It's that time of year... when the leaves change colour, and Christmas lights are starting to shine. It's family photo time! I'm pretty sure that, to photographers, this time of year must be like tax time to accountants. I know that I'm seeing new family photos of all my friends and family popping up on Facebook every day. We've had two sets of photos done in the last two months ourselves... our fall family photos, and Christmas photos of the kids. And the photos are beautiful. Absolutely beautiful!
This was the first photo. Michelle, our photographer, took it, and then said, "Wow, everybody's smiling!" It was a perfect first photo. It was a sign, of a beautiful photo session to come! Except, if you've ever done a family photo session, especially a photo session with three children, you know that there's a story behind every photo, and there's a hidden truth behind all of those smiles!
Getting ready for family photos, for us, starts weeks in advance. There's outfit coordination, my least favourite part. I need something that sort of matches, without totally matching. Then there's practicing the smiles. Yes, that's right, I practice with the girls. I say, "When Michelle says 'smile' what do we do??" And then the girls run around in circles screaming. Which is why we practice. By the time photos come around, they smile when they are asked too. And then I toss them each an M&M. Because I train my kids like I train puppies. Don't judge.
See this photo? It's pretty cute! The girls have their M&M faces on, and Jax is not crying. Fast forward 5 seconds, after this photo, and Jax is screaming. The nice thing about photos? You don't get to see the after-effect of posing for pictures. Jax screamed and cried, and Danny and I hopped around, made goo-goo sounds at him, popped out from behind Michelle screaming "Boo!" and nothing worked. We were done with the three of them. We bounced Jax, fed the girls more M&M's, and took a little break.
We started again with just Jax (does that remind anyone else of Will & Grace? No? Just me? Okay, then, moving on!). We grabbed this cute little shot of him, moments before he scratched the crap out of the back of his head on the hay bale. Parenting fail! Also, moments later, a dog walked by and peed all over the hay bale. I guess we were done with it, anyway!
I love these action shots! They are some of my favourites, because they're not posed. The girls here are running and having a good time. Know what Danny and I are doing? Having a mini-argument about exactly what it was that Michelle asked us to do. Did she say get the girls to hold hands? Were we supposed to hold hands? No, Danny, it's supposed to look natural, we can't line them up perfectly in front of us. Yes, Sammy, the girls should hold hands so they stay closer together. See Danny's hand in this picture? I'm fairly sure he was holding his temple and saying "Why do I get myself into this every fall?!"
Michelle said, "Okay, stop there! Everybody smile!" The girls kept walking, Danny and I kept shuffling forward to keep up with them, and Jax kept pulling my shirt down so my boobs were hanging out. Somehow, we got this photo. Which is beautiful!!
Next was individual shots of the girls. Gracie is amazing. She has the best attitude, and loves the camera. We got this. It was perfect. No drama! I love this kid!!
Now, isn't that the most amazing smile? So genuine! She was getting fed up by this point, so I was yelling, "Guess what? Chicken butt!" at her to get a positive reaction. I'm pretty sure Michelle thought we were nuts. But it worked, and she is beautiful! I love this kid!!
See this picture? Jax had just thrown up down Gracie's back. She didn't notice, because I wiped it off before she could completely melt down. Also, Gracie is tired now. She was stomping her feet and refusing to smile. Also, Ella was pissed that Gracie got to keep the little pumpkin. She had also discovered by this time that we were counting on her to smile. And we were willing to pay in M&M's. Which meant that she was holding smiles ransom for chocolate. Smart kid. Pain in the ass, but terribly smart!! Behind that smile on my face, I was half whispering, half pleading with the girls, "For the love of God, just look at Michelle and SMILE!!" "Gracie, stop stomping your feet!" "No, Ella! You cannot have a chocolate until after you smile!" Also, I'm sweating like a pig here. Not glistening, but dripping with sweat. I've wrestled kids all around the duck pond, while lugging an 18-pound sack of infant, and being slobbered and barfed on. My usual calm mama persona is slowly melting into an about-to-lose-my-shit mama persona, and yet... the picture looks so calm!
I have no story about this picture. I made funny faces, he gave us this adorable smile. Michelle strategically placed that leaf on him, which made the picture oh, so adorable. And I love this kid!!
See this photo? You can really see the love in our eyes. After 9 years together, we are still so much in love. Want to hear the conversation behind this photo?
Danny: I hate pictures like this. What are we supposed to be doing?
Me: Looking lovingly at each other. Will you freaking smile?
Danny: I am smiling.
Me: No, you're not! God, I hate that beard. You couldn't have shaved?
Danny: Can we not talk about this again? You already told me 100 times to shave, and I didn't. The beard makes me look rugged and handsome.
Me: Tell me you love me.
Danny: Are we done yet?
Michelle: All done, great job guys!
Okay, so the conversation wasn't exactly like that. But pretty close. And seriously, we fought about the beard for days before these pictures. After seeing the pictures, I have to admit, I kind of like it. But for the love of God, don't tell him that... he'll keep it for the next four years!!
One of my favourite photos of Danny and I. While we were taking this photo, Gracie was chewing on a different part of the fence, covered in duck poop. Also, Ella climbed onto a fence rail and got stuck. Michelle rescued her when she started screaming. Ahhh, the memories!
Yeah, that face on Ella. It basically says everything there is to say about the end of our photoshoot. She was done. Done like dinner. She did not want to smile anymore, and although I'm smiling and "hugging" her here, and we look like a loving mother-daughter team, I was actually mere moments from losing my shit, and I was holding on to her because she kept trying to pull away. I'm pretty sure I had just whispered, "If you don't stand here for one more picture, I'm going to take you into the woods and let that dog pee on you. Let me love you, damn it!" So, naturally, we got this face for the picture. Still kind of cute though, if you didn't know that I just threatened my kid with dog pee. Also, immediately after this picture, I let her go and she fell off the log. Parenting fail.
Isn't this a cute picture? The girls "playing" on the ground. Really, Ella had knocked Gracie over, and a moment before this, I'm pretty sure Gracie was screaming. But Michellle turned that moment into this.
The sweetest moment of the day. Such an amazing picture, and one that will be going up on the girls' wall. Except that Ella was crying because she was soooo done with this day, and just wanted to go home. She refused to smile and only stopped whining because Gracie took care of her. I get it kid, I wanted to cry by this time, too!!
Last photo of the day. A picture of daddy and Jax in their matching hats. It was the end of a long hour, and I expected it to be difficult for them to get a decent picture. Except, didn't I get Jax to smile right away? Danny got this amazing picture without any trouble, or groaning, or crying, or screaming. The bastard.
We did Christmas photos a few weekends ago, too. The photos went so smoothly. The girls smiled, Jax smiled, and the photos turned out awesome!
Want to know what happened leading up to the photos? That day was the Somerset craft fair. Three million people decided to attend the craft fair, so we had to park a kilometre away, walk in the freezing cold, rub shoulders with said million people, and try really hard not to lose one of the kids (thank God, we have three kids - we have back-ups, in case we lose one!). In the afternoon, I realized that I didn't have hair clips for the girls. I only have pink, and pink doesn't match red dresses. Corny, I know, but we need matching hair bows. So once I got everybody down for their naps, I had to run to Walmart, pick up hair clips, rush home, wake up the girls, wrestle them into their dresses, fix hair, and time it perfectly so that I have just enough time to get Jax dressed and still manage to get out the door on time. See, our photo session was booked for 3:45. Jax usually sleeps until 4, so we were waking a sleeping baby. Thankfully, he woke up smiling, and I juggled him into that adorable little outfit you see in that picture up there. I sat him up, and my reflux-baby power barfed all over my arm and his black pants. I cursed. Very loudly. Multiple times. Danny came running. When he realized that we weren't dying in the bedroom, he went back to loading the girls into the car. I was wearing a long-sleeved sweater, which managed to catch all of the barf that didn't land on his own pants. I checked my watch. No time to change, of course. I took his pants off, soaked them with baby wipes, and took off his sweater. He was NOT getting barf on that! I rolled up my sleeve (cause what else could I do at this point?) and headed out the door. Danny had the girls ready, and he was smart enough not to question why I was bringing our infant son out into the freezing cold wearing no pants, no socks, and no sweater. If he was going to barf again, it would not be on that outfit, damn it!
We started driving to Michelle's house. All I could smell was sour, disgusting, barf. I smelled. Like barf. I started crying. Danny started laughing and asked me what was wrong. Know what I said?? "This is why I can't have nice things!" Okay, so it wasn't Jax's fault that I timed getting him ready to the last possible minute, and it wasn't his fault that he has reflux and power barfs all the f'ing time. And it isn't his fault I hadn't done the laundry that weekend and had nothing quick to change into. But I was blaming him, gosh darn it. It was not a pretty drive. Luckily, I pulled myself together before we got there, and was able to explain to Michelle why we showed up with a mostly-naked baby. And in the end, the photos turned out great, despite my meltdown!
We did Christmas photos a few weekends ago, too. The photos went so smoothly. The girls smiled, Jax smiled, and the photos turned out awesome!
Want to know what happened leading up to the photos? That day was the Somerset craft fair. Three million people decided to attend the craft fair, so we had to park a kilometre away, walk in the freezing cold, rub shoulders with said million people, and try really hard not to lose one of the kids (thank God, we have three kids - we have back-ups, in case we lose one!). In the afternoon, I realized that I didn't have hair clips for the girls. I only have pink, and pink doesn't match red dresses. Corny, I know, but we need matching hair bows. So once I got everybody down for their naps, I had to run to Walmart, pick up hair clips, rush home, wake up the girls, wrestle them into their dresses, fix hair, and time it perfectly so that I have just enough time to get Jax dressed and still manage to get out the door on time. See, our photo session was booked for 3:45. Jax usually sleeps until 4, so we were waking a sleeping baby. Thankfully, he woke up smiling, and I juggled him into that adorable little outfit you see in that picture up there. I sat him up, and my reflux-baby power barfed all over my arm and his black pants. I cursed. Very loudly. Multiple times. Danny came running. When he realized that we weren't dying in the bedroom, he went back to loading the girls into the car. I was wearing a long-sleeved sweater, which managed to catch all of the barf that didn't land on his own pants. I checked my watch. No time to change, of course. I took his pants off, soaked them with baby wipes, and took off his sweater. He was NOT getting barf on that! I rolled up my sleeve (cause what else could I do at this point?) and headed out the door. Danny had the girls ready, and he was smart enough not to question why I was bringing our infant son out into the freezing cold wearing no pants, no socks, and no sweater. If he was going to barf again, it would not be on that outfit, damn it!
We started driving to Michelle's house. All I could smell was sour, disgusting, barf. I smelled. Like barf. I started crying. Danny started laughing and asked me what was wrong. Know what I said?? "This is why I can't have nice things!" Okay, so it wasn't Jax's fault that I timed getting him ready to the last possible minute, and it wasn't his fault that he has reflux and power barfs all the f'ing time. And it isn't his fault I hadn't done the laundry that weekend and had nothing quick to change into. But I was blaming him, gosh darn it. It was not a pretty drive. Luckily, I pulled myself together before we got there, and was able to explain to Michelle why we showed up with a mostly-naked baby. And in the end, the photos turned out great, despite my meltdown!
We've been lucky enough to find ourselves the most amazing photographer. I give a huge shout-out to Michelle Darrell and Daydreamer Photography. She's incredibly patient with the kids, and with their crazy, cranky parents. She jumps and wiggles, and always manages to get smiles out of everybody just when they're needed. She is the most accommodating photographer I have ever met, and she truly understands the "joys" of having and photographing children. Plus, she knows me well enough that when I threaten my kids with bodily harm, and curse at my husband out loud in public, she knows that I don't really mean it. I'm just being "photo mom." The mom that every mom turns into when they need good pictures. I mean, every mom must turn crazy like me, right? Everybody else must have as horrible a time as me, right? Doesn't family photos make every mom cry, have nightmares and meltdowns, and want to drink an entire box of wine in one setting?? Anyone?!
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