Enjoying the Moments

Sometimes in a young family the days (or weeks) drag.  Other times whole months (or years) seem to slip past before I know it. Sometimes I look at old family photo albums and wonder where the time has gone. 

Has it really been four years since Abby was our precious baby girl...

Or two years since Grace was our joyful one-year-old (wearing her sister's old shirt two years later)?

Now, of course, that same shirt fits our current darling baby girl, Emma.

I still remember the night we excitedly bought a little secondhand toddler trike for Jake. Now Grace tears all around the neighborhood in it. But it won't be much longer till she'll need a bigger bike and it will be Emma's.

(How has it really been two-and-a-half years since toddler Abby graciously let one-year-old Grace borrow that same trike for a ride every now and then?)

Such moments of realization make me grateful I have been here for all of these precious stages and moments, as fleeting or belabored as they seemed at the time. It makes me want to laugh a little more, hold my kids' cute faces, snuggle them, and enjoy the moments I now have, because in a few more years when I look back I will be oh so grateful I was there for every minute that I now enjoy.