attention.  She's beginning to show her true colors as a momma's girl, but hopefully she learns soon that Daddy is a pretty cool guy too.  And it's OK to snuggle with him when life isn't the greatest and Mom's busy doing dishes and the like.

I love it when I come into her room to get her up in the morning, or even just from a nap, and she looks up at me through those thick lashes with her big, blue eyes as a grin spreads across her little face.  I love it even more when she gasps with delight as I pick her up, burrowing into my shoulder, babbling away about I don't even know what, but it's so happy and I know that even though she doesn't have words for it, she loves me.

I love it when she is playing in her bouncer and get so excited because she pressed a button and a song started playing that she actually starts bouncing as high as she can.

I love those quiet moments when I am rocking her before bedtime, singing lullabyes and she starts to "sing" with me, even as her eyes start to droop. 

Mostly, I just love this little girl.  It's so cliche and every mother in the history of the world has said this, but she is growing so fast.  For reals,  I feel like I just came home with this teeny baby that I had no idea how to care for, and now I am cuddling with this still sweet, but much larger baby that is growing out of my lap.  But even as I say that, it is hard to remember not being a mom.  Life now is so different from pre-London life.  It's harder, there's a lot less sleep, and a lot less me-time.  But there's so many more giggles, more snuggling, more remembering the simple (and important!) things, and so, so, so much more joy.

This is about when we decided she'd outgrown the play mat...

 Scared face and 4th of July scared face.

Matchy-matchy!

Cool new toy! (Thanks for the hand-me-down, Landon!)

Watching Anastasia is fun, Mom, but I'm pooped.

Fun at Cafe Rio after the beach.

 

Grandma Carrie's couch is so comfy...

First Road Trip!

What do you mean, I shouldn't roll around the floor at Church?

 

That was the best lunch ever!

Playing with my BFF, Avonlea!

My Peruvian hat!

Church is the best time for a nap.

We love laundry day, right Mom??

Awake past our bedtime.  But still cute!

All this rolling around is wearing me out.  I think I'll take a nap here.

  [All pictures taken between 3-6 months, using my cell phone.]

Flashback Friday: Honeypot Notes Edition

Before I got married, I lived in building 4 of an apartment complex called The Glenwood.  We like to call it the Glen-Hood, because it was pretty ghetto inside those apartments. But I digress.  My point is, our building all went to church together (except for the basement floor, they went with another basement floor.  You can't trust the basement dwellers, we had to shun them off on their own.)  Anyways, because we all went to church together, we all attended ward prayer together, every Sunday evening.  After we actually did the singing and praying and spiritual part of the night, it was social hour.  Amidst the socializing, you had the option to leave Honeypot Notes (I think that's what we called them, I could be mistaken, but honey was definitely in the description).  Basically, you took a tiny slip of paper, wrote your message to whomever you wanted, folded it in half, and wrote their name and apartment number on the outside, then flung it in a basket to be delivered. 


Some of these were so awesome, I just had to save them.  Here are some of the first we ever received.  They were all from the same two boys, to our whole apartment.  Kind of random and weird, but so was our friendship with them.

The bottom left one actually does have an explanation--we had a sign hanging in our kitchen that said "I kiss better than I cook."  It was popular among our male callers...

Sometimes we got nice ones.

Sometimes they were just from each other.

 For the record, that first one is NOT from Dan.  It's from my roomie, Katherine.  Long story.  Kind of embarrassing.  So, for now, I'm not sharing haha.  The second is from my roommate Lacey.  We show our affection through arguing (it helps release steam, or something like that.)  When she calls me names, it means she loves me.

As time wore on and the school year progressed, friendships developed and grew closer.  One of my best friends that year was Greg.  He was British, sarcastic, and slightly anti-social, so obviously we made a pretty great pair.  We even dated for a bit...but then I met Dan and the rest is history.  Sorry, Greg, but at least I saved these awesome Honeypot Notes to memorialize our ill-fated friendship!  (Note: We're actually fine, no hard feelings, he left to serve a mission and now he's home and engaged and we've made nice since then.  Hurray, because Greg is great!)

We used to joke that whoever got the most honeypot notes was the most popular...so it kind of became a competition in both our apartments.
I do hope you recognize his rendition of a beloved Pixar film character--we had a girl in our building who resembled her in both looks and personality.  (The planning meetings he's referring to were for a committee we were both on to plan activities/parties for our building.  We're pretty sure the only reason we were assigned to the committee was so that we would actually go to the events haha.)

So long memory lane, until next week.  (Sorry if this bores everyone else, but I love reliving my youth.)

Flashback Friday: Birthday Edition

Since I turned 23 yesterday, birthdays past are on my brain.  Here are a few of my favorites.

My Sweet Sixteen.
It's hard for it not to be a memorable birthday when your friends ambush you before school and forced you into the most ridiculous outfit ever, the main component being a shiny, floor-length, silver dress, accessorized with a fluffy, white feather boa.  And we can't forget the Birthday Princess Crown or the sign pictured below.  What you can't see (or hear) is the jingling bell that alerted everyone to my presence.  Just in case anyone missed that spectacle, my friends had also placed signs all over the school with my picture stating that today was, in fact, my sixteenth birthday.

I was pretty excited to turn sixteen and be (officially) date-able. While I was at BYU, I ran into a friend from my old ward in Florida.  She's a few years younger than me, but she was telling me one of her favorite memories of me occurred the Sunday after my birthday.  I raised my hand in Young Women to say I had an announcement.  What was it?  Just that I wanted to let everyone know I was FINALLY sixteen and would be available for dates.  So, you know, tell your cute brothers and stuff.  I'm kind of embarrassed by that now, but I was bolder in my youth.

Two Decades.
My favorite birthday present I have ever received was a diamond ring.  (It will probably always be my favorite birthday present, that's kind of hard to beat, right?)  I don't have any pictures from that event, but here are some from my "surprise" birthday party my roomie/bff Katherine threw for me. It was supposed to be a surprise, but I kind of already knew what was going on...but it was still one of my favorite birthdays ever!

Also, I had an awesome-amazing-super-duper visiting teacher back then.  She always brought delicious treats and was always looking for ways to be my friend in a genuine/non-creepy way.  She left this note on my door.  It was a fairy tale (starring me!), using details that she'd remembered from our visits.  So sweet and almost made me cry.  Made an already spectacular birthday even better.

Twenty-three, you were a pretty monumental year.  I traveled.  I puked (a lot).  I lost one of my best friends.  I survived a wind storm.  I finally learned to like fruit!  I celebrated two years of love and bliss.  I became a mother.   My husband took (and passed!) the Dental Boards...and I survived his absence during the hours and hours of studying.  I welcomed home a missionary and a friend.  I watched my sister begin life as an adult.  I celebrated family, and watched as my priorities and ambitions began to take a slight shift.  I made a whole lot of cookies.  I grew a lot as a person.  But I'm still pretty much flying through life by the seat of my pants.  I don't think I want it any other way.