The following is an actual account of what can happen when you decide to get family photos done and then don’t prepare (at all) for the photo shoot. Read and be glad you’re not me:
- Book a time to get photos done and then do nothing to prepare. Phone the day before and reschedule for the following week.
- Have good intentions but don’t actually do anything about them in the intervening week.
- Sleep in the day of the shoot and have a leisurely morning.
- Look at the clock at 12:46 and realize the session is in a little more than an hour and you’re not prepared.
- Have a minor panic attack.
- Dash up the stairs and dive into the shower, running through your shampoo-conditioner-face-soaping routine in record time.
- Holler at your husband to come upstairs and look at the shirts you’re thinking of putting people in and choose a shirt for himself.
- Realize the shirt you planned to wear has a stain on it.
- Realize you don’t have any shirts for your four-year-old that don’t have characters or quirky designs on them.
- Realize your husband really doesn’t have anything he might want to wear in photos.
- Have a minor panic attack.
- Agree that your husband will leave now and take the four-year-old so they can buy something to wear on the way.
- Curse yourself for not making time to get your eyebrows threaded before picture day.
- Grab the tweezers and give yourself the fastest eyebrow fix-up you can manage.
- Dry your hair and attempt to straighten it without burning yourself.
- Burn yourself.
- Curse yourself for not getting a trim so you don’t have the beginnings of a mullet that like to stick straight out at the back of your hairline.
- Have a minor panic attack.
- Decide your hair will have to be good enough as is.
- Pull out your makeup and hope like hell you can still put it on and look halfway normal, considering you haven’t really worn makeup since before your baby was born.
- Pull on your pre-pregnancy jeans and rejoice that at least they (more or less) fit.
- In response to his text, grab your husband’s razor so he can shave when you get there.
- Put your chosen top in a bag and throw on another one so your adrenaline-fuelled postpartum sweats don’t ruin the one you plan to wear in the pictures.
- Thank the darling baby for sleeping through this whole fiasco instead of waking up and wanting to be fed.
- Leave the house rather impressed with yourself for getting ready and leaving in time to get there without being late.
- Arrive at the location and discover there’s no parking anywhere close and you’ve forgotten to bring the stroller so will have to carry the bucket seat as well as the diaper bag AND the bag stashed with all the picture-related stuff you packed at the last minute.
And that was all before we got there. We did manage to be on time and we all had something to wear, although we had to bribe Connor with ice cream in order to wear the shirt we’d chosen and not the one with the wolf wearing ski goggles.
And then:
Ethan woke up when we got there and wanted to be fed, which was better than if he had woken up during the string of minor panic attacks. Except that he then proceeded to spit up throughout the photo shoot, causing us to have to pause to clean him off (and ourselves, in a few instances).
I decided not to wear the shirt I had planned because it made me look too pudgy (thank you, postpartum body). Luckily the one I had thrown on before leaving home worked, except that I had to make sure it didn’t get pulled down, resulting in not terribly family-friendly family pictures. (Maybe I should have taken advantage of the opportunity to have photographic evidence of my current cleavage since normally I don’t have any at all…)
Connor got bored with the picture taking and started being highly uncooperative. This did not surprise me in the least. When the photographer encouraged him to give me a hug while she was shooting he wrapped his arms around my neck and tried to strangle me. And then he licked my arm.
When we took Ethan’s diaper off for his naked baby photos, he peed all over the floor. And then he pooped. Twice. (Once on Rich and once on me.) It was about then we remembered we had forgotten to refill the wipes container in the diaper bag. (Bless the photographer for giving us a package of theirs and letting us take it with us afterwards.)
In the end, we got through it and had a good laugh. And the photos turned out quite well – there are some I will definitely be glad to have despite the drama involved in getting them done. Here’s a sneak peek at one of them:
That shoot was one we had planned because we wanted some newborn shots of Ethan, which we didn’t do with Connor.
And we’re doing another family photo shoot next week. Because we’re crazy.
Actually, no. There is a good reason. As part of my ambassador role with Sears – The Baby’s Room we will be doing a session with Sears Portrait Studio for some holiday cards. I have two things to confess about this:
- We’ve never done photo cards before and I’m a little wary of having my mug on someone’s mantle (though I love it when we get photo cards from friends).
- I actually do think we might be crazy to think about doing this twice in a two-week period.
In any case, we’re doing it, and I’m so glad we’ll have these pictures of the boys when they’re little. And the great thing is Sears has kindly outfitted the boys, so we won’t have the same clothing issue this time! (Check out some of their kids’ dress wear if you need clothes for your own holiday photos. And some of the girls’ dresses are seriously cute.)
I might even get my hair trimmed before we go in.
Does that sound like a ton of fun? Do you want to have your own family photo session at Sears Portrait Studio? I’m going to give you a chance to win one because I like to share the chaos memory-making.
Enter using the Rafflecopter form below to win a coupon for a session at Sears Portrait Studio, which includes a FREE photo session PLUS 10 free greeting cards. The winner will also receive a second coupon to share with a family or friend so they can do family photos for the holidays too. (Open only to Canadian residents.)
Disclosure: I am part of the Sears – The Baby’s Room Ambassador program with Mom Central Canada and I receive special perks as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on this blog are my own.
