Family Pics

Last weekend, my brother Mike came out to Utah from the far off land of Arizona for a short visit. We don't get to see Mike and his wife Lisa very much and we had not yet met their baby girl Morgan. So, I was very excited to have them come out.

Since all the family was going to be together for the first time in a year and a half and because we had four new babies in the family, I tried to set up some family pics. I booked my photographer that I used for my wedding because she did a great job with my wedding and Marie's wedding and Sarah's wedding. Scheduling 8 families for a family pictures is not a lot of fun.

It was difficult to find a time when we could all be together in the time that Mike was here and after about 3 attempts at finding a time, I called it quits and cancelled the pictures. But, my Mom was determined and she called all the siblings, and convinced Mike to come 13 hours earlier and rebooked the photographer.

We all went to the amphitheater in AF for pictures at 6pm on Saturday. I got there first and called the photographer to see where she was at. She said her baby had an ear infection and she had accidentally fallen asleep, but that she would leave right away and be there in 15 minutes. Okay, 15 minutes late.

By 6:15 all 7 of my siblings, their spouses, my parents, 11 children, 4 babies, and 2 fetuses were there, but no photographer. I call again, she is 10 minutes away. 6:30pm, she calls me and asks me where we are, she can't find us. I try to tell her and after a couple of minutes, we both realize, we are not in the same locations. She has gone to the amphitheater in Provo, not AF. She says she will come as quickly as she can. She gets to us by 7pm, an hour late. We were all grumpy, I was just mad, and the kids, who were so cute an hour ago, look in shambles.

Nicole's hair was a mess and it is so difficult to get her to let me do her hair, so redoing it only caused meltdowns, so I had to let it go. I was very disappointed by the photographer. I was going to ask for a discount for being so late, but another sibling insisted that we pay her full price. I would have tried to get 25% knocked off of our price for the principal of the thing. It is just unprofessional to be that late.

While we were waiting, I snapped some pics with my camera because I wasn't about to go home empty handed.

Mike, Lisa, the back of Morgan's head, and fetus. Oh, and you can also see the back of Norm's head.

Sarah and fetus. See, Marie is pointing to it.

My handsome boys!

Nicole before her hair was ruined

Jake and Soren

Even Damon was grumpy, that is when you know it has gone south. This is like the happiest kid I know.

Crying Nicole because she had just had enough.

Nicoel in Daniel's car seat

When the photographer was finally there, pictures went fairly quickly. Because we were not only doing a big group shot, but individual family shots, I was worried that we would not have enough light and we very nearly didn't by the time it was our turn for our little family to have pics, it was 9pm (Nicole's bedtime). I don't know if we got good pics because we haven't gotten them back yet, but I sure hope we did.

I felt really bad because my poor dad had surgery on his back last month and there was just no comfortable place to sit, he was in pain the whole time and it took a LONG time. Plus, the pregnant girls were about ready to eat their whole arms because they were so hungry. We were all suppose to go out to dinner after pictures, but because it took so long, we sent some of the brothers out for pizza. But, it was not comfortable for anyone there. Matt and I thought ahead and packed food for Nicole and ourselves. We are so used to packing food for Nicole everywhere we go because there is a 90% chance that she won't eat the food wherever we are.

So, I will anxiously await to see our first family pics with the kids. We have never done family pics before because we are cheap. I have never even had a professional photo taken of Nicole because I figure that I have a digital camera, I can take pictures all on my own, they just never seem to turn out that well.

Family pics are done though and thank goodness because it was just a nightmarish experience.