"Do You Have a Video Camera?"...

...an older, wiser friend asked me yesterday.

"Yes, we do," I told her.  "We can take little videos on our old camera."

She then encouraged me to use it often to record these passing moments in my boys' lives, moments which speed off like a train into the distance, moments which we can never recapture once they're gone.  She told me how, years ago, she and her husband made movies of their two boys and how, when the boys were teens, they would get out those old movies and show them proudly to their friends.

I don't know how my boys will be when they're teens, but I do know how they are now:  they LOVE to watch the little snippets of videos that I've posted on the blog.  They never get enough of seeing themselves--and each other--and laughing about how things used to be.  What an easy way to bring delight to the heart of my children!

So, without further ado, here are slices of our life, in all its extraordinary ordinariness.  :)

Shav is beginning to talk more and more; but even without being able to say a whole lot of words clearly, he communicates very well by other methods, one of which is shaking his head no and nodding his head yes.  I particularly like how he nods.  :)

Shav learned to play the harmonica.  And he's not even two!  Musical genius in the making, I'm certain of it.  ;-)  In this video, when he stops about halfway through and gestures at the wall, he's actually pointing to a picture of Josiah and saying his version of "I-yah."

My raised-on-a-farm mom taught us this neat trick.  When you've shelled a bunch of peas and it looks like there are only shelled peas in the bowl, shake it back and forth gently, and the pods that still need to be shelled will rise to the surface.  I'm not sure scientifically why that happens, but we've loved watching it every time we've shelled peas this year.  :)  By the way, Tobin always forgets that peas are peas, and he calls them beans.  He also loves to eat them raw; and at one point in the video, you can see him open his mouth for one like a hungry little bird.  :)

The previous three videos were from June, but now I'm skipping back to April for the next three.

Apparently, you're never too young for sword fighting lessons.  I know Shav is still only one year old, but already he's in training for a role as a stunt man in the next Zorro movie.  With such skillful big brothers teachers, I'm sure he'll be ready in no time.  ;-)

Something I never thought I'd say:  "Shavi, time to get up and fight again!"  But being a mother of boys means you end up saying some pretty strange things sometimes.  ;-)

When Jeff is in charge of the boys, I never know what's going to happen.  He's definitely a creative, think-outside-of-the-box, make-a-great-memory-for-our-boys kind of dad.  Like taking a bath in the dark, with glowsticks.  Who woulda thunk it?!  :)

Way back in February, I took these next videos but never posted them.  In this first one, I was trying to get Shav to say "choo-choo" because he had recently learned how to say the train noise.  But of course, as soon as I got out the camera, his lips were sealed.  Tobin, on the other hand, was willing to say it, so his is the voice heard in the video.

This one cracks me up.  Besides the fact that David is standing on his head to read a book (which is actually pretty normal for him), I get tickled by the way Tobin tries so hard to stand on his head, too.  But he just can't figure it out.  "How do it?" he asks...and now as I watch it, I giggle.  :)

On a winter's evening, Josiah (who was apparently overheated by the woodstove in the next room because "land sakes, child, where is your shirt?") did a great job entertaining his two littlest brothers.  Simple pleasures are the best.  :)

After Shav's nap one day, David got to his room before I did.  When I walked in, I found two smiley boys.  I can't help but remember when David was the baby who slept in that crib and Josiah was the big brother who ALWAYS wanted to get in with him.  :)

David had gotten the idea to put gloves on his feet so he could be like a monkey.  He's such a natural actor, and his little brothers love to imitate him!

Tickle time is a favorite after-dinner activity, although these days it doesn't happen as often because we're usually outside.  But back in February when this video was taken, the boys loved to try to "get" Jeff...but of course, he always "got" them a lot more than they "got" him.  Didn't stop the boys from trying though.  :)  And meanwhile, Shav invented a new way to "ride" a tricycle.  :)

Once in a while, one of the boys (usually David or Tobin) gets brave and asks Jeff for a slice of jalapeno or a bite of salsa.  In this next video, Jeff had given David a tortilla chip dipped in a tiny bit of juice from his salsa.  Although David's cry is completely fake, the heat of the salsa was not.  :)

 
Whew!  What a lot of videos!  I can't imagine that anybody (except my parents, who win the award for Most Faithful Blog Readers of Spilled) actually watched all of them.  But what I CAN imagine is the moments of happiness that my boys and I will have in the future as we see and hear again the sights and sounds we once enjoyed.

I'm so very glad we have a camera that takes videos, and I'm so very glad my friend Cindy encouraged me to use it more.  :)