I can still remember the day. It was Thanksgiving, 2010, and my daughter was seven-months-old. We had given her a bagel to gnaw on for the very first time and she played happily on the floor of our small, quaint living room in our little, first house.

And then, snowflakes started to dance from the sky and down, swirling around us.

Her first snowfall.

We picked up our little girl and held her up to the window in our small, quaint living room in our little, first house.

“Look, baby! Look outside! This is snow!”

(And of course I have these photos because she was my first child and there is a photo album on Facebook for every month of her first 2 years of life. Thank goodness for Facebook and fleeting-free-time!)

On that day, over six years ago, she wore tie dye (first bagel=outfit changes).

Today, when she picked out her outfit, she chose tie dye again.

As did I.

This was not planned.

(Please pardon our crazy hair, as both my daughter and I are doing a hair treatment…inspired by an “incident” last night…(read about it here)

and when I look back again to that weekend six years ago I marvel at how much has changed

and also

how much has stayed the same.

Look!

This was not planned. Not at all. I had no idea that this post would come pouring out of me this evening when we snapped the almost-candid photo from our kitchen this morning; I had no idea that the photo above from 2010 existed.

But look at us. I am still holding her the exact same way. There is even a dog snout in both photos.

The main difference is that now we are doing fancy hair masques and back then…she had no hair (to masque).

When it snowed six years ago, I could never have imagined how much our lives would evolve between 2010 and 2017.

***

It was early on Friday morning when the kids charged into our room.

“It snowed! It snowed!” they squealed with delight. They had been up for a bit, playing together and staring at the sky. My son commented on it, saying, “It’s so white. How is the sky so white?”

So I got out of bed, threw a warm sweater over my shoulders and went over to the window in my cozy, quaint bedroom in our bigger, new house.

“Look, babies! It’s really snowing! Look at the snow!”

And when we brought them outside, they ran around together, picking up handfuls of “snow latkes” and making snow angels.

We have a cool, sprawling property at our bigger, new house; this is just a tiny piece of our yard; they went wild.

And as Friday turned to Saturday and as the snow fell harder and harder, my kids took advantage of every inch of their home. They built a spaceship in their pink and gold upstairs playroom. They cuddled up to movies on the living room couch. We wrote “Welcome to Fairyland” in chalk on the basement wall and played unicorn princesses in the enchanted tent.

As you can see, not so much has changed…

When I look at the photos from 2010 I see a very different version of each of us, in strikingly similar poses.

But in all of the photos–in every single one of them–I see love.

Moments of love, each as unique as a snowflake.

Moments so small, and yet so very big.

I see snuggles. I see tutus. I see tie dye. I see five costume changes a day.

 I see a family that has grown; a life that has grown; a heart that has grown immeasurably.

I see that I still hold my baby the exact same way that I did when she was brand new.

I see siblings playing under a white sky.

I see twinkling eyes and bright smiles.

I see snow.