When Nerys turned 2 recently I really had that almost clichéd feeling of ‘where has the time gone?’ and ‘how is she 2 already?!’.
But when Rhys turned 5 last weekend I didn’t feel that way.
5 feels right.
He feels like a 5 year old, and it does feel like 5 years since he appeared and changed our world. And our harddrive is full of 5 years worth of photos of our gorgeous boy!
In celebration of his birthday, I’m sharing 10 of my favourite photos of him from the first 5 years of his life.
1) This was taken when he was still brand new in the hospital. Sweet, newborn perfection, even if I do say so myself!
2) Next up is this photo of me with him at Rhossili when he was about 3 months old. We’d been away for a friend’s wedding and decided to go for a drive out to Gower when we got home and ended up taking some family photos while we were there.
3) My blue-eyed boy! I love how, even though it’s a real close-up of his face, there are still those background details like the red of the jumperoo that he was sitting in and the dribble on his chin, that give away what stage he was at in his development when this was taken.
4) He’s off! I remember this being quite a big moment for us. When he was about a year old and confident on his feet the play park suddenly opened up to him, and he was off!
5) When Rhys was about 15 months old we went on holiday to Marrakech and spent a huge amount of time in the swimming pool. I love the happy look on his face in this photo while he paddled with Daddy!
6) He doesn’t do it so much any more, but when he was younger Rhys had a real thing about lining things up. He would line up his toys, other people’s toys, the tin cans from the cupboard, anything really. So I love this photo that perfectly captures that quirk of his. Look how perfectly lined up the books are along the bottom!
7) Another one from the play park. I just love that one eye peeking out, possibly checking to see if the swings were free!
8) Happy, smiling photos are wonderful. But there’s something a bit special about photos that capture a different expression, like this serious, almost frowning one!
9) I’ve taken a big jump here to a much more recent photo that I love, as it shows the quieter, slightly shy side of his personality but you can still see the cheeky spark in his eyes.
10) And finally, a photo that I can’t actually take credit for (my husband took it) but one that I think is so wonderfully ‘Rhys’. A bit of a contrast to the previous photo, this is him at his lively best, unaware of the camera and having a whale of a time on the beach.
Here’s to many, many more photos of my gorgeous boy in years to come!
