Shake it like a Polaroid picture.

I took my littles and Uriah on an adventure last week to have our monthly family picture taken.  I decided at the beginning of the year that we were going to have one family picture a month if it killed me.  This month it almost did.  Uriah and I had both worked all day and Abby was told to be ready when we got home.  The humidity levels had been on the rise all day, as evidenced by the amount of curl in Finn's hair and the tightness of my rings on my finger.  Some thunder clouds were rolling in, but I was determined to get this month's family photo in a place that was not our home (the previous 4 months have been taken in our house, sue me for wanting something different.).  As it turns out, every day, Finn and I walk past this little stretch of state land while we take our walk and every day I think about who perfect it would be for some family pictures.  I had a vision, I just needed my family to cooperate.

We parked the car and got onto the walking trail for the 5 or so minutes it took us to walk down to my "perfect" location.  You'd think I asked them to jog for all of the "How much farther?" I got.  I didn't, by the way, ask them to jog.  Running in flip-flops is scary, even I know that.  Finn apparently didn't take much of a nap at school because he was clingy and didn't want to stand still at all and I think maybe the grass tickled his legs a bit because he'd lift them really high like he was marching.  He'd say "smile" but then he wouldn't actually, you know, smile and we ended up having to cut our picture taking short because he decided to crap his pants (Potty training is next on my list of things to accomplish.).  Abby is at that awkward stage where she's all arms and legs and doesn't know what to do with herself.  Sometimes she smiles this great, lovely smile that reaches all the way to her eyes, then other times she clams up.  Sometimes she looks totally natural and then the next second, she looks like she's trying out for a TeenVogue photo shoot.  And Uriah was distracted with work stuff.

Next time: diaper bag comes with us.  Phones stay at home.  Abby practices smiling in the mirror prior to the photos.  And I bring a (big) flask of gin.