Family Picture Day!

My kids BEFORE picture day. Don't they look so happy and cute?


Family Picture Day! For me, that says it all! It is always a day, an extremely crazy day where pretty much everything seems to go down. We have not had a picture since May 2011 taken, but I really wanted to get some and also take some of the kids because I missed getting their photos taken around their birthday! I am not a really good scrapbooker/journaler/family record keeper but dang it! I try my hardest to make sure my kids have yearly pictures so we can at least remember what they looked like and from there remember some of the funny and sweet things they have done during that time of their lives. This is extremely interesting to me since I ended up majoring in History in college--I know the importance of keeping a history! So, I said, "Enough excuses!" this year is almost half past and I will get these pictures, if they kill me! And they so nearly did.

I missed my alarm. I needed to wake up early to wash my hair so I could blow dry it and make it look, "Niiiiiiiiiiiiice!" as my son would say. But, apparently someone put pm instead of am the evening before and it never rang. Yes, that was me that put the wrong time! Anyway, I had to nurse the baby and wait to get going, so I did. Then I tried to get myself ready as quickly as possible, but it's hard when you want to look your best and take your time so it looks good. Meanwhile I am trying to maintain a positive, happy atmosphere so Family Picture Day will be "fun" instead of the day everyone dreads because it makes Mommy a little crazy! I'm sure I did not do as good a job as I hoped. Oh well. I got the clothes the kids would be ready and tried to get us out of the door early. I was lucky that I got us out on time! But it could have been worse, I could have been late.

We got there and we had to wait, so when I was there I was ok with being on time--my kids would really not have lasted if we had been early. I must say that they were doing extremely well at home and there in the waiting room. They were running around a bit, but what else was there to do? Even my husband, who really does not like picture day was doing pretty well, for a picture day! = D I don't know what happened, but the moment we walked through the thresh hold into the room we would be taking pictures something happened that changed my kids from the sweet, happy, smiley kids they are to these uncooperative, frowny and crying children which they are not!

Sam would not smile. He would not sit. In fact there are pictures where my husband had to hold my son up so he would at least be in the picture! Not smiling, let me add. (I just laughed out loud remembering how crazy it was and my husband just asked what I was laughing about. I simply had to say, "I'm blogging about picture day." He laughed and said, "Silly kids!") Anyways, my son would not smile, even when we threatened to cancel our Chuck E Cheese outing later that day! That usually gets my son to do anything--even eat vegetables! He finally started smiling, but not listening. We had to try to get him to stop using the backdrop as a slide (something I am sure our photographer was worried about the whole time. My son could have broken that backdrop! I am so glad he did not!) throughout the whole session!

My daughter was smiling, at first. And then something happened and she cried. And it was over. We couldn't put her down, we couldn't get her to smile, even with every stuffed animal they had. I tried everything that usually gets her laughing, but it was not funny at the picture studio. So, we got one of her by herself, half smiling. Barely. It just kills me because both of my kids are usually so happy and smiley. But never on picture day. I always hope that this is going to be the one that is awesome! I guess everyone needs something to reach for, the impossible dream!

My husband rushed to take Sammy to preschool, and I stayed behind and chose the shots. I hate doing it, but someone has to. And in all reality, I am the one who cares. If I didn't push picture day, it would never happen. So, it is only right that I choose the shots. I was surprised that we had as many decent ones as we did. I can't wait to see our pics hanging up in our house! Thank you, JCPenney Portraits and Groupon for making this happen!

After my husband came back to get me, we went and got some lunch and came home because they baby had fallen asleep and we just had an hour or so to kill before my son was out of school and we would go to Chuck E Cheese. Based solely on the picture taking experience, my son should not have gone. However, he was mostly good leading up to the pictures and he has been doing well in school also, so we decided to go anyway. We had a coupon too. = D We explained why were going and we went! I love going to Chuck E Cheese. We always go during the day, when everyone is still at school and our kids are usually the only ones there. We let them run around and play with them and just enjoy them enjoying the place. We stayed for an hour which was perfect. We ran out of tokens just at the right moment. Perfection.



















After that we rushed home so I could start teaching my piano students. I teach three on Wednesday. It was pretty good! I was proud of my students, they passed some songs. I was really excited for my last lesson because it was my new student and she was so cute playing her songs absolutely perfect. It was great. And she was so excited to get new songs and to learn more. I loved it.

After she left, I rushed upstairs just in time to watch Rio with my family. It was really funny and I was so excited that we got to watch it together! Sammy absolute loves to play Angry birds, so he really got a kick out of this movie because it had a lot of birds in there! After Rio, we watched Contagion. I thought it was really interesting to watch, but it scared me. I am afraid that something like that will really happen. I really don't like end-of-the-world scenarios. I don't care if it's an illness, meteor, global warming, etc, it all freaks me out because they seem possible! I couldn't stop watching the movie though. It was insane!

It was a fun day, but it was also bittersweet because my husband has to return to work. We had so much fun having Daddy with us that it was hard for the kiddos to realize that Daddy will be at work now. We'll miss you, Daddy! Please come home from work as soon as possible!