And this particular Day fellow here is my baby brother, Brandon.  And the gorgeous gal he married is my amazing friend, Keri.  And the two perfect little baby girls that they have created are my nieces, Karli and Adleigh.

Folks, there just aren’t enough adjectives in the world for me to describe my love for these people.  I adore my family.

Can I love this picture any more?  Unlikely.

It’s my blog.  It’s my niece.  I can show off her ridiculously cute belly if I want to.

♥♥♥

It’s not that Parker likes Michael Jackson…it’s that, he really, really, really likes Michel Jackson.  It started innocently enough.  A classmate had been singing “Thriller” at school, and pbo was intrigued.  We do a lot of YouTube-ing around here, so I happily pulled up a few MJ videos for us to watch.  And then we watched them again.  And again.  And again.  I could almost feel the fascination radiate through his little man body.  Eyes were huge.  Fingers were twitching.  Toes were tapping.

He literally can’t get enough of all things Michael.  We’ve Googled, YouTubed, and Netflixed ourselves silly.  I’ve squirmed my way through answering hard-hitting questions about dangling babies, mysteriously changing skin color, Jesus Juice, the appropriateness (or not) of crotch-grabbing, and the effects of puberty on the male voice.  As far as Parker is concerned, there is no such thing as too much information.

I thought I remembered seeing a Michael Jackson dance game for the Wii, so a couple of weeks ago, we rounded up some gift cards, dipped into the piggy bank, and hit up our local Game Stop.  Parker’s after school activity hasn’t been the same since.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I often use Parker’s Wii-time as a bit of, ahem, Mii-time.  I hear the songs play over and over in the next room, but I haven’t really sat down to watch the action much myself.  So imagine my surprise when I asked Parker if he could do a little dance for me to record and he busted out with the following:

Folks, we’re talking complete memorization of full-fledged choreography.  And I only “let” him show me two songs worth!  The glitter-gloved bug has bitten my awesome kid, and I am ever-so-delighted to watch him scratch the resulting itch.

>,

Nothing delights me more than my singing kiddos.  Bailey is quite the performer, but only on her own time (so you’d better have that camera ready!).  And Parker really and truly loves to sing.  He is a little more hesitant about public performances, however, so as a doting mom, I just do what I gotta do to capture the show.  And really, shower acoustics can’t be beat..am I right?
Sing on, sweet P and B.  Your days will be so much more full when you give them their own score.

1…

2…

3…

FOUR years old!

I love you, girl.  And yes, I promise we’ll be together forever.

November 29, 2011  (FOUR weeks early!)

6 lbs. 10 oz..

18 1/2 inches.

Little sister to Karli.

Niece to me.

Perfect in each and every way.

Welcome to the family, awesome Adleigh.  We’ve been saving you a spot.

]]> http://janicabolesphotography.com/blog/adleigh/feed/ 4 http://janicabolesphotography.com/blog/perfectly-parker/ http://janicabolesphotography.com/blog/perfectly-parker/#comments Tue, 01 Nov 2011 19:26:07 +0000 jbo http://janicabolesphotography.com/blog/?p=5437 Parker Day Boles, you are officially seven years old.

You magical little human, you!  I am thrilled by the place that you are carving out for yourself in this world. I can’t imagine a more well-rounded kid. You are as passionate about your new baseball glove as you are about your skinny jeans and flat-brimmed NY Mets hat. You read chapter books with ease, but you can’t tie your shoes. You know as much about baseball statistics as you do about the moons of Pluto as you do about Justin Bieber’s latest fashion choices. You can throw a baseball from deep centerfield directly to home plate, but you can’t ride a bike. You are just as excited for Thurday night Project Runway as you are for Sunday Texans games. You spit out Nicki Minaj lyrics one minute, and then angelically squeak your way through “Pie Jesu” the next. You agonize over the decision to take hip hop dance classes or play basketball at the Y. You can chatter ENDLESSLY about an unbelievable variety of subjects, and you do so in your painfully precious stuttering speech. (Your brain just zooms along so much faster than your sweet mouth – it will catch up soon…please don’t let it discourage you.)

I want to hold your hand forever, perfect boy. I find myself squeezing it tighter and tighter these days…and yet I am acutely aware of you slowly and lovingly untangling your fingers from mine. My heart breaks as you discover your independence, yet it explodes with pride over your obvious capability.

I love you, pbo. Please continue to laugh in the face of stereotypes and embrace the things that make you happy.That’s what I do, and it’s exactly why Im holding on to you so tightly…’cause you make me the happiest. ♥

Big kid space room!

You see, there’s this girl…and I’m fairly certain she’s made of magic.  She’s as passionate as she is silly, as thoughtful as she is prissy.  I just can’t help but stare at her sometimes – she truly is the most enchantingly beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in real life.  I am challenged by her imagination, and wildly entertained by her antics.  She’s entirely too much, yet I can never, ever get enough.

But you know what the most incredible thing is about this itsy-bitsy 3 1/2-year-old ?  You know what it is about her that makes my guts all twisty and my throat lumpy and my eyes misty when I take the time to really consider how magnificent she is?  It’s the fact that she’s MINE.  Bailey Boles is the gift that I never dared to ask for.  I cherish you, my perfect daughter, and am humbled with gratitude that I get to be your mom.

(Now please get that obnoxious, sparkly Barbie pony out of my face for FIVE SECONDS so I can finish this, darn it.  Yes, her mane looks beautiful.  YES, I know that a flying horse is a pegasus and that you’re still hungry and that you don’t really like Miss Spider and you want me to watch how fast you can run in your new shimmer-shoes and that you love me and that you want to kiss my cold arm and that you miss Parker and that you want to go play at the Y and that Mrs. Wester sounds like a princess and that today-tomorrow we are going to see Stella and that you want to swim and we can bring our pool if Stella doesn’t have a pool and we will cheer “GOOOOO RICE!” at the football game and you can probably have nachos because they are your favorite but PLEASE!!  Please.  Just give me five seconds.  Thanks for the kiss.)

And yet, here we are, getting the school party started all over again.

Parker.  He’s in first grade…and he’s fabulous.

These are the faces that are stamped on my insides forever and ever.

Dear Parker and Bailey…don’t lose this.  EVER.

Come on.  You’d want to kiss this goodbye, too.

I have to admit something.  The start of school doesn’t get me all weepy-eyed and nostalgic.  I think the mom rule book says that it is supposed to, but I just can’t get past the EXCITEMENT.  As I watch that boy bound up the school bus steps in the morning, I am overwhelmed by a feeling of pride.  I joked that Parker’s Meet the Teacher Day is more like Meet the Parker Day for his teacher…but it’s true!  I am delighted to send him off into the world, bit by bit, so that others can know and love him.  He has incredible enthusiasm for learning and I know that each day in the classroom for him is like a feeding frenzy.   Over the summer, we exhausted the library’s section about outer space  and have recently moved on to books about the periodic table of elements.  I learned more about the noble gases last night than I did my entire junior year in Chemistry.  (missing xenon problem, anyone?)  Parker is a factoid phenomenon…and I won’t even get started about his affinity for baseball trivia.

But you know what’s even better?  This little nerdy nugget of mine loves people.  As we walked back inside from the bus stop on Monday afternoon, he jabbered on and on about his day and gave me all sorts of fun first grade tidbits.  When he stopped to take a breath, he got quiet for a moment and seemed to collect his thoughts before saying, “Mom, you know what the best thing was today?  The best thing was that I got to wave at my friends all day.  I saw some in my class and I saw some at lunch and in music and on the bus and all over the school!  I was so happy to see my friends, Mom.  And they were happy to see me!”

That’s my pbo.  My favorite boy in all of creation is growing up with blazing speed, and now I get to share him with the world.

Hey, world, you’re welcome.

]]> http://janicabolesphotography.com/blog/first-grade/feed/ 4 http://janicabolesphotography.com/blog/tor/ http://janicabolesphotography.com/blog/tor/#comments Thu, 19 May 2011 19:10:09 +0000 jbo http://janicabolesphotography.com/blog/?p=4733 You know how sometimes, thoughts of a person just weasel their way into your heart and just sort of camp out there for awhile?
Well lately, I’ve been thinking about my cousin, Tor.

My family is tight-knit, quirky, at times embarrassing, and even awkward. But more than anything, we love the heck out of each other. We all live relatively close together, so it has made for countless birthday lunches, holiday feasts, and general hang outs over the years. I have to remember how fortunate we have been…most people don’t get to spend so much time with their extended family.
I don’t much consider Tor my extended family, though. He is my only cousin on my dad’s side of the family, and over the years we’ve definitely been more like siblings. I love him fiercely and unconditionally.

I have tons of silly childhood memories of Tor.  In those days, he was mainly my baby brother’s playmate, and they annoyed me to no end.  I carried him on my shoulders through most of the Magical Kingdom, snickered as he and Brandon threw plastic frog toys in my Mimi’s Aquanet-ed helmet of hair, and I attempted to act irritated by their little boyishness.

As we got older, however, our relationship began to change.
When I worked as a youth minister while Tor was in high school, I remember him bravely attending a youth group meeting for the first time…waltzing in in that red polo shirt, only to immediately be pounced on by every female in the group. He was fresh meat, and they were all over him. It didn’t take much convincing for him to come back to church after that.
I remember long talks in my Thunderbird.
I remember “Hardcore Tor”, “Rough-landin’ Brandon”, and “Get off the can, Jan!”.
I remember how surprisingly easy it was to convince him to place insects on his tongue in exchange for relatively small amounts of money.
I remember receiving 4 a.m. frantic phone calls about Ouija boards and a mysterious spirit named Rose.
I remember random basset hounds named Elvis.
I remember drunken Monopoly.
I remember new trucks that “aren’t base, bitch!”
I remember cichlids.
I remember him calling my dog “Archibald” because, “what else would Arnie be short for??”.
I remember lots and lots of laughter. Lots and lots of sharing.
I just remember lots and lots, period.

I know that relationships, like most things in life, tend to ebb and flow.  We might be ebbing lately, but I will celebrate the day when, once again, we flow.