School pictures

School pictures are too expensive for too little. For $30 I can get a photo of unknown quality and dubious background (why neon green and red?!) of my kid that takes all of 10 seconds to take, that for generations has been a source of cultural jokes. In the years we got copies of the school photos, we got two that were actually pictures we liked.
So a couple years ago I decided I wasn't spending money on a product I couldn't even see first, and most likely wasn't that great. I had to bribe the kids to let me take their picture the first year, and it was oh so painful. I guess maybe the $30 for someone else to do it wasn't such a bad deal. But we've done it a couple times now, and though RD gets slumped shoulders and gives out an involuntary defeated sigh when I announce I want to do them, (and he's the cooperative one), this year didn't turn out too bad. I think the kids are getting better at this! And doing it before it got freezing cold probably helps. These guys are growing up!

We started off with bribes of course; an extra scoop of ice cream for cooperation. We were going to just do the boys (take it easy) but the girls wanted the bribe too. So I took the opportunity to get some shots. I had taken some earlier of Grace, so she just picked a favorite dress, and of course Aubree immediately wanted a dress too... not what I would have picked, but you gotta pick the battles. The boys moaned and groaned about me offering two choices of shirts (Reese hates long sleeve, and somehow anything beside tshirts are SO uncomfortable) and requiring pants that weren't sportsy. We went to the church nearby (quick is the key) and tried to keep 3 kids from going crazy while getting one to make a real smile. In case you haven't been around kids lately, that's really hard. Unfortunately some of the best smile shots got overexposed, but miracle of miracle i got one of Reese actually laughing/smiling. i haven't gotten a shot of that since kindergarten i think. Cameron and Aubree have the same face-big, eyes shut smile; I love that smile. It ended up being hard to pick just one picture of each, so even with my very basic camera knowledge, it was cheaper and more successful than picking blue/grey/red/tacky backgrounds from the school packet. Woohoo!

His laugh!!! Hooray! Thanks RD!

 those smiles just make he happy. so so happy. aren't those beautiful smiles?!