A Picture Really Does Tell A Thousand Words

Recently I was asked to become a Featured Blogger on http://www.mom2momkc.com/  . In my world this is a pretty awesome occurrence. I had been submitting blogs on that site for awhile, as well as being an active member since the site went up two years ago. I was sick when I was asked and wanted a few days to think about it. Once my fever broke, my response was a calm and professional " Hell to the Yeah!!" I will be blogging there every Friday at noon.

My elation was short lived. The site admin wanted a picture of me and the kids. Fortunately my kitchen is the same color blue as the backgrounds of the other Featured Bloggers so I thought Brian could take the shot at our convenience.

Nothing about this was convenient. It was another example of one of those ideas that sounds good in my head, but when it comes time to do it, an abysmal failure. It is also a prime example of how what is just beyond the frame of a picture, what you don't see when you look at the smiling faces, tells the true story.

Back in the day I ran a small chain of portrait studios. I used to say " we only need one". Sure, there might be 100 proofs of the same collection of people, but how many will someone actually print out? One. One out of 100 has to be as close to perfect as you can get. One out of 100 has to show the image you have in your head of how your family looks.  Let me start with our One.

This is the first one we took, checking the lighting to make sure there were no shadows.

Noah isn't smiling because I just had to trim his hair out of his eyes. Noah isn't dressed because I have not ironed his shirt yet. Luke and Brian were at Luke's basketball practice. This was after the dinner dishes were cleaned up, Beks and I had taken showers and done our hair, and I had rearranged the kitchen so that we could get enough plain wall to pose all of us.

When the boys came home, we put on nice shirts and squeezed into our little corner. Those are cats on my jammies. It's a joke. I am not a cat person.

Ever smell an 11 year old after a day at school and 2 hrs of basketball practice? Ever smell one who then decides to let loose a forced giganto toot just as he sits down next to you in tight quarters? I am smiling because I pinched him.

 

 Whole series had to be eliminated due to one person. Usually Luke. Here he decided to haul out his Square Smile.

                        This is nice, Noah's Lookie My Boogie Face and Luke's Square Smile.

Beks seems fairly consistant.. but I was cramping up, Luke was getting tired of Daddy telling " No Square Smile!" and of course, someone has to blink. I might add, that Brian taking a picture out of focus with an auto focus camera is really an awesome trick.

He's 4.  4 is not a quiet age. ' nuff said.

Nor is 4 a great age to be asked to sit still and look forward for nearly an hour.

 That's right. 120 frames, and three times we sat back down after looking at a collection where " we surely got ONE", and didn't. Three times where Luke ate something messy as Brian and I uploaded and eliminated poses. Three times putting Noah's shirt back on. The One was frame #81.

 It was past Noah's bedtime, heck, it was nearly my bedtime before we decided that we had one. One frame that showed the image that we have of  most of our family. The Composed Mom,  The Pretty Teen girl, The Loving Tween boy and the Sweet preschooler.

The rest of the session told the truth. And now I share it with you.