Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Photo Fun

Last night my parents had me bring Matthew to get his picture taken with his cousins and my parents.
The session was booked for 6:20 pm. We arrived at the photo session at 6:23. Prior to that time, Mike picked me up from the GO Station (5:35) and picked Matt up from daycare. We changed his clothes and did his hair, took him to McDonald's where he got stuck in a huge play structure (and when I started panicking a lovely 5 year old boy climbed and led him down the slide), got lost twice on the way to the session, had one near argument about directions and finally made it to the location.
Three minutes late. Not bad.
Of course, before Matt joined the picture my sister's family had their picture taken. All the children discovered the joys of stools that went up and down, and all generally ran in circles waiting for their turn.
It's no surprise that when, at 7pm, they started the photo session that included all 3 kids (ages 5, 3, 2) and two grandparents its was an interesting experience.
We could not get them to all smile. When I told Matt and Kyla, who were both standing on risers, to stand like soldiers, Matthew started to march while Kyla put one hand to her head. Paige meanwhile was alternating between imitating Matthew and Kyla and whining that she had to sit on Grandma's lap instead of marching on a riser.
When we did get them in one place their smiles were ridiculous. Paige has discovered the joys of making faces and this cracked Kyla up. Matthew tried to copy Paige. (note: Paige and Matthew can be a lethal combination since they have the same sense of humour and are both very adventurous)
And the poor photographer was trying to keep her cool.
Matthew was annoying her the most because he would not stand still. So, she went over to him and whispered something in his ear to keep him quiet. As soon as she turned her back to him he very dramatically stuck his tongue out. My mom and I both lost it. We kind of felt the same way. Because we were laughing everyone got going.
There was one picture after that before we called it a night.
The picture ... it wasn't fantastic.
But, it's for my 98 year old grandfather who will appreciate the thought behind it. And, having had children, grandchildren and now great grandchildren, knows that kids will be kids and will probably just appreciate that we got them all together for the occasion.
we discussed the idea of doing this next year. With a six-month old. Hmmm .... Let's see just how much my grandad appreciates the picture. Who knows, maybe we will all get in the picture (my sister, our husbands and I all opted out this year). However, if this does happen I think we'll be passing a flask among the adults because I think a little alcohol would make it a little more bearable.
And, yeah, maybe we'll get a sedative for Matt. But that's next year.
For now we're home, in one piece.

4 comments:

AndreAnna said...

I's a rule of nature that when there are mre than two kids in a photo, they cannot be looking in the same direction and smiling.

And yes, booze helps almost every situation.

LoriD said...

I can picture it! At Thanksgiving, my mom wanted a picture of all 5 grandchildren to include with her Christmas cards. We lined up 5 kids, aged 6,5,4,3 and 2 and four of us that had digital cameras snapped picture after picture hoping one of us would capture "the one". They are hysterical, expecially when played as a slide show!

Anonymous said...

I think we must include a "double" for whatever poor photographer gets the gig next time with FOUR kids in tow! But it will be one of those stories that goes down in our family history as a one of those crazy things you do all in the name of Christmas. Kate (aka grandma) -- still laughing out loud

Multi-tasking Mommy said...

Taking pics with kids involved and/or a large group is a challenging task. We had a family shot (the hubby's side) with 10 of us, including 3 kids and a grandfather who really wasn't doing well that day, it was a challenge to get everyone looking at the camera and doing what they were supposed to be doing, that's for sure.