Family Pictures

Here comes your Christmas humor - get ready for it.

The neighborhood we live in has a monthly magazine in which they feature a family per month.  They have a lot of pictures and a nice interview style write up about each family.  I had the bright idea that since we need a new family picture made, that I would volunteer our family for the magazine because they send a professional photographer to your house and you don't have to pay a sitting fee.  (After all, you are doing them a favor, right?)

Getting a family of seven ready for family pictures is a feat all its own - add to that the fact that two of your family members are photographers themselves, with lots and lots of ideas of how we should dress and it is a recipe for STRESS.  Now, go figure that of course the only day that we could come up with to do these pictures is three days before Christmas.

So, today was the day.  Bryce will not allow us to be easy and wear jeans and white shirts - oh no, we have to be creative - and if Lyndsey is involved, we also have to be accessorized!! So, we had scarves, belts, and skinny jeans galore going on in our outfits.

The boys all wisely said, "Just tell me what to wear."

The nice photographer shows up at the door promptly at 4:15.  I opened the door to greet her and Patrick was close behind me, pulling her into the house and smiling as he screeches "my friend is here."  Everyone who enters is his "friend" and only here to see him.  Then Graham comes running by, barefooted.  I had already yelled to everyone that she was here, so we moved out the front door to find a spot.  Joshua meanders out, with Stan close behind him.  The lady begins to count in her head and when I said, "Would someone get the girls?" I think she knew it was going to be a long session.

She was a very nice older lady, and she had quality equipment, but I'm not sure photography is really her day job.  She was very soft spoken and didn't really know where or how she wanted us to stand, and she seemed kind of nervous.  We need our photographers to be a bit on the forceful side.  Enter our very own family photographers who kept hissing in my ear, "This is not the best lighting, mom."

Now, picture our family.  Patrick, cute as a button in a sweater vest and plaid shirt, but wiggly and curious as a two year old, continuously running in circles yelling "C H E E S E!" at the top of his voice.  Graham.  Well, enough said.  Barefoot, trying to make Patrick behave instead of worrying about himself, you get the picture.  The others were fine, just ready to be done, and Stan just stands and shakes his head - wondering how we ever get through the day.

This was the first round of photos in the front yard.  Then, we decide to try our luck out by the pool.  Now, the fun begins.  Our pool safety gate blocks the best entrance into the back yard, so you have to enter in a different spot and then climb over some rocks to get to the grassy area.  You can picture the poor photographer, with her photo bag and camera clamoring over large rocks in our backyard.  To top it off, I never ever go out in the backyard and the kids don't play out there much either (they mostly play in the driveway around the front of the house), and Stan probably hasn't been out there since we moved in.  So, needless to say, we didn't even think about the fact that the only one who is regularly in the backyard is - you guessed it - the dog.  Graham's job is "pooper scooper" but if you don't remind him he doesn't do it.  The fact that I don't remind him was painfully evidenced in the three million piles of dog poop dotted across the back yard, in the rocks around the pool, and under all the trees.  The photographer didn't say anything, and we all stepped high - all except Graham who at this time is still barefooted and he immediately stepped on a cactus.  To his credit, he didn't scream or throw a fit, he just left the spikes in his foot and balanced on one foot for the photo shoot.  Stan, who just isn't used to the antics of all of us in a situation like this, kept talking to Graham out of the side of his mouth, "Put your foot down Graham.  What are you doing?  Don't make a scene."  Finally, Graham loses it, "I have a cactus in my foot, Dad!"

Nice.  Stan now wants to crawl under the nearest rock - dog poop or no.

The lovely photographer got some really good shots, in spite of us.  Individual shots of Patrick and Graham in a tree.  Shots of just the girls and just the boys.  Several family shots that I hope to be able to use above our fireplace.

Once I announced that I thought she had what I wanted, she wished us a Merry Christmas and made her way back to her car.

Briskly.

I hope we didn't cause a pre-Christmas heart attack.