My New Favorite Val-Mom Photo

While I was home last month, my aunt Heidi passed around a folder full of old family photos, and one of them was this treasure from 1980.  I had never seen it before, and I'm still transfixed by it two weeks later.  This is one of the only candid shots of me and my mom that I've ever seen, and it's also one of only a few pictures of my mom from this time period, since she was almost always the one behind the camera.  Look at her looking at me:  Sweet Mama!  ♥  (She was probably just wondering what she was going to do with her crazy-haired three-year-old, but we'll imagine that she had more poignant and profound thoughts at this moment.)  And we are sitting in a gingham kitchen, of course.  So dear!