I'm the Short Aunt...

On Sunday, we had my youngest nephew's 1st birthday party. Harrison Robert will actually turn 1 year old tomorrow, and that delightful cheerful soul has been such a wonderful addition to our family already. He is the happiest baby I've ever seen. Sure, he's had a few bad moments with teething, but on the whole, he's been a happy, giggling bundle of joy.

After the guests all headed home from the party, my brother-in-law took some photos of me with each of his 3 kids as I had requested. As most of you know, I'm always behind the camera rather than in front of it. I like it that way. But every once in a while, I like having snapshots taken of me with my nieces and nephews, too. The photos turned out quite well and made Aunt Mel happy.

Harrison and I posed. His Mom got him laughing from across the room, and he's just too cute. Grace and I cheesed and giggled for the camera with ease. She was adorable in her fancy church dress. She's a true girly-girl and loves dressing up.

But when it came time for Jacob and I to have our photo shoot, Jonathan insisted on doing a height check photo to determine how close Jacob was to reaching my height and beyond. He's only 6 how bad could it be, right? WRONG! We stood back to back, and if the photos are any indication, my goofy little nephew is going to be taller than his old Aunt Mel in short order. [sigh] My sister is now betting that he'll be taller than I am by third grade. YIKES! And my friend James from college (who will forever be known as Jamie to me) saw the photos online and suggested I look into surgery to lengthen my height so I could keep up. OUCH! I hear that surgery is rather painful, but thanks for the suggestion, Jamie. Hee hee!

Yeah, it's bound to happen. I'm going to be passed up by all of my nieces and nephews eventually, but that's OK. I'm all right being the short aunt for now. I can still whip any of them at Monopoly, and I play a mean Wii tennis game, and so it's all good as long as they don't mind hanging out with the short one in the family.