pictures are in!

Well here are the pictures from my picture fun post- I hope you enjoy!

I think I forgot to mention in that post, that before we even left for the place, I had to wrestle both kids into their outfits. Charlotte was pulling one arm out of her shirt and screaming while I tried to put her other arm in. This went on for awhile, I was beginning to think I was dressing a spider! James cried about not wanting to get dressed, which is iroonic since on the days when we stay in pjs all day he always says he wants to get dressed and go somewhere!!

When I look at these pictures I am just happy that we got some half way decent shots.I dont think there is one where everyone is smiling or happy at the same time, but at least they were not screaming. I did not have a good photographer either and almost asked them to pay me for the pictures because I had done so much work!

Bitter sweet times

This week marks the anniversary of my oldest brothers death and it is hitting me harder this year as I am so emotionally torn in missing him and being so blessed with my complete family.

I can still remember standing at the front of the church with my parents and brother Peter, with Rick's casket right in front of us and my father saying- "this is the last time the five of us will be together." It breaks my heart to think this, muchless write this.

I have always been apart of a family of 5, but it got harder after he passed, because when you meet new people they ask if you have siblings and it was so hard to decide if I say I had 2 brothers, then when they ask where they are, I have to get into too much detail and sadness. If I leave him out of the conversation, my heart hurts and I feel terrible for acting like he never existed. I still miss him teribly and am so sad that he is not here to meet my husband or torment my children like he did to me when I was little.

This year Sophia joined us to complete our family, and though I will never forget any of the members of my orginal family of 5, it is bitter sweet that God has answered my prayers with my own family with 3 precious children. I am incredibly blessed and happy to be a complete family of 5. Right now, I am still getting used to saying that comfortably, but I am hoping that over time I will be able to say it without thinking about all that saying means to me, but to say it proudly knowing that he knows he has not been forgotten or replaced.

I wish I could post an old school photo of what I am calling the original 5 of us, but I do not even own a picture of all 5 of us. I will have to steal a copy of one next time I am at my parents house. Even though my kids do not like organized pictures I will take as many as I can of my family of 5 because every one of them is so precious to me. I will drag them kicking and screaming to get photos of us as a family so that if anything should happen to them, I will always have those moments to look back on. (Please note the second picture above is me dragging the two older kids to the picture location while relatives laughed at me, I won't mention who was laughing the most, but her name rhymes with weather) Unfortunately, in most of our family photos, not all of us look as happy to be a part of this family! Good luck to me convincing everyone else in this family how to smile in a picture!

picture fun!

Today I ventured out to get pictures take of the kids together for a holiday card/ announcement of sophia! Wow, was that a lot of work. First I had to pick out what each kid was going to wear- which is not easy for me. I finally found the outfits for us to wear, then I had to get each kid in their outfit. As soon as I mentioned it was for pictures, they were not very willing to let me get them dressed!!

I had a 10:50 appointment time, which I made at 9:15 am so I had about one hour to get everyone, including me dressed and in the car! We pulled in the parking lot at 10:47 am which is not too bad and only had to wait about 10 minutes to start getting photographed. The guy who was taking our pictures was not that great with kids and seemed frustrated with us before the first picture. he maybe needs to look into another profession because we were his first clients of the day and other than not smiling much and not sitting where he wanted them to my kids were not that bad. No one really screamed which was nice, but it seemed to take forever to get them to get in position.

Then I had to load up all 3 kids, run over to Wendy's to get them lunch, go back, unload all 3 kids and set up a picnic lunch on the floor so I could sit with the photographer and do picture selection. Surprisingly it went pretty well since both kids were occupied with lunch until the fought over the frosty.

Luckily we were able to find a few pictures that would work. I then had to reload everyone and get them home for naps and organize pictures. I decided to send out some Christmas cards to get them out to everyone. I will post them on here and on facebook after people get them in the mail- I dont want to ruin the surprise for those who are getting them in the mail.

Before Sophia, it had only been a couple months of be being used to managing 2 kids and now I have 3! Sophia is not a problem other than being one more thing to carry and one more kid to feed! It is hard to hold hands with the other 2 when carrying the baby carrier and diaper bag which I had pretty much started leaving in the car since these two dont really need to be changed very often.

Luckily I only do the portrait innovations thing 2ce a year, I am already looking forward to the next time.