Outtakes

I love, love, love having the end product of family pictures but I absolutely despise the process of producing them from start to finish.  First you have to find time in the ridiculous family schedule.  Once you pick a date, you then have to determine what time of day will produce the least number of meltdown victims.  Next, you need to choose family outfits and convince each individual to actually wear them instead of their usual unique style.  Once we load all our people into the car to embark on the journey of said family portraits, we then begin the process of bribing them for good behavior.  Okay good, now we have everyone agreeing to listen and smile politely for the photographer.

We get out of the car and enter the studio.  And this is when all hell breaks loose.  Photo props are being used as imitation weapons, furniture is being used as jungle gym equipment, bows are being ripped out of hair, snacks are being smeared on shirts, etc., etc., etc.

We remind everyone of the promises they made in the car and they straighten up a little and get in front of the camera.   And then 30 seconds later,  one small being decides that nope, not today, I'm not going to cooperate!  She proceeds to play with toys outside of camera range while the rest of us stand their smiling like clowns waiting for the disobliging one to buckle under peer pressure and join us.  And because she doesn't buckle, we physically grab her and force her to join the picture.  This tactic produces beautiful pictures, let me tell you.  Now we have one crying child, one who is hungry, and another who needs to use the bathroom.   And we've only been here for 15 minutes at this point.  This sort of scenario continues for the next 30 minutes at which point we are all just done.  We apologize profusely to the photographer and load everyone back in the car and promise ourselves we will never do this again.  Until next year.

Oh, I forgot about the part where I then have to go through all the proofs and decided which of the very few decent pictures I want to choose.

In the end, we did get some great pictures and I really do love having them.  The good pictures are truly priceless, I just wish the painful.

Here are some of the pictures where you can see someone wasn't in the right spot or happy:

A Day in the Life

Today was one of those days where Matt and I had to exchange what felt like 100 calls/emails while at work (and this was before noon) just to manage the 3 small minions and whatever issue they were having.  Here is just a sampling from this morning:

Exchange#1: Matt, you put the baby in the car with no jacket, you need to drop off her jacket on your way to work.  Oh and we accidentally put her in capri pants and it's December.  Drop off some pants, too.

Exchange#2: Matt: I had Luke run in and drop off the coat and the pants to Coco.  Task complete.

Exchange #3:  Rachael: Matt, did you remember to pick up the baked goods this morning for Luke's music class party?  You know, the one he told us about at 8:00 pm last night?  Matt:  Yes, but we got cookies instead of donut holes because the donut hole containers didn't list the ingredients on it so we got cookies that did.  And by the way, since when are there parties in music class?  Do we believe him?  I dropped him off at school with cookies in hand - he was thrilled.    

Exchange #4: Matt:  I got a call from school that Adrienne's not feeling well, they want to know if she should go to the JCC or if they should send her home on the bus.  I told them to send her to the JCC.

Exchange #5:  Rachael:  I got a call from the JCC, Adrienne didn't get off the bus and they wanted to know if she should have.  They are calling the school to find out where she is.

Exchange #6:  Rachael:  Ok, they found her, she was on the bus headed HOME!  She's still on it so they will drop her off at the JCC.

Exchange#7: Rachael:  Adrienne just called me from the JCC, she made it there.

Exchange#8: Rachael:  Matt, the plan for tonight is for you to pick up Ade and Luke and take them to piano lessons and then I will pick up Coco and meet you at home, is that correct?



Photos: Ade torturing her beanie boos by hanging.
(trying to turn her real beanie boos into the beanie boo key chains that kids are putting on their backpacks)

Mickey Duck giving a big cheesy smile :-)