Moments Worth Reveling Through My View Finder

With a big family comes a plethora of commitments.  And for The Schaffer’s its times five with two fur babies.  This month Jackson started all of his sports.  He is on a lacrosse team, baseball team, and takes Italian once a week.  He also is quite obsessed with skateboarding & surfing.  My Dylan is in hip hop & a musical theatre class.  While my Roman gets shuffled to all of his siblings activities, but still wants to jump off curbs and find his voice with the others.  The these for our family: multidirectional!

It always bothers me that my #3 has to nap in car and most always on the go.  Its just how it is if you don’t have help.  Structure sprinkled with normalcy just doesn’t exist for my poor little fellow.  I guess on-the-go is his new norm for my sweet #3.  And I guess him trying to keep up with my older two will be for many years to come.

With all of their activities I find us running from one event to the other.  With a big family, all of this running could be both challenging and tiresome and family time can get often put on the back burner. Luckily for me, I married Clark Griswald.

Life with my Bobby is quite the spontaneous adventure.  If I were in charge, lazy mornings would be our norm.  However, my go-go-go husband is the one that makes sure we squeeze in the family time needed outside of the commitments.  He makes sure we experience all that life has to offer.  I sometimes get easily distracted and can have difficulty planning what to do during our family time.  Our Saturday’s are booked with sports and sometimes, never mind, ALL the time with birthday parties.  However, Bobby makes sure we are up and out by 8:30 am so we are committed to family time and could have a morning filled with surf, sand and stand up paddle boards.

When the weekends come and Bobby’s adventurous spirit leads the way, I try to savor these moments gradually and you could be sure its always with my camera.  I have been obsessed with photography ever since middle school and love to live life through my view finder.  I am definitely my children’s personal artist, capturing the every day, all day.  And as an artistic type of mom, my view finder is always my canvas.  When I look through it I try to fill the moment I see within the entire square.  It’s an inspiration I used to tell my students when I was a tv production/ photography teacher.  I don’t want to miss a thing and though I am present and at the very least trying to participate in the family fun, capturing the moment on film brings me such joy!

Another event we squeezed in before Lacrosse was celebrating Saige’s birthday.  Saige is Dylan’s doll and she declared it was her birthday one evening.  We all smirked and Bobby said, “Let’s have a birthday party for her.”  My sweet 6 year old was so elated at the gesture that she told her brothers and daddy to go upstairs and get dressed up.  We obliged to her adorable requests, we even made a cake.  She was so excited she started to wrap her toys for her doll to open.  Dylan has also become quite the writer and we wake up with notes all over the house most days, but for Saige’s birthday she taped birthday notes to the lights over our kitchen island.  She is such the thoughtful & nurturing little girl and with her being our only princess we make sure we participate in her tea parties, dance parties and of course her dolls birthday parties.

This was one of those moments that I reveled in and held close to my heart.  I was so proud that the boys participated in her celebration, I just sat back and watched the festivities unfold.  I am sure the kids will remember this little party for years to come.  And this definitely was a proud mommy moment that I too will cherish.  Even though the commitments seem chaotic, I still strive for my family to live a life that is savoring the moments that matter most so that every day feels perfect.

I would love to hear from you, what do you do to have some cherished family time?