Day 8: Blog Challenge: The Shoes!

 These are are more then just shoes to me because they hold a special meaning, memories, and pride. I swear I have not lost my marbles and have nothing better to photograph then these old tattered shoes. I promise I am not a hoarder with sheds full of shoes.  Jaron and I got married while in collage and a year after being married we found out we were expecting Elijah and what of course a great surprise, but how the heck were we going to care for this child. We were making less then $30k a year.  Now enters the Marine Corps and our journey of parenthood. We welcome our baby boy (which is what we called him for 2 days before naming him) on  a warm May morning in 2005. Jaron had literally just graduated from collage and was just 2 weeks away from leaving for OCS (Officer  Candidate School).  All we knew what if he made it through he would be an officer in the United States Marine Corps and he would be a pilot of sorts if he completed that program too.    We were kinda of an oddity since we were fresh out of collage with a  new baby . Most of Jaron's peers were either single,  married their collage sweethearts or were enlisted guys who had switched over to officer and maybe they had children.

Anyways, as a first time parent we wanted to be our best. We  tried to feed Elijah the best, we played consistently with him , reading and building.  We were frugal and expected any  second clothing for Elijah or shopped at consignment stores, but the the winter came in Virginia and he was crawling and working on walking I wanted him to have some shoes. I read that it was not good for them to be in hard shoes, so there enters the Robeez (the helicopter shoes). At the time Robeez were $50 shoes and there were no knocks off like they have now at Target. After considering it for a while I sucked it up paid the $50 and have never regretted that purchase. I can remember putting them on Elijah fat little feet,. I can remember him starting to walk in those shoes. Ava never wore them since her feet were so small, but Rowan did and now Noel has too. I know putting girls in  helicopter shoes is ridiculous, but its only for play.  These shoes are now over 7 years old and though not new still work, but more then anything always bring back to being a new parent trying to wade through all the stuff , advice  of what is best and trying to determine what is necessary.  It also, brings me back to  remember the not knowing what the future held for us. We knew that Jaron would fly, but we didn't know what he would fly (jets or helicopters), we didn't know where we would end up   for our first real duty station (which has been Hawaii, since all the other  places were schools), and we  had no idea we would be blessed with 4 amazing children. We are ridiculously blessed!!!!

Now here's my baby, I mean almost 8 year old with his first pair of shoes.

You know you are jealous of Elijah's fashion sense. He loves a good plaid with stripes and other plaids. We just consider him before his time and that he is "high fashion". 

 Now don't judge the Hawaii feet.