Happy As A Family Origin and First Day Of Class

I'm a born procrastinator so it should be no surprise that I'm late on posting on this blog. Laura and I have talked about doing this for a while, but for one reason or another, we never got it off the ground...until now. Kudos to Laura for getting the ball rolling and I hope that we can collectively add to the site(She is much better at writing than she admits and is certainly a better photographer.)

In my mind, I view this as a public diary of sorts to remember those precious moments of our lives, especially in relation to our children as they grow up. There are many things that Payne or Abby did or said that I wished I had written down. Many I remember but a lot are lost in my somewhat forgettable mind. My hope is to look back many years from now and be able to read, laugh and share in these times.

Credit for the name of the blog should go to Payne. The phrase was one of those cute sayings and has become sort of a family mantra. When he was three or four, we were preparing to go somewhere when he asked if we were going "Happy As A Family", meaning, were all four of us going together. We laughed and the phrase has stuck within our crew. Over the past several years, whenever we were going somewhere together, one of us would inevitably say, "We're going Happy As A Family". I think it finally sunk in the other day when Abby, our four-year old asked if we were going somewhere Happy As A Family. When she asked that question, Laura and I looked at each other and just smiled. We couldn't think of a better title for the blog and I hope we have years and years of Happy As A Family moments.

Well I guess I've rambled on long enough. I'll fastforward to present day.

Payne started 2nd grade this week and Abby moved to the "oldest" kid class at her daycare. They were both excited and of course we had to capture the moment. We started a tradition of taking the kids picture on the first day of class each year. We have them pose by the tree in our front yard which was newly planted when we moved to Shreveport a little over three years ago. We thought it would be neat to see them grow together over the years(Payne still thinks he'll grow taller than the tree). Below are the pics from the last three years. We keep telling the kids to stop growing but they just won't do it.