A Family Picture

It has been several years since we've had a family picture made. We had the opportunity to get one this week for our church directory or we still would not have gotten it done. Setting up an appointment was easy with three days to choose from. Preparation was a whole 'nother thing.

What do we have everyone wear?

Since this was our first in a long time, we had some pretty high standards. We were going to try coordinate the colors everyone would wear...only we started discussing this a mere two days before our appointment. After consulting my closet (since, surprisingly, Jason Slade has more clothes than I do...sad, I know), we finally decided that Jason Slade would wear a pale blue Polo that closely matched a pale blue sweater I had. Grace would wear a pale pink dress (what else?) and the boys would wear matching Polos. With my hurt leg, this put Jason Slade in charge of taking the boys shopping for Polos.  What color for the boys?  Jason Slade suggested a pale blue--something a little lighter than ours. I chimed in with "As long as it doesn't clash."

(Screeching halt to the conversation.)

Jason Slade said (among other things), "You have to remember, when you say the word 'clash'...you're not talking to a woman. When you say 'clash,' I just think of cymbals."

Now, I have never claimed to be a fashionable person, but I can understand what "clashing" is. In fact, I probably dress more conservatively than most simply because I do not want to err on the "clashing" side, especially since I know I don't know much about fashion as it is. I spent the next few minutes trying to make him understand this concept. I finally said, "'Clashing' just means it looks weird," and he said, "OK." (Not that he acutally understood--it was more an attempt to end the conversation. I let it go.)

The shirts were found, they didn't clash, and everything went well enough. Well, aside from the time or ten that Josiah crossed him arms and said that he wasn't going to smile. Why? Because he was mad that we wouldn't let him play outside...

For the thirty minutes or so in between him getting completely dressed until we were walking out the door. Poor thing.

Oh, and he smiled, all right. Mr. "You Can't Make Me Smile" showed all of his teeth in every single shot.

Robert, on the other hand? The photographer asked him if he had any teeth. (And, yes, it got a nice smile from him.)

Grace proved to be the most difficult out of the bunch. She kept looking to the side (she does that all the time with me, too--drives me a little nuts), did weird things with her eyebrows, and kept crossing her arms across her chest.

And I promise you, she just started doing that as we were waiting for our appointment. (Now, as I write this, I think it came from Josiah's pouting about how he was not going to smile.)

After we got home, Grace told me, "When dat big guy took my pi'ture, I not look at him," as she shook her head and furrowed her brow. She continued, changing to vigorous nodding and a sincere smile, "But when you take my pi'ture, I'll look at you, Mommy."



I'll hold her to that. Because this is what I typically get:







But these are my favorites in the parade of bad pictures...because this one from May 2008


looks strangely like this one from April 2009.