Do-It-Yourself

Armed with a tripod, my fancy camera, and promises of candy, we attempted to take family pictures this weekend. The idea occurred to us on Friday night and on Saturday morning everyone got clean while I scoured all the drawers and closets looking for clothing that coordinated. Phoebe refused to wear what I picked out and changed outfits at least three times. We finally came to a compromise.

Bryan and Peter scouted around the neighborhood and found some interesting rocks for us to stand in front of. The temperature hovered around freezing, so everyone wore coats until the moment before we took pictures, then scurried back into them as quickly as possible. After staying outside as long as we could stand, we trooped back in to review the results.

All three men looked very handsome. With the timer determining when the pictures were taken and no actual photographer to hold her attention, Sophie rarely looked at the camera. Poor Phoebe was so cold and grumpy that she has a sour look in most of the shots. I was looking at a leaf above the camera and therefore have an odd, dreamy expression on my face. And being the narcissist that I am, I wanted a do-over. But alas, it was too late in the day for the light we needed.

On Sunday I let the girls wear their Christmas dresses, not because I want to skip Thanksgiving, just because we bought the clothes and I want to get as much use out of them as possible. When Bryan saw that the girls were fancy he suggested that we try again and plan to take pictures after church. I agreed and scurried about making sure the boys coordinated. And lucky us, the temperature was more than twenty degrees warmer than it had been the day before.

We got some pretty good pictures the second time, though we were fighting a mighty wind that was trying to drive us from our stone-wall perch. We discovered a trick for getting Sophie to look at the camera. She loves the song "Happy Birthday" so Bryan found a recording of someone singing "Happy birthday dear Sophie" and played it on his phone. He leaned the phone on the camera and she watched it with great curiosity. 

Both the Saturday and the Sunday session were full of "no" and "stop that" and "I said look at the camera and smile!" but I suppose that's the nature of taking your own pictures.

And now, I will share a few outtakes.

Day one:

We had to watch where we stepped because of the deer droppings. And the bear droppings. Did I mention this is a one minute walk from my house?

Phoebe looks miserable here, but look how cute Sophie is!

"What? You want us to look where?"

Day two:

Why yes, I did wear the same shirt and sweater as the day before. They were still clean. And I made us look Christmasy by adding green to Sophie's red and Phoebe's gold. But mostly, they were ironed and I knew where they were when I needed to get dressed for church on Sunday morning.

This is how Bryan does Movember. Also, wind!

Mom and Dad are camera ready. Kids? Not so much.

After grimacing and staring for most of the pictures, Phoebe remembered how to smile. Of course we had just finished taking pictures of the whole family. That's okay, it's a beautiful smile, no matter when it arrives.