you begin...

This picture...(taken in the moment of Emma meeting Taylor)...is a favorite! If you were to ask me to paint, draw, etc how I felt in THAT moment, while looking at them, you wouldn't be able to bring me a canvas fast enough! 

I wish I wrote more eloquently...like a story-teller weaves their thoughts together and draws us in. I love it when I find things written that help me express how I'm feeling or what I'm thinking about... 

...like this poem (found here)! It illustrates the joy I've felt in seeing Emma, and now Taylor, discover that there is a BIG world to see and learn about...and the discoveries never stop! :)

You Begin
by Margaret Atwood

You begin this way:
this is your hand,
this is your eye,
that is a fish, blue and flat
on the paper, almost
the shape of an eye.
This is your mouth, this is an O
or a moon, whichever
you like. This is yellow.

Outside the window
is the rain, green
because it is summer, and beyond that
the trees and then the world,
which is round and has only
the colors of these nine crayons.

This is the world, which is fuller
and more difficult to learn than I have said.
You are right to smudge it that way
with the red and then
the orange: the world burns.

Once you have learned these words
you will learn that there are more
words than you can ever learn.
The word hand floats above your hand
like a small cloud over a lake.
The word hand anchors
your hand to this table,
your hand is a warm stone
I hold between two words.

This is your hand, these are my hands, this is the world,
which is round but not flat and has more colors
than we can see.

It begins, it has an end,
this is what you will
come back to, this is your hand.

Below are 2 more fun pictures...HAD to add in!...taken 5 years apart.

Jes & his first few moments with Taylor

Jes & Emma...moments after she was born

Not much has changed, eh...move 5 years forward...he's still as cute as ever.