Above is a picture of our dear Abby having a pure screaming fit about having her Christmas picture taken this past year. This fit and her brother's antsiness resulted in a 45 minute torture session to get one usable photo for our Christmas card in which the little tyrants weren't even looking at the camera!
Today.... we topped even that nightmare by attempting to have ALL of our pictures taken together - the family portrait. I spent hours selecting reasonably matching outfits and paintstakingly pressing them into wrinkleless perfection. I combed the tangles from Abby's hair through much protesting and threatened J.T.'s life if he so much as crossed his legs in the car and damaged all my careful pressing. I remembered to take a hairbrush, extra panties for Abby, a wet washcloth for any last minute facewipes and lipgloss for a last minute touchup.
We arrived ten minutes early for our noon session and discovered that the photographers were running behind. Now, we all know that with each SECOND that passes our picture-readiness was decreasing. Precariously pinned hairbows were in danger of being ripped out, crisp shirts were threatened with rows of wrinkles as their wearers became more and more antsy. A reluctant husband rapidly lost his ability to smile as we took turns keeping (or at least attempted) the children from running WILD! The mother (suffering from a bad head cold, by the way) was turning into a sweaty-faced lipgloss-less, brow-furrowed harrigan as the window for beautiful family picture rapidly closed.
The resulting picture has all four of us looking at the camera with grimaces on our sweat-mopped faces and our hair a little on the woolly side. Rob immediately took the kids to the car while I previewed our digital (NOT film) portraits on the computer, ordered and paid.
I think he's still stewing that our Nightmare Photo Session cost him $58.50 for two 5X7 photos for each of our mothers. I asked him if he wanted some tea when we got home and he said he wanted a beer. Maybe more than one.
I don't think we'll be doing the family portrait again in the near future. Maybe when the kids are teenagers... maybe.
5 comments:
I hope your mothers appreciate the effort!
We have HUGE dramas every year trying to get one usuable photo for our Christmas card. One year, my cousin was at our house when I tried to take the photo, and said, seeing what went into getting that one 'perfect' shot, she'd never look at the Christmas cards in the same light again!
That photo is hilarious! You should send it to anyone who gave your children hideous presents last Christmas and say "this is girl child after she opened your present last year. She says thanks".
I like aunty evil's comment - I'd go with that ;)
The last time we had a family portrait, the boy child was less than a year old. Since then he had a very long lived phase where all photos of him were either of his back, of his hands in front of his face or one's taken by surprise from the side (where he couldn't see you stalking him with the camera easily!). At least now he's out of that phase. Now the phase is silly faces...
I'm hoping perhaps in a couple of years???
Love that idea Aunty! It might especially apply to toys that require batteries but don't come with any!
The photo is priceless, drag that one out at her 21st. I'm just on the point of attempting a new family portrait, but seeing as I'm the only one who will bother dressing up, I expect we'll be fine.
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