Smile! It's Picture Day!

When you have one child it is the day you look forward to. When you have two children, you know it will be hectic but probably a bit fun. With three kids you hope the photographer doesn't quit during your session.

We ventured out for pics on Sunday. I finally got smart and dressed the kids when we got there this time: no toothpaste or food on the clothing to start with. The photographer jumped right in and took pics of all three together first. I think she saw right away that it doesn't work so well since as soon as you put mine together they attract like magnets and begin wrestling. Pics alone go OK depending on the kid.

E has practiced his smile to the point that it looks heavily practiced and the one he practices is not cute to begin with. His best pics are when all 3 are together because he doesn't think about his smile he just smiles. Sorting through his pics on the computer at the end was easy because whenever D and I saw the teeth bared like a rabid dog that pic got tossed out. Which easily narrowed us down to 2-3 good shots.

G generally is adorable but you have to watch out for that runny nose that he has had for the past 3 1/2 years. His pics were overall super so we ended up choosing by saying, "Look how his head is tilted." or "Look how he is standing rocked back on his heels with his toes up". We studied the pics and for G narrowed it down to 12-15 cute pics to choose from.

M. Why didn't I have M's pics taken at exactly 12 months? Note to anyone with an infant: on the day of their 1st birthday take them in for pics before they get too mobile or too smart to sit through such torture. M would not sit for a pic. If he was standing near a brother, he was on top of the brother. When we tried to sit him down on the mat for a pic he would bend his legs underneath and writh around like a snake or hit the ground running. After a few minutes we came up with this system. Camera in position, "OK I am setting him down", "OK, I am letting go" shoot quick before he runs out of the scene. I do have to say that he had the most joyful look on his face as he ran away over and over. For M our standards for choosing were: is he in the frame of the picture? We had 3-5 pics to decide on from the 60 or so taken of M.

I have to say (like a total grinch) that this is close enough to E's 7th birthday that these will have to count for his 7 year old pics and for G we will see in July if we are up to the challenge of 4 year old pics for him. Can these count as M's one year and two year pics? Will he really change that much in the next 6 or 7 months?

Needless to say D and I were pretty exhausted so the rest of day was laid back. One pic of M at dinner time that shows how we all felt. It is his one pic of the day where he is not running away.

love and hugs,

B