Who said pictures were fun?

Now that the weekend is over and things have calmed down I am going to attempt to finish the weekend tales.....

Like I mentioned in the last post, Chris went down to get Dakota for the day on Saturday. We planned on having some family pictures taken for Christmas card (and one for the wall). I guess the idea of a NICE and SERIOUS family picture is out of the question.

Before we went I threatened the life talked to my boys on how to smile properly. You would think that at 15 and 12 years old they would know how to do this. Most of the time they are great about it but they do still have their moments. Chris also had a talk with Dakota and explained that his goofy smile is cute, but not in a serious family picture.

It was a stressful day from the time we got home from the lacrosse game until the pictures were over. We had about 40 minutes from when we got home from the game until we have to leave the house. That is not enough time to get 6 people ready (but we did it). We had a few snags at the house. Conner had a pair of pants he had picked out to wear but when he put them on he found they were REALLY short on him... and.. they would not button. I guess he had grown a little since the last time he wore them. Thankfully, Conner did have another pair of pants that worked just fine. Problem #1 solved, move on to #2!

When we went to get Dakota's clothes out of the suitcase that his mom sent with him, we pulled out outfit number one (we had planned on two sets of clothing for the pictures).... of course, the jeans had grass stains ALL OVER THE KNEES! Ugh! We do not have any extra clothes here for him since we rarely get to see him (if we did he would have outgrown them anyway). Well, thankfully Avery had a old pair of jeans that Dakota was able to get into. They were a little big but they worked A LOT better than dirty, grass stained jeans would have. Whew, problem #2 solved. I had hoped this would be it for the problems.

NOT A CHANCE! We get to the picture place for our 1:40 appointment time to find the place PACKED. I asked how backed up they were (we had people coming over to the house at 4 to watch some football), we were then told about 30 minutes. Not great but we decided to wait and see if we could get it in. Finally, about an hour and 20 minutes later they took us back to get our pictures done. We started getting the pictures taken and then while the kids were having theirs done together one of the photographers said, "you will have to retake all your pictures, your lighting was set at 15". I have no clue what that meant but there was no time to retake! The photographer looked at the pictures on her camera and said she had enough light in them. Wonderful!

As we are taking pictures, I am looking at the boys to make sure they are following the instructions we gave them. Like that would happen! Not a chance... picture after picture... the youngest one of the 3 boys had that goofy smile. UGH! Stress level increased!

A few minutes later, Kennedi decided she was done taking pictures (it was way past nap time). Since we had about 30 minutes to get home we asked if we could come back to look at the pictures. They told us we could so we will head back there sometime this week.

I honestly do not think we will get any of those pictures. Between bad lighting and a smile that is not fitting for family pictures, I am not holding my breath that many will be good of the group. We did get a few done with Chris and Kennedi and a few with Conner, Avery and Me that I think will be OK. There may even been one of Chris, Kennedi and Dakota that maybe OK.

Needless to say, I am making an appointment for early next week when the kids are out of school for fall break (at a different picture place) to have some more pictures taken of them for the Christmas card this year. I really hope this time it is a lot less stressful!