No Giles Allond

Just keep reading.... explanation to follow:

These past few weeks I have been working on scrapbooks. Yes, I know I just got a new sewing machine and I should be hibernating behind it, but I had this scrapping project out before I came home with my machine and I am a woman on a mission. I'm trying to get all of my Christmas pictures scrapped and into 3 Christmas albums. Thus far, I have completed 32 pages in 2009. I've got about 5 years left to scrap and I hope to get that finished by Sunday. The scrapbook group I am a part of has issued a mission to Use Your Stash of scrapping supplies and I am trying my best to do my part. I seriosly doubt I'll make much of a dent in my collection, but I'm hoping to get lots of pictures out of photo boxes and into albums in my attempt.

I will be really tired of Christmas by the time these are all finished!

So, since I have had piles of photos and photo albums lying around, the kids have taken to reminiscing. This is one of our favorite things to do, and in doing so, the countless stories of their childhood inevitably surface and soon we are all gathered around laughing until our sides ache. This is one of the reasons I scrapbook - I want to get these stories down in writing so that when we are old and gray and feeble (keep those wisecracks to yourself please!) we can look back and remember the days of their youth - and ours!

So eventually we come to this picture and we all fall into fits of laughter:

This was taken the day after Christmas, 1996. All the family was gathered at Granny and Grandpa's in the mountains. At that time, there were 5 cousins and the boys decided that they needed to build a clubhouse so they worked tirelessly and this is what they came up with. The girls went out to see what they were up to and came back in to inform us that they had been banned from the premises so we went out to see what all the commotion was about and this is what we found. They look harmless, don't they?

The writing says: NO GILES ALLOND ESAP KARN - AND - CAILET AND E KILU.

Translation: No girls allowed except Karin, Caitlin, and Kila. LOL!

The 'ESAP' part was added after the girls complained.

I felt honored to be included in the exception although I didn't complain so I don't exactly know why I was included. The two older boys are especially close. We have spent many a week keeping the little blonde rascal, next to DS, through the years and there are more stories involving their escapades.

I haven't scrapped this picture yet, but I think it deserves to be enlarged and have a page all to itself.

So now I'm going to say what my kids expect me to say: They grow up much too quickly, but I'm glad that these pictures remain to remind us, and them, that they had a really cool childhood and one day they will thank me for being the crazy Mom who was always taking pictures!