"Mommy, I do good job"

On the eve of Livingston's big first day of kindergarten, I decided to get the video camera and tape ready. But upon figuring out which tape was which, I realized that I needed to label several videos that I had not previously. Walt and I watched a few of them together, footage that we had forgotten that we had made, of special days and many moments that were just lucky enough to have gotten filmed. Here are some of my favorite memories that I got to watch again.

SAND EATER

It was Livingston's first time playing with sand on the beach, he kept wanting to eat it, so I had to put a pacifier in his mouth so that the sand wouldn't be munched on. He had his cute swim trunks on, hawaiian print, just like his dad. Little big man with the pacifier and turtle hat.

MY BIRTHDAY TORTE

It was my birthday and we were having an awesome dinner at my Ma's (my mommy) house. She was cooking up a storm and I was ready to eat! My sister, who was home from school, was so wonderful and baked me a birthday cake. Now, let me go ahead and say this, she is a fabulous baker so this incident was a rarity. Anyhow, she brings me the cake as everyone is singing happy birthday and I smile all goofy looking and was very pleased with it, other than wondering why it was so short. I blow out the candle...then cut into it, surprised at how incredibly dense it is and hard to get the knife to sink in. When I finally get the piece out, it looks really fancy, like a dark red two layered torte with delicious frosting. Unfortunately, when you bit into it, it was like how you would imagine flubber to taste. My sister and I laughed so hard (because we're easily humored with ourselves and are the first to laugh at our own mishaps) and agreed that there must have been something wrong with my mother's oven. To this day, even though she's made many delicious desserts and has NEVER made anything like the "rubber cake" again, the legend still lives on.

EASTER EGG HUNT

We had gone up to Pop's house for Easter dinner and an egg hunt for Livingston. One problem...it was raining outside. They ended up hiding the eggs indoors all over the living room and when they let him loose...he was a mad man! He was climbing and hunting under table cloths, it was adorable seeing him look in every nook and cranny for eggs. I think he found all of them!

CHRISTMAS TREE DECORATING

It was the first year we lived in our current home and Livingston was helping me decorate the tree. Until this footage, the videos that I had watched so far, he was too young to do more than babble. In the film I was showing him how to hang the ornaments up and I had given him a few to do by himself. After getting the ornaments hung, he steps back and looks at it and turns to me and says, "Mommy, I do good job." Needless to say, watching it now, my heart melted, I had forgotten how much I loved his broken dialect.

I can't wait to look back at our family videos in a few years and see how much both Livingston and Beckham have grown. I do this with our photo albums regularly, but for some reason, putting in the old tapes and playing them is sometimes tedious. In a few years, I may be blogging about this again. About all the memories that somehow, our minds forget but are forever captured on little black cassettes (which I need to soon transfer to DVD) to warm our hearts with, when we take the time as a family to look back and smile.