Christmas Picture

We’ve sent out a Christmas picture with our Christmas cards for the last several years and I get pretty worked up about pictures. I love pictures and I want to have nice pictures. But of course this is the first year with three boys. The first obstacle this year was getting everyone together. I like to do it the weekend of Thanksgiving after we get the tree up. This year the Friday after was when the boys made Christmas cookies with their cousins and Tim’s parents so they were gone (well Eli and Noah, Simon’s too little to make cookies), then Saturday Tim was gone doing stuff at the rentals and Sunday he was gone all day at rehearsal for our church’s Christmas musical. Then he has been working late or nights and it’s been crazy.

So Tuesday, even though it is dress rehearsal week they had the night off, and my sister was home early so I determined it was family picture night. I had to cut Tim’s hair before he would be in the picture and Simon was grumpy so I put Simon down for a nap and cut Tim’s hair. Then we got the boys ready and got Simon up from his nap. By this time it’s about bedtime, which, as a mom, I know is a recipe for disaster, but we press on. Noah keeps playing with his hair (he sucks his thumb and twirls his hair when he’s tired) and Tim is getting very frustrated in re-combing it and yells at Noah, and Noah cries. I’m trying to get him to stop crying so his face isn’t all red and yucky. We get him calmed down and Eli is mad that he has to stand; he wants to sit. Then he takes his shoes off and Noah wants his off too.

Meanwhile I’m starting to lose my patience since I know the clock is ticking; it’s time for Simon to nurse and he won’t last much longer. Tim and I each take a little one and my sister starts taking pictures. I had told her to take some without the flash and some with the flash, but in trying to get everyone at least facing the camera at the same time we forgot about the flash. Then Simon had enough, so we stopped and hoped we took a good one. I quickly got the boys in bed and nursed Simon. My sister uploaded the pictures to the computer so we could see them better, and not a single one of them was clear; since we hadn’t use the flash the shutter speed was slow and blurred all the pictures. With all of Tim’s rehearsals we aren’t going to be able to take a picture again until at least Saturday, then I still have to order the pictures…..I’m not happy.

While Simon takes a break from nursing I’m complaining to Tim and we decide to do re-takes, right now, which means pulling the boys out of bed. So I give him Simon and run up and see if they are still awake. I ask them if they would get up and do pictures again. Eli said, “No, I’m pretty tired.” Noah said, “I can,” and slid right out of bed, that Noah, he pulls through for me in a pinch! Then Eli jumped up and I had them back in clothes in less than five minutes, and we used the flash this time and got several nice pictures, and here’s the one we picked:


Then I took the big boys back upstairs and got them in their jammies and back in bed in just a couple of minutes and went and finished nursing Simon. Ahh… Don’t we have a beautiful herd of boys?