Captured moments brought to you by Instagram

My friends introduced me to the iPhone app Instagram this summer and I instantly fell in love with it. Lately Casey and I have been chronicling our lives through this application. As I was going through our pictures to upload to this blog, I realized that I need to start doing a tribute to Instagram every few months. The pictures we post there are the moments that I want to remember and capture our day-to-day lives better than anything I can write. So here is my first of many posts that show the Pattersons through the eyes of Instagram.

Casey and Cash caught a huge moth. This is Cash's cheese face. I have no idea why he does it, but I love it.

Casey grew out a mustache in support of cancer research and in honor of my Dad for Movember. His teammates said he looked like Chuck Norris. Proudest moment of his life.

Face painting at the mall does wonders for a cranky little boy. Here he is portraying Spiderman's serious side. I can hardly get him to look at the camera these days, but he wanted to see what he looked like in the picture so he was concentrating.

Guy was just hanging out with Daddy on the couch and he looked like such a little man.

We took a last minute trip to Old San Juan and the museum we were headed to was closed, so we walked around and took pictures instead. I love these two little boys so much. I can't believe they are all mine.

This picture makes my heart soar. Cash gives us kisses every night before he goes to bed, but he is not very forthcoming with them at other times. While we were in Old San Juan, I randomly asked him for a kiss and he obliged. Luckily Casey was already going to take a picture of us, so he snapped away. I am so happy we caught this moment on camera. He's such a sweet little boy at times. This is also the day before I chopped off my hair.

I told my Puerto Rican friend to tell the Dominican hair dresser to just cut off a few inches. I should have known that I was just a pawn in her masterpiece when she started with chopping off half of my ponytail. I was shocked, sad, and slightly relieved.

Finished product. It was shorter and redder than I asked for, but I love it. I have always wanted to be a redhead and the shorter hair with lots of layers is way easier to manage in this humidity and heat. Casey keeps referring to me as his Russian mail-order bride, Svetlana. And I quote, "I've always had a thing for redheads."

We make quite the pair with his freshly shaved face and my new spicy hair.

The first time that Guy really sat up by himself for a longish period of time was at the beach. I had to capture that moment. And it just so happened that it was after he munched on a fistful of sand too. Too cute.

Cash saw me taking pictures of Guy and wanted in on the action too. I love going to the beach in December.

Cash loves trying to sit in Guy's car seat and bumbo. I gave in one morning and he insisted that I put the tray on for his popcorn and sippy cup. What a life.

I looked down from my phone and saw Cash sitting on top of Guy just like this. Guy was just smiling and laughing. And Cash looked like he knew he wasn't supposed to be sitting on him, but he was going to do it anyways.

Guy recently discovered his tongue. He blows raspberries and sticks it out all day long. This day I was trying to get a shot of his "Guy" shirt and he was going crazy with his new trick.

Guy started crawling soon after he turned six months old. He was rocking back and forth on all fours for a while and then just bit the bullet and went for it. He still scoots occasionally, but starts off crawling

Have I mentioned that I love going to the beach in December? Cause I do. And I love capturing Guy's first experiences on camera. He was playing in the sand with Daddy. Sitting up like a big boy.

I kept putting off Christmas not knowing whether we would still be in Puerto Rico or not. Then one day I just bit the bullet and decided to go all out celebrating the holiday season here. We borrowed a tree, bought tinsel since it's the cheapest way to ornament a whole tree, bought winter wonderland scented candles, wrapping papers/bows, a few presents, and turned up the Christmas music. All of a sudden it really felt like the Christmas season. This is Cash helping me frost the tree with tinsel. He always requests that we turn the tree lights on and the rest of the lights off as soon as it starts getting dark. Then he oohs and ahhhs at how pretty it is. Followed up with a "Ho ho ho. Santa Cause. Kissmas." I think he shares his Mother's love for the warm glow of lights of the Christmas tree at night. This will be his second Christmas in Puerto Rico and Guy's first ever. It's going to be a special one.

Casey's team won in the quarter finals and advance to the semi final round of playoffs. We celebrated by hitting up the local kids waterpark, Aqua de Sol.

Casey captured this joyous moment at church. This Guy makes me smile.