All the Ways It Can Go Wrong

We took professional family photographs on Monday morning. I spent time trying to figure out the clothing situation. I actually did two loads of laundry on Sunday night so that the kids would have appropriate socks to wear. I picked out Chris's clothes and he had a freak out moment that his pants might not fit and I'd cause him bodily harm for Ruining Everything. I had a freak out moment that I don't own that doesn't clash with someone else's outfit. And I can't forget to mention that despite it being December and everyone else in the world is taking holiday photos, Josie is wearing a yellow dress with daises.

I scheduled our appointment at Sears was for 10 am in hopes of the children behaving. I even fed them a snack before we left. I gave them fruit snacks, thinking that they couldn't possibly ruin their clothes with fruit snacks. Josie proved me wrong by dropping a half chewed, red one on her dress. I didn't even realize there was a stain until we were at the studio and, luckily, it doesn't seem to appear in any of the photos.

Thinking we'd need plenty of time, we headed out early and arrived to find that Sears didn't even open until 10. So we drove around for twenty minutes. Oops. While driving, about a half mile from the store, I saw a woman in casual, professional clothes with magenta hair running down the sidewalk. Turns out, she was running to get to Sears and open up the studio to take our pictures.

The studio time went ok. The photographer and another worker tried to keep the kids entertained but it wasn't the greatest job ever. And of course you can't expect perfection with a 3 year old and 1 year old.

Some pictures weren't centered.

There were shadows, squinting and not looking at the camera.

There were awkward poses.

There were interrupted games of Peek-A-Boo.

There was a broken background curtain, more squinting and a confused child.

"If one more person tells me to smile, I'm going to rip off this flower and crack it over their head."