The JOY of pictures

So - today was spring picture day at Aaron's school. I thought it would be a great idea to get the kids dressed up in spring'ish clothes and get a picture of them all together.

ARGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I gave Bryan a haircut (which ended up being the only part of this adventure that turned out reasonable well), got Caleb, Katrina and Bryan bathed and dressed, and picked out some matching clothes for Aaron to change into. (We all know he'd never be able to keep something clean for a whole 4 hours of school.) As I was just starting to dry Katrina's hair, Aaron called from school. Apparently his nose connected with someone's head and he was hurting in a bad way... (It only bled a little.) It was his teacher's recommendation that he should come home for the rest of the day. I'm thinking - "great, what about pictures??? I just got everyone dressed!" I did a rush job on Katrina's hair - not great, but passable, put Bryan's newly washed sweater vest on, and buckled everyone in the van.

About 71/2 minutes later we got to the school, and somehow Bryan had gotten dirty, wet, slimy, black marks all over the front of his sweater!!! Don't ask me how, I have NO IDEA! I checked Aaron out of class, made sure he could still smile and that his nose had stopped bleeding, then had him change his clothes. I took off Bryan's sweater and turned it around backwards so it looked like a round neck sweater instead of a v-neck. I figured that if anyone seeing the photo happened to think the sweater was on backwards, I am sure they would instantly think, "It couldn't really be, what kind of mom would have pictures taken with a sweater on backwards? Of course it must be on right."

ARGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The pictures were being taken in the cafeteria, and as soon as the smell of food hit Katrina, she lost it. She was instantly "starving!" We got situated for the pictures, with Aaron sitting down holding Caleb and the other 2 standing next to them. (It looked very cute for about 1 second) At this point it went from bad to worse.

ARGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

First (and middle and last) Bryan wouldn't smile, then started pulling down his pants, then kept moving out of the camera lenses' range, etc... the longer it took, the more whiny and more unhappy Katrina became. When it was all said and done and we quit trying, I looked through the photos. (thank heaven for digital cameras) This was my commentary, "Delete, delete, not great but at least everyone is in the frame and looking at the camera, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete..." you get the idea. We ended up going with the "not great but at least everyone is in the frame and looking at the camera" option. (Since it was the ONLY "non-delete")

ARGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ARGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ARGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Maybe in a couple weeks I'll try it again with a "real" photographer who is used to getting four kids to all look at the camera at the same time. Then again, I'm pretty worn out with today's whole picture episode, so I think I'll just wait until it's time to get this year's Christmas card photo.

And now, I NEED A NAP!