Picture This

Today I took a really cute picture of Hudson on my phone and as I was trying to upload it to Instagram, something happened and the photo was deleted. I thought about what would happen if I didn't have a camera or all the photos I had of him were lost somehow.

There's a John Mayer song, "3x5," off his first album. In one verse he writes, "Oh today I finally overcame trying to fit the world inside a picture frame." As a person who loves to document life in photographs, I have to come back to this idea now and then, and when I do, I close my eyes and just try to burn the image I want to remember into my heart.

So when I'm old and grey, and many things have slipped away from me, I pray that God in his rich mercy will recall to my tired mind this picture: my beautiful boy, sitting at his highchair, with his pale blonde curls looking silver in the sunlight, and his bright eyes just blue and blue and blue, and his little mouth just about to smile, and his fist full of sweet potato fries, reaching out to offer one to me.

Zack Attack

I love when people are good sports about themselves. Score for Mark Paul Gosselaar... I mean, Zack Morris.

Nine Years!

Today, Cinco de Mayo, marks the day that Ben and I officially became a couple... NINE years ago. We were just a couple of high school juniors who happened to be in the spring musical together, and the rest is history.

Just a few little things I remember about that time...

The first time he came to my house was for a group project for our Spanish class... we made a commercial for a cleaning product we invented called "Bueno Bueno." The first time I went to his house was one day after school and we watched The Shining.

A couple of our first dates that I remember were a video-scavenger hunt with a Mormon friend's youth group (odd) where he hugged me for the first time, and a Cardinals game with his parents where we held hands in the backseat.

Please be merciful when I tell you this, and keep in mind that it was the year 2000. And that I was 16. Of course I decided we had to have a song. And the song I decided was "our" song was... "Swear it Again" by Westlife. They were an Irish boyband... never mind, it's not important. Moving on...

Ben drove a red Chrysler LeBaron with Dave Matthews Band bumper stickers. It was a convertible. He made me listen to DMB non-stop until I finally agreed that I liked them and would go to one of their concerts.

He worked at a little place called Crazy Bowls & Wraps and I used to go there while he worked and sit at the counter and do my art history homework just so we could be together. All together now, "awwwwwwww."


Ben, who would've thought nine years ago we'd be where we are now? I love you lots and lots and lots, for being the sweet boy I fell in love with and the good man I am blessed to call my husband, and for being my best friend through and through.

I especially love the part about how you dress 500 times better than you did in high school. Sometimes you were a hot mess back then. I mean, like I should toot my own horn (one word: overalls) but oh well. You still got me. For good. ;)