Temple Square

A bit of advertising before I get on to my post...We love love love our Chicco 360 High Chairs!  We bought one for Isaiah when he was about 6 months old, and borrowed a second one from my sister for Eliza to use.  Here's our smiley Eliza with her cousin Jocelyn attached to the island at Grandma Atkinson's house.  The chairs swivel in a full circle so that you can either have the kids facing the table to eat, or facing another direction to watch the action.  So fun!  Though I do have to note that Zay got lazy about using his high chair in Utah (Grandma has tiny kids' chairs for the kids that are much more fun) that when we got home he refused to go back in it, so now he's in a booster instead.

It seems like if you're LDS, have kids, and visit Utah you are under some kind of religious obligation to visit Temple Square, so we did.  This isn't a fabulous picture or anything, but it shows how much Zay loves to follow around after the big kids.  Here he is chasing after Isaac and Zachary.  There are always plenty of cousins around so the older boys don't mind and are really good about including "baby Isaiah."

This is what Eliza did for just about the entire Temple Square day--just relaxed happily in the back seat of the stroller.  She is such a calm, easy-going baby so it's never any trouble at all to take her places.  Well, not never, she's had a fit or two at the grocery store, but that's only because it's hard to sleep when you're strapped into a shopping cart.  If you feed her, change her diaper occasionally, and provide a semi-flat surface for her to fall asleep on, she's good to go.

We went up in the Church Office Building to see the view.  Here's my best shot of Zay gazing at the temple....I know, he's not gazing at all, and not even looking at it, but a good longing gaze at the temple was what I was going for.  As it turns out I have a bit of a weird photography philosophy:  I would rather have my children enjoy the moment and have memories of the event than have a perfect photo that took so long to pose that all my kids remember is that time when Mom made them stand still and smile for yet another picture.  So sometimes I don't get great shots, but I sacrifice them for the sake of my children having great memories and being able to enjoy being where they are.  When I was in college I used to scrapbook and I got so into it that after a couple of years I realized I would attend activities not because I enjoyed them but because I could visualize what a great scrapbook page I could make about it.  So I (mostly) quit scrapbooking and starting attending activities because I wanted to.  I guess I feel a bit that way about photography sometimes--its' easy to get caught up in capturing that perfect moment, but sometimes the capturing becomes the moment and the original experience is lost. I'm not explaining this very well.  I asked my photographer friend and former college roommate, Sarah, what she thought and she said "A couple weeks ago I was at the coast watching the sunset and a flock of herons flew over. It was beautiful, what with the lighting and how silent they fly. So beautiful that I put my camera down and just watched. I think it's important to just enjoy some moments and not try to capture them." 

Anyway, that is all completely off topic, but it does make a lovely excuse for why my photos aren't that great!  I did love how all the kids lined up together at the viewpoint.  Zay loved seeing all the tiny cars down below.