A Long Time Coming

Please excuse me for my Blogophere absence. Life has gotten in the way.

I keep having this bad dream. And in this dream I'm trying to get my family dressed nicely and have everyone's hair done and have everyone look at the camera and smile for a family Christmas picture! And then I wake up and I realize it's not a dream! Aaack! I've been stuggling with the elusive family picture for months. When we had grandparents around for Halloween (you know, someone to snap the shot) I thought it was too early to take a Christmas picture. So I didn't worry about doing one. And then I blinked, and when I opened my eyes again, it was Thanksgiving! I made plans with my mother-in-law for the Friday after Thanksgiving. We were going to drive to a pretty place that would be a great backdrop for our photo. I even had semi-matching outfits for the family (hey, that's a big step for me), so I was prepared. But then, the Tuesday night before Thanksgiving, Sammie had a dog incident at our church small group and ended up in the ER getting stitches in her lip! Poor baby! Her lip was all torn up on the inside and swollen, and she had other scratches on her face! I'm not going to put up a picture of her face because it's just too sad. So Sammie had a beat up face but I decided to go through with the pictures anyway. We had the clothes, we had the pretty location, we had the photographer. We needed to get this thing done. But then on Friday it rained. Bleh.

I think the problem is that I want a pretty background for our family picture. We live in Monterey, for crying out loud! One of the prettiest places EV-ER! But I'm too cheap to pay someone to take our pictures and whenever we have guests, we end up doing something else. Who wants to spend all day getting everyone ready for a picture, and then driving somewhere to take the picture? Does it take everyone else this long to figure out a family photo? It's a lot of work making sure everyone looks good and has decent clothes on! This is too much stress for me. I can handle year long deployments and childbirth without meds, but getting my family ready for a picture? Arrgh!

Today we drove to Carmel to take our own family picture. We would put our camera on a tripod on the hood of the car and hope for the best. This picture captures Sammie's attitude about family picture taking.Jim took a few of me with the girls which turned out pretty cute. I mean, at least I'm looking at the camera and Sam is sorta smiling and the lighting is good. Reese looks like she's asleep, but whatever. Then a nice lady offered to take our family picture. And she stood too far away, so the flash didn't reach us, so the pictures turned out dark. I had to zoom in a lot on this one. If you get this picture in a Christmas card from us, it's because we never got around to getting a better picture taken. Just pretend you didn't see it on the blog first! I guess it's not too bad except that Reese isn't looking at the camera at all and Sammie is a grump. I guess the crashing waves and barking dogs were more exciting than the strange lady taking our picture from the street. Oh well.

Why is it the best pictures of Sammie smiling are the ones I took of her going potty on the toilet? Look! Her smile is great! And her hair looks great too! (I don't know why this picture won't load properly, but it won't turn horizontaly.Even though that is how it's saved. Another argh)

I guess I have a few pictures of the girls smiling. Or at least looking cute. Here are some we took before church a few weeks ago. And another one of Reese yesterday morning.

Maybe tomorrow when we are dressed nicely for church I can try again for a family pic. But I really want it taken outside with natural lighting. I wonder if the church parking lot counts as a nice background? Maybe we can stand next to a really cool car or something.