Christmas Picture Craziness

To continue with our annual tradition, last Saturday we ventured into Lexington to get our Christmas pictures taken. Much thought goes into coordinating everyone's outfit. Although after last year's debacle (I spent many days and much money so the girls would look "picture perfect" complete with matching tights and shiny black patent leather shoes, only to buy portraits that showed them from the chest up - yeah, brillant!) I decided to scale down a bit. No tights...Libby wore hand me downs - shoes from a friend (thank you, Abby!) - a dress that came from big sis, I crammed Anna's growing feet into her shoes from last year, and we were good to go! I purposely made an early appointment since at this time of year the studio fills up fast. We all wake up a little on the ill side. Darn. Okay, it's only a few hours, we can make it. A round of Motrin for all! We pull into the parking lot right on time.....it's PACKED. The place had only been opened 40 minutes. How on earth could they have scheduled 57 families in that time?! So we wait....and wait...and wait. The girls busy themselves playing at the block table. I say a quick prayer that they won't spread cooties, but from the sounds of all the only coughing, sneezing, sniffling kids, I was pretty sure we weren't the only family packing germs.

Finally, over half an hour later we get called back. Libby is NOT happy that her play is interrupted, Anna is sporting a fake smile cheesey enough to slice and serve with crackers. Great. One bright spot is that the background is different from the past few years.

We pose, we smile, we're snapped.

A big disadvantage to getting pictures taken at the same place year after year is the SAME pose. This is one of their "classics". It's awful. Poor Earl looks like a midget crammed between the tree and the gigantic flower arrangement. Nope. We need to try something different.

That's better. Now to get kid pictures. I'm not sure how people get a whole pack of children to sit still, look in the same direction, and smile, all at once. My girls are fairly good at pictures, and it's still not easy to get a good one of both of them.

We persevere and manage to get enough for a collection to replace the Spring pictures. We're good to go! The best thing about this studio is they print pictures on the spot, so after a quick trip to the bookstore, and a spin through Mickey D's drivethrough for kid snacks, we can pick up our pictures and get home.

.....Just in time for the icky bug to really hit. But that's another story....