Photo Challenge: THINGS WITH WINGS

You know what I really like about the photo challenges? I love going back through all my older photos . . . reliving the moments that were captured in the picture. Some of the memories have been sweet, some sad, and many just bring tears of joy. I am sure the challenge was originally intended to get me to TAKE photos to signify the theme word, but I have had so much more fun going through my collections with a new eye.


So, here is my collection of photos that fit the theme: THINGS WITH WINGS. And since my fun is in reliving the memories, I'll share some of the story that goes with each photo.

In my home are three handmade icecream bowls: the results of an afternoon with my son, my dad, and me in a paint-your-own pottery shop. My goal was to get some bowls with Will's handprints, but we each painted a bowl that day. Will was not even two, so it was a little challenging to paint while keeping him occupied. He did paint a little, but it was Dad who really got into the painting. I told him to paint the bowl with whatever he wanted to, and by the time I realized what he was painting it was too late . . . I would have an icecream bowl with a giant fly in it ALWAYS. So, my first photo is an icecream bowl with fly WINGS. I laugh every time I see it -- it reminds me in so many ways of Dad: it's colorful, it has an animal in it, it's made for icecream, and it's just silly.
In October of 2006 life got crazy when we double the size of our family. Although I spent a lot of time at the hospital 100 miles away with our newborn preemie triplets, I tried to keeps some parts of life normal for 2-year old Will. On this day, about a week after I was released from the hospital, Mom and I took Will to the local Halloween parade all decked out as Batman. Will decided to just watch the parade rather than be in it which was a good thing since I still couldn't quite stand comfortably after my c-section. Our little Batman didn't really have WINGS, but the cape was sort of winglike and I love this photo. It is Will smiling and happy to be in his costume. So much was changing in his life that it was great to get this photo with the spotlight on him.
Maddie spend her first Halloween in the hospital, so I was so excited to get to dress her up in her first costume just after her first birthday. (Yes, I had fun dressing up all the boys, too, but there were no wings on them so it is a different story.) Maddie was Tinkerbell -- chosen by big brother Will to fit with Captain Hook, a pirate, and Peter Pan. Unfortunately, I never got any photos of her smiling because she was sick. She really just wanted to lay down and sleep all day, but I couldn't let Halloween pass without a photo of my little fairy with WINGS. (I also had fun playing with PhotoShop with this picture.) Even without a smile, I love this picture of my daughter.
Back in time again . . . in summer of 2005, my parents and Allen and I went to Belize for vacation. It was a place Allen and I wanted to see and when we heard my parents wanted to also, we planned a trip together. I had been to tropical jungles before, but I knew it would be a little different seeing it with my parents. Dad used to catch bats in Central America as part of his job, and he was excited to show them to us up close. In the first picture, we had entered a looted Mayan tomb (creepy sounding, huh?) Hovering in the caves were lots of bats. Since I am my dad's daughter, I climbed in and got pictures of them, but I had to get them ruffled a bit so they'd fly and actually look like bats. The lower photo is dad holding one of the bats, but I forget if it was one he got from the cave or from the nets (he brought a bat net so we could catch-look-release some.) That was quite an adventure and there were lots of WINGS.


That's my trip down memory lane for this week. Check back in about two weeks when I will join the next challenge.