Family Pictures.
We don't look too shabby, do we? All smiles, happy words and sweet kindness. We are such a peaceful, put-together family in this lovely picture. You got it. A loving, harmonious, perfect example of what every family should strive to be (but probably can never achieve.)
Yeah, right!
And this is why I prefer film to motion picture.
Cause the whole 'get ready' time at home was a bit like Dante's inferno. Fire. Brimstone and a fair share of poor-choiced words. Driving to the park made me want to gag 4 out of 5 of my children. While at the park, we had about five major meltdowns (the first being seconds after getting out of the car) and most of those meltdowns were by my big strapping, gorgeous 16 year old. Yeah... this one.
How innocent he looks. (actually...Look at his eyes...and the stress in his smile. In this picture you can practically hear him saying "One more and I'm done! This is so stupid!!!!" which, by the way, he did say seconds later, and family pictures were, indeed, done.
Ah well, in between the melt-downs I was able to take a few pictures of this beauty (she actually never did melt-down...shockingly. She was just as perfect as she looks. Favorite child.)
This picture makes me want to cry, she looks so grown up.
This kid, although at times slightly moody, was very sweet to let me take pictures of him. He did insist on making it look like he has no arms in all the pictures (didn't realize until later that night.) Ah well. I like him, with arms or without.
But never a melt-down when with his BFF. (and look! he has arms!)
This little guy was all about me taking pictures of him. That's usually never the case, so I was happy to oblige. He also had very few melt-downs (but the ones he did have were impressive.)
I mean...look at that face!
This shot of Jason was pre-melt-downs, which, unfortunately started very early. (egged on by aforementioned big brother.) This small window of time was also very close to the last smile we got out of him. I had to reject most of our group pictures because of the most devastatingly, wretched faces he put on in the majority of them.
but here...here he was just fun and silly.
I even got a couple of nice pictures with our pro-bono photographers. Mom took all of our family photos...thanks Mom! And guess what? She never had one, single, melt-down, either. Nope. Not one. Neither did Dad. Which is really saying something, since I, for sure, was ready to tear my hair out after just ten minutes of all that nonsense.
I think this might have been my favorite picture of them all.
Now, this would have been my favorite picture if the sun wasn't moments away from setting. These were the last few good rays we got, and Rob's eyes were super shadowed. There was nothing I could do about them...and it wasn't terrible but every time I looked at the picture, the shadow bothered me more and more. Robert has great eyes! They should be seen!
Alaina got bored while Robert went out to talk the big kid back for a couple more shots.
This picture was taken and 30 seconds later, two kids were in tears and one was stomping away. I'll let you guess...
And then...
One kid stormed back to the car. Two kids were crying. One kid went wandering off. One guy went to take the dog back to the car before it attacked yet another family.
And just like that, the sun gave up on trying to make everything better with it's precious lighting, and we all turned orange.
Still. Alaina took this nice picture of me and mom.
I took this nice picture of Alaina and the little boys she had cheered up by throwing leaves on them.
Rob came back without the dog, and Austin wandered back over long enough to take these two pictures.
And then we all went home...exhausted, grumpy and annoyed with each other.
Happy Picture Day!
PS..here are a couple of honorable mentions:
Mr. No-Arms up close.
Favorite.
Sweetness.
Twinnies.
And...That's a wrap.
