Catching up and Sunday Night Traditions

One of my 2 digital camera memory cards has unformatted itself--full of pictures I can't get off of it, of course. I'm going to take it to the camera store and see if they can save it. There wasn't anything critical on there, so I'm thankful for that but it always stinks to lose pictures.


So, here are the ones from the other memory card...

Jack and Maddy built this block tower together. Nothing amazing, except that Jack resisted the urge to knock it down long enough for me to get a picture!

If you know me at all, you probably know I love to remember (although I have a terrible memory, so I guess I really like to "be reminded"), to look back, and I love traditions. I love the "White-isms" from when my brothers and I were kids--the cute things we said that have stuck--and the new "Smalling-isms" that my own kids have brought to our vocabulary (sometime I'll have to blog on that). As much as I love traditions, I'm not that great at making them on purpose. I guess because I don't plan ahead all that well, or even when I do plan, I don't always follow through. But one of the coolest things to me is when I see the spontaneous (meaning not-contrived-by-me) traditions that emerge in our family. Little silly things, like this one:

Daddy and the kids watching "Nature" together on PBS Sunday nights when we get home from church. We miss the first few minutes, but they rush to get pjs on so they can watch. They get to stay up until 8 (instead of 7:30). I occasionally join them, but it's not my favorite, so usually it's just a Daddy thing. Just one of those little things that make life predictable, that are comforting because you're together just being. That to me is so precious! I am very grateful.