Monday, November 28, 2011

Family Photo Failures

It's that time of year again! The time you start thinking about Christmas presents and Christmas cards, and how much we've grown in the past year.

It's family photo time.

I love family photos. Seriously, I DO! But, I HATE having them taken. It makes my palms sweat just thinking about them.

Choosing what to wear ("I like pink, Mom"), finding a day the weather cooperates, finding a location that works, and outfits to wear that coordinate and are clean, working out the time of day for the photo (not too early, not too late, not during nap time). Then the effort of actually getting a photo where everyone is standing straight, physically IN the picture, eyes open, camera focused, happy faces, etc. Working out all of those factors, it's a logistical nightmare, and everyone always ends up mad at mom in the end! No wonder people hire pricey photographers!

While Nana and Papa were here for Thanksgiving, we knew we had to take advantage of the extra hands - one to snap the pictures, one to coax the smiles. They also brought three beautiful, borrowed Norwegian sweaters for the kids to wear (Thanks Angie and Lenice!). We had them on loan for a week. The only day that managed to work for us was Thanksgiving day! Josh scouted out a location for the photo, and brought blankets and coolers for the kids to sit upon.

You probably think you are about to see perfect photos of our beautifully polished, well-behaved family, and let you choose your favorite: A, B, or C from all of the amazing shots because it's so hard to choose!

No, we're keeping it real here, folks!

Here are the REAL family photos you don't see hanging on the wall.



Diddles - praying for strength and patience to make it through this photo shoot.
Oh wait, that was me.



Stand up nice and....strrrraight! The kids' legs turned to noodles.


Aaaand, we lost Diddles.

Then I wanted one with just me and the kids. You know, one Josh could take to work and have on his desk to remember his adorable, charming family who are happily waiting for him at home? It wasn't to be. Diddles was D-U-N.


Then Boo must have channeled my 4-8 year-old self. I was an absolute grump for almost EVERY SINGLE family photo ever taken! I'll have to find some examples next time I'm home. Sorry, Mom and Dad!

Boo wanted to take a picture. That's what this was all about. Sure! You can take a picture.
But, she wanted to take the FIRST picture, which had already been taken.
This was a lose/lose situation.


Two girls in tears. Who WOULDN'T want this on their wall?


"Stop taking pictures of me, Dad!"

'
Boo and Yaks have totally fake smiles, my arms are going to fall off trying to wrestle Diddles.

After I let her go, this happened.

Um...what?


Oh! Look who has decided to be happy now. She's even saying, "Chiz" (cheese).



There was no food on site, so I'm guessing he swallowed a bug,
or maybe this is just how he feels about family photos?

4 comments:

Allison said...

LOVE IT!!! Lol. Personally I like that you kept it "real" :) lol. You have such a darling little family Amy. I'd love to have one of those pics for my desk so that while it may not have been funny at that time, I could gigle about it because really, when you look back on that day at that picture, you will giggle about it. Those little angels of yours are just too stinkin cute!

Anna said...

I love all these pictures! Your captions made me laugh. We need new family pictures, ourselves, but after seeing this post, I may just let the two-year-old ones hang on the wall for another few years...

Chad said...

I don't mean this rude in anyway shape or form... but reading this post made me relieved. I am glad that someone else's kids struggled through pictures. We recently did ours too, and our kids were tragedies. Not to mention I have a face for radio. I felt so bad for our photographer dealing with us. It was time we did it though since our last formal family picture only has one kid in it!

Liz said...

This is an awesome post. Thanks for sharing the laugh (or the tears at the time?).