photo shoot

As I get older I continue to relate more and more to my mom. As a teenager I thought everything she said and did was stupid. Little did I know that practically everything she said and did was in my best interest. Becoming a mom has helped clarify this for me. I call her constantly to admit that I am becoming more like her every day. Sometimes I hear words come out of my mouth and wonder if my mom has somehow managed to jump inside my body temporarily or something. Last night I called her to let her know that I have NO IDEA how she managed to send photo cards out every year for Christmas with a picture of my brothers and I. She somehow got the three of us dressed up, got us to sit still, then pretend that we were all loving and peaceful little monsters---all with a regular 35 mm camera! She used up one roll of film and hoped for the best. And the pictures always turned out good, well, except for the random outfits and awful hairstyles of mine from about 5th-8th grade that ruined the shot.

The admiration that I began feeling for my mom's old photo shoots started last night after we tried taking the girs' picture. I haven't had much luck in the past with Delaney, so I don't know why I was thinking it'd be any easier with two?!? It was just awful! Delaney actually cooperated for the most part. She FINALLY started smiling for the camera. She's never done well with smiling on command for pictures. Her "new" smile looks somewhat mischievous. It's cute. So much better than her old fake looking happy look. Makenna is always smiling and is so photogenic, but she didn't want to be still at all. We tried our photo shoot before dinner, then after dinner. Didn't matter. It wasn't working. We ended up getting cute shots of the girls individually, which I'm going to use, but nothing turned out even remotely well of the two of them together, which I'm also going to use. I figure it's only right to share reality with our friends and family.

I'm not going to share any of the ones I'm using, but here are a few bloopers. You can practically see them falling apart near the end...