The Experience of Professional Pictures

Last fall when I was feeling oh so sick due to morning sickness I scheduled a family picture because we hadn’t had one for a long time and because it was time for P and W’s 4 and 2 year picture updates. I figured we’d get three birds with one stone. We would capture our family and separate pictures of P and W. Well, we were late for the appointment and so the lady told us we only had time for the family and couldn’t do individual pictures - all the work and only 1/3 of the outcome. I knew I was too sick to try again any time soon so I figured that we would do it on their half birthdays like I did last year since I missed the year mark then too. As you know I had a baby around their half birthdays, but I was determined. After canceling two appointments, we finally had a date that looked like it would work.

The night before the scheduled date, Porter put one of our baby kittens on his face and as she slid off she scratched a Harry Potter looking scratch on his forehead. Glenn and I debated canceling and waiting for his face to heal, but realized that he would probably just have another scratch or something so we pressed forward.
That morning we were running short on time so I only got two of the four boys bathed. No big deal, we could take a water bottle and brush to fix their bed-head-rooster-tails when we got there.
When I told the boys what they were going to wear, Christian protested and said he would only wear his suit and would not go in the matching brown clothes I had selected. There were lots of tears until finally I told him he could wear his suit, but the rest of the boys would wear brown. He eventually got dressed in the brown. Then when we were on our way out to the car, Warrick took a head dive onto the pavement. One may think that at this point I would be deterred. Not so. His nose was scraped and bruised as well as his knees and elbow. We were all dressed and moving in the right direction so I swept him up, gave him a kiss and we were on our way.

I think the point of getting professional photos is to not only look cute and put-together but to also capture the moment so that when you look back in many years you say to yourself, “Those really were great times weren’t they?” You forget all the crazy stuff and only see a well-groomed, tidy family smiling so perfectly in the picture. I don’t know if we have ever achieved the look of a family that is very put-together, but we definitely captured the moment in that photo.

The picture we now have of the boys has Porter with a scratch across his face, Warrick with a bruised and scraped nose, Stafford fussing, and Christian with a smile that looked a lot like the way Jim Carey would smile. So though the picture lady probably can’t believe that I ordered the pictures, I did and I love them because they are us. They are not perfect, but they sure do capture the moment and I still think I’ll look back at the imperfect picture and say, “Those really were great times, weren’t they?”