Friday Photo Flashback - Harry Potter Edition

It's been a while since I've participated, but the party has continued on without me. It is Friday Photo Flashback time and I found the cutest picture when I was cleaning out my files last week. Obviously, I need to do that more frequently.

This was taken about a month and a half before we left So Cal for the Pacific Northwest. Our oldest, Charming, was a Harry Potter fanatic and we always attended the midnight release parties as the next book in the series was published. By the time this one came along, the little ones were just as excited to go to the release parties as he was. (Valiant and I stopped reading the books after we finished Book 5...they just felt too sad for us.)
This was taken at the Barnes & Nobles in West Covina, CA. That is Valiant's nine-year-old little head sticking out of the display. This a Polaroid taken by one of the kids working there. I just love it. Wasn't he just the cutest? So much time has passed already and, yet, it seems like just yesterday.

Head over to Alicia's to see what everyone else dug up and I'll keep cleaning out my files to see what turns up.

Friday Photo Flashback!

How does this happen? I think I'm doing well, have things in order, and then I realize I'm a day behind. Sigh. Anyway, it is still Friday, so I'm doing my Friday Photo Flashback and that is that! Alicia at More Than Words is the lovely host of this meme and, with her encouragement, many of us are digging through the archives of our lives to revisit times long past.

As February is "Boy Birthday Month", I've spent the past month sharing pictures of them. Well, March is the girl's birthday month, so I'm going to share some pictures of my Princess Buttercup. This week? Proof positive that she is a water baby.

Clothes? Oh, they don't get in the way. Oh, and that was my shower the little sprite snuck into!
Getting Daddy in the bath fully clothed? Way too much fun! He knows good tricks! Look at Valiant...doesn't it look like he's saying, "What is up with this?"

Buttercup, however, thought the shooting water trick was way cool!


P.S. As to why Superman is in the bathtub fully dressed, I can't remember. He was a very fun daddy when the kids were little and this kind of behavior was pretty typical.

Friday Photo Flashback...

It is Friday Photo Flashback time again. The time when Alicia at More Than Words reminds us that there were pictures before there were digital cameras. In fact, those pictures are all the more precious because we have so few of them...when you had to pay to develop film, even when you had no idea how well the pictures were going to turn out, use of the camera was judicious! So, join in and share your pictures from way back when...come on, you know it puts a smile on your face to thumb through those memories.


So, my entry for Friday Photo Flashback has me going a bit out of order. Let me explain: Birthday Season in the Nagle5 household runs from February 16 to March 25...all the kids were born in that small window of time. The boys were actually born on dates that are only 10 days apart! Valiant's birthday is first, but I'm sharing a Charming picture because I found it when I was digging through some really old boxes. I think this picture was taken at my mom's house (the 80s hydrocal floor lamp gives me that impression)...Charming was about 5-6 weeks old (yes, he was big!), so that would make me 27. I can't believe it was almost 19 years go!

Let's see...what does seeing this picture remind me of? This was actually the first of the many times I would go on to dye my hair darker than my natural color. I loved it...and if I didn't have so much grey, I'd still have dark hair. I was heartsick because I had to go back to work...this was before FMLA and I used every bit of vacation I had, but CA State Disability ended when you were six weeks post partum, so back to work I went. He slept a lot...this baby napped twice a day for 2-3 hours at a crack and, while he didn't sleep through the night until he was two, he only woke up to eat and went straight back to sleep. (He wore sizes 2T-3T by the time he was 11 months old!) I loved, loved, loved being a mom from the moment I gave birth...having to go back to work made it so hard...but I wouldn't trade one moment of his life for anything. His birth taught me the true meaning of the word "awe" and I've been humbled by the experience ever since.

See what one little picture can bring to mind? That is why I am still doing Friday Photo Flashback...I enjoy the ride.

Friday Photo Flashback

Friday again...pulling out photos from the pre-digital camera days and spending a time thinking about things long since past. This is the meme that Alicia at More Than Words has started and I don't see myself quitting it any time soon. Head over to Alicia's to see what everyone else managed to find...you won't be disappointed.

This week I found some pictures that I've always thought were "horrible" pictures, but I guess enough time has passed that I can view them for more than how I look in them.

The first one is me trailing behind Charming when he was three and 4 months and running in the kids' race at the Bastille Days 5K in Orange County, CA. I've always shared a similar shot with Superman running behind Charming at a race, but never showed this one because it was "horrible". Those days were tough in so many ways. I had just started running and we had no money for real shoes, real clothes, anything- coming up with the $10 to enter the 5K was a struggle...the huge t-shirt was one I'd worn when I was pregnant. I've always looked back at this picture and thought about being embarrassed, but you know what? I love it. Look at my little boy, running his little heart and so proud of himself. How could I not love this picture?

It was only the beginning...


2 years later, the family headed off to Derby Days 5K at the Santa Anita Raceway. Valiant was 6 weeks old and I was walking the 5K and the plan was for Charming to run the 1 mile kids' race. That is not how it turned out, however. Instead, Charming took off at a run when the 5K started and I shouted at Superman to follow him. Poor Superman! Charming ran the entire 3.2 miles! Oh, it was so funny!

As I look at the last picture, I'm also reminded of how hard Superman worked to restore that little car for me. Smog laws were so tough then and we couldn't find parts for it in the pre-internet days. Not long after this photo, we had to sell the car he'd so lovingly restore for me. I still smile when I think of it...it was truly a gift of love.

So, there you go, my little trip down Memory Lane this week. I hope you enjoyed it because I know I had fun sharing the pictures with you.

Friday Photo Flashback

It's Friday and Alicia has us all digging through boxes pre-digital photos to remember those times and share them (rather than keeping them in boxes in the hopes that we'll get them into photo albums).This time, I dug through and found pictures (bad pictures, but pictures none-the-less) of a trip I took to NY to introduce Charming to my birth family. Charming was 11 months old and I remember being in a panic trying to figure out what kind of clothes a baby would need in NY and Pennsylvania in January. (Remember, my kids were 4th generation natives to the San Fernando Valley!). I had to buy him "real" shoes. He needed "warm" clothes, but since we'd never need them again, I refused to spend much money on them. I was working for Citicorp at the time and my NY trip was a stop-off before I headed for training in Delaware. Superman was meeting me in Delaware and he was happy to have the opportunity to introduce Charming to his grandmother and some cousins. So, it worked out that I was going to be traveling with an 11-month old for 3 weeks, however, so I needed a bunch of stuff--oh, and Charming was already wearing 2Ts and 3Ts !!!

Anyway, it was important to me to take Charming to see her, even though I'd not met her in person myself until I was 24. Because of my grandmother, I stayed connected to that side of the family and I've always been grateful for her efforts. I know my siblings didn't care for her and maybe if I'd grown up near her I'd think the same things, but she was the only constant in my childhood. (Plus, she made no blood distinctions and sent my little brother birthday cards and Christmas gifts, so I was that much more loyal to her--pretty progressive for a woman born in 1901, don't you think?)

This is a four-generations picture. Even more cool? It is mother-son-mother-son. That is my grandmother, my birth-father, and me with Charming. I noticed when I was scanning it in that behind us is pictures of me as a child and a picture of Charming I'd sent to my grandmother. I remember photocopying it on the art-departments color photocopier at work (the guy who worked in media was super sweet - he died of AIDS - sad thought there...). Charming was her first great-grandchild, but she lived until after Buttercup was born. My two cousins each had two children, so when she passed on, she had 7 great-grandchildren. Pretty cool for her.

This other shot is when my sister Kate got to meet Charming. She was home from college (but not done, I don't think - because she was 21) and I think she was pretty taken with him.


She doesn't know it, but whenever I think of her in my mind, this is how I see her... This wasn't the house she grew up in, though...they'd recently moved to a rental house and I have no real memory of this house...all my memories are linked to her childhood home.

So, there you have it. The pictures aren't the best, but the memories are pretty good. For more trips down memory lane, head over to Alicia's for Friday Photo Flashback to see what everyone else dug up.

September 11, 2009

This is my Friday Photo Flashback today. It is not about me, it is about us. All of us. On the West Coast, I was getting my children ready for school when I turned on the television and watched in real time, the destruction of the World Trade Center. Watched in horror as our world changed forever. Worried desperately about friends and relatives who lived and worked in NYC. Realized, with numb acceptance that my children were going to grow up in a world completely different from the one I was privileged enough to grow up in. For them, the threats weren't the vague threats posed by Cold War combatants. No, for them the threat is real and scary and unending.


Never forget...

Friday Photo Flashback

You'll either be scandalized or amused by the picture I dug up for Friday Photo Flashback this week. Remember, Friday Photo Flashback is to help us do something with those boxes of pictures from the pre-digital camera era we have tucked away in our houses. (You know the ones. The ones that you keep meaning to get into photo albums, but never quite get to!) Anyway, head over to Alicia's to see what people dug up this week...the trip down Memory Lane is always a fun one.

As for me, my disclaimer: I grew up in So Cal in the late 70s. This picture was taken when I was about 16, so we're talking 1979 or so. I spent every minute possible at the beach or in the pool and short-shorts were the uniform of the day! Most of the time, I was accompanied by my best friend in those days, Lisa. (I lost touch with Lisa years ago, but man, we had some fun whining over boys and butts and life!) Lisa was a whopping 5' 2 3/4" (you've got to get that 3/4" in when you're that little!) as compared to my 5'10". My dad took the picture because he was amused at the disparity of our butts when we were both standing at the counter (we didn't even know he took it)--obviously, all my height is in my legs. Anyway, Lisa has Mediterranean coloring and I was always, always envious of her tan. I couldn't hope to match her, but, oh, did I try. This particular picture was taken after Lisa and I had spent three days in a row at Zuma Beach and I matched her tan! It was so amazing. But, then, the very next day, I started peeling...oh, the devastation. A few weeks later, my dad showed me the picture he'd taken and I heard the Hallelujah chorus I was so excited to see it...I didn't notice our butts, I didn't notice our shorts; all I saw was the proof that, for one brief moment in time, I was super tan! So, please forgive me for showing you my butt, but I'm reveling in my glory days!


P.S. I thought I was fat back then. I agonized over how fat I was. I would kill to be that fat now!

Friday Photo Flashback

Today is Friday Photo Flashback and I'm only back in town for a few hours, but I didn't want to miss out. This week's photo is actually a scan of a note that Buttercup wrote for me in kindergarten. She was roughly five and a half. As you can see, she wrote phonetically (I blurred the boys' names to protect their anonymity.)


"Dear Mom and Dad, I did not have a good day because Valiant and Charming, they did not play with me."

Just reading it again cracked me up.

To see more of the thing people dug up, head over to Alicia's at More Than Words and join the Friday Photo Flashback party.