You’d think after my niece turned 5 last month I’d be prepared for the shock that my nephew is 7… NOPE!  It seems like just yesterday I went to West Jersey Hospital in the wee hours of the morning and gathered with the rest of my family as my sister had him.  Later that day, on no sleep, I went to the see the Phillies open up Citizens Bank Park  in the freezing, freezing cold– then headed back to see my newborn nephew after the game.   In a weird coincidence, while I was on my Epic Adventure with my nephew at CBP last week, he actually asked me about that game and that day…out of the blue…RIGHT as we were passing the section I sat in that day…

His party was the same as most parties at my sister’s.  Usual suspects of my cousins all playing and having fun.  It’s such a great photo op, especially since they are growing up so fast.   I took a bunch of stills, and I actually took a movie with my SLR.  It shoots HD,  but I am not really into video and never use it for that. Video is  too long to render, too long to edit, too hard to get people to watch and too hard to make it “good.”  You can get lucky with photos and take a great one with little experience, but that never happens in video.  Amateur home video is NEVER good.  EVER.  Hell even pro’s shoot horribly sometimes.  (See CLERKS.)  Love the dialogue but thank god for black and white…

That said, I was really struck by how nice my niece, nephew and two cousins were playing on the swings together.  I am sure they fight like cats and dogs too, but I never see that side.  I only see scenes like the one below so I had to shoot it.  (Bonus, they don’t KNOW it’s video, so they kept doing what they were doing… ).   It reminded me of me, my sister, and my cousin’s moms (Wendy and Michele) when we were kids.  (Although our “performance” games were not as cute– we had a game called THE FART/BURP SHOW, and…and I’ll just stop right there!  haha.)  But anyway, check out the cuteness while they all simultaneously break out and start singing ,what after several minutes in Google tells me is, a Big Time Rush song…. and check out the stills after that.  Happy Birthday, Buddy!

Cousins Sing from tony romeo on Vimeo.