i'm getting him a camera for christmas

wes likes to mess with stuff.  his stuff.  your stuff.  it doesn't matter.  if it's there, he is probably going to get it, and take it apart.  or tear it up.  or break it.  or color on it.  or get it dirty.  or all of the above.  whatever it is will not be like it was previous to wes getting his hands on it.  everybody in this house knows this firsthand.

so when he recently developed a fascination for my camera, you would have thought that i would have locked it up somewhere.

i have two cameras.  my big one is for when i need a good picture.  my little camera is for when i don't want to wag the big camera around!!  my little camera used to stay in the kitchen by our phones.  notice i said used to.  a few days ago, i walked in to find wes sitting on the floor pressing every button he could as fast as he could.  in an attempt to get him to stop trying to mess with it, i thought i'd take the opportunity to actually teach him how to take a picture.  that satisfied his curiosity, i thought, because he took a few and put it up.  i deleted the pictures of the wall, and we were all happy.

well, i was happy until i was backing up out of the driveway the following morning to take them to school.  that was when i saw my camera lying in our driveway.  i wasn't happy.  it was wet, frozen, and it wouldn't turn on.  i wasn't happy.  i just slowly walked back to the car, held it up and glared at my middle child with what i'm sure was steam coming out of my ears.  "oh yeah, i forgot to bring it inside yesterday."  i wasn't happy.

after some thawing out and recharging the battery, it actually worked again.  and i found out that wes likes to take pictures.  i also found out that a camera outside in the afternoon is a good way to find out what goes on in the neighborhood!

he started out in the kitchen by taking a picture of his older, "i-don't-mess-with-stuff" brother.

and then he documented that brother coloring something on paper with a marker.  (notice this brother colors on paper...he doesn't color the back door florescent yellow with a giant highlighter)

then, i found out that my floors could use a sweeping.

our bricks are still white.

his girlfriend/sister/best friend came over to play.

and she was obviously his little accomplice in this "take mama's camera for a spin" day because the next picture was this...

the sidewalk is still there.

my mums are looking fabulous...even if they do have a scooter lying in the middle of them.

our pumpkins look pretty good, too.

our neighbor was in his tree cleaning up his yard.

william was helping.

this is just a snippet.  my camera's memory was full of pictures like these.  the funny thing is that he's not bad at taking a picture.  of course, he got in trouble for taking my camera, but after seeing the fun that he had with it...i have definitely added a camera to his christmas list!  mine are locked up, but i'll gladly get him one of his own.  maybe this is my opportunity to channel his energy from destroying stuff into a useful hobby.  if not, at least i'll get to see what went on outside that day!  :)