One of the best things about Christmas is coming up with that perfect gift you know the recipient is going to love. I had an idea in October that I really wanted to do for my parents but I needed a few weeks to let it roll around in my brain for awhile. My brother, Dave, was the first one I told.
The last picture my parents had of the grand kids was 4 years old.
There have been 3 more added to the family since that time. You can see where I am going with this...the idea was great. The execution was the challenge.
Dave and Heather live in Las Vegas. They were coming for Thanksgiving but that left us a 3 day window to coordinate every one's schedules. Oh, yeah, not 3 normal days either. It was 3 busy and crazy holiday days. Dave volunteered to take the pictures. I volunteered to do all of the arranging. There are 4 of us that have kids and amazingly enough we came up with a time pretty easily...10:00 am the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Coming up with the color scheme was more difficult:). We settled on gray, black, and turquoise.
As seems to be the case whenever something of this nature is going better than expected, Murphy's Law kicks in! The annual Thanksgiving rabbit hunt that used to happen on Thanksgiving morning but just this year got moved to the Saturday before Thanksgiving(great idea, we were all for it!) got snowed out. What makes this even more ironic is the fact that for the last 2 months we have gotten practically NO snow. So, the ONE time of this entire winter season we got snow just happened to be the very thing that messed with our well thought out plans!! My dad and my brother Dallas (neither being in the "know" of our picture plans) rescheduled the snowed out Thanksgiving hunt to the Saturday morning after Thanksgiving. Perfect! I tried to tell my dad we had scheduled Dave to take our family pictures that morning (technically that was part of the plan!) but that wasn't a good enough reason for him to pick a different Saturday. My boys would have been super upset with me if I made them stay home from the hunt for pictures. Can you imagine? My dad wouldn't have understood why I made them stay home for some silly family pictures that could be taken anytime! So, you see the dilemma!! I knew surprise pictures was a really crazy idea!
With our time crunch over a busy weekend it was virtually impossible to come up with another time that would work. So, our last option was Thanksgiving night. We had to get my parents out of the house early enough that we could work with the little ones before they had to go to bed. "Thanks for coming mom and dad but it's getting really late! Don't let the door hit you in the butt on the way out!" As it turns out, my dad was really sick on Thanksgiving. What a horrible day to be sick! We all felt so bad for him but it did make them leaving a little easier. Oh, and by the way, dad was also too sick to go hunting on Saturday...GRRRR!
Thanksgiving night was not the ideal time to take pictures. Mason did not nap because of all of the excitement of the day. The 1-year-olds were very tired as well. It made for an interesting photo shoot!
The last picture my parents had of the grand kids was 4 years old.
There have been 3 more added to the family since that time. You can see where I am going with this...the idea was great. The execution was the challenge.
Dave and Heather live in Las Vegas. They were coming for Thanksgiving but that left us a 3 day window to coordinate every one's schedules. Oh, yeah, not 3 normal days either. It was 3 busy and crazy holiday days. Dave volunteered to take the pictures. I volunteered to do all of the arranging. There are 4 of us that have kids and amazingly enough we came up with a time pretty easily...10:00 am the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Coming up with the color scheme was more difficult:). We settled on gray, black, and turquoise.
As seems to be the case whenever something of this nature is going better than expected, Murphy's Law kicks in! The annual Thanksgiving rabbit hunt that used to happen on Thanksgiving morning but just this year got moved to the Saturday before Thanksgiving(great idea, we were all for it!) got snowed out. What makes this even more ironic is the fact that for the last 2 months we have gotten practically NO snow. So, the ONE time of this entire winter season we got snow just happened to be the very thing that messed with our well thought out plans!! My dad and my brother Dallas (neither being in the "know" of our picture plans) rescheduled the snowed out Thanksgiving hunt to the Saturday morning after Thanksgiving. Perfect! I tried to tell my dad we had scheduled Dave to take our family pictures that morning (technically that was part of the plan!) but that wasn't a good enough reason for him to pick a different Saturday. My boys would have been super upset with me if I made them stay home from the hunt for pictures. Can you imagine? My dad wouldn't have understood why I made them stay home for some silly family pictures that could be taken anytime! So, you see the dilemma!! I knew surprise pictures was a really crazy idea!
With our time crunch over a busy weekend it was virtually impossible to come up with another time that would work. So, our last option was Thanksgiving night. We had to get my parents out of the house early enough that we could work with the little ones before they had to go to bed. "Thanks for coming mom and dad but it's getting really late! Don't let the door hit you in the butt on the way out!" As it turns out, my dad was really sick on Thanksgiving. What a horrible day to be sick! We all felt so bad for him but it did make them leaving a little easier. Oh, and by the way, dad was also too sick to go hunting on Saturday...GRRRR!
Thanksgiving night was not the ideal time to take pictures. Mason did not nap because of all of the excitement of the day. The 1-year-olds were very tired as well. It made for an interesting photo shoot!
We did get this one picture where no one was crying and everyone was looking forward! It is now in a super pretty frame displayed on Grandma and Grandpa's living room piano.
And, the pictures of all of the kids grouped by families turned out really great! No one but us will ever know we had to Photoshop out the reflections in the fireplace glass of Mason picking his nose and my brother holding the camera!
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| My boys. Douglas (16) Stockton (11) Mason (3) |
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| Kelly's kids. Wilson (9) Jordan (7) Sarah (1) |
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| Emily's kids. Parker (8) Charity (6) Bridger (1) |
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| Dave's boys. Jaxon (12) Matthew (9) |
The kids all did a really good job not talking about the pictures for an entire month and on Christmas Day my parents were very surprised!
I made a book with many of the "flawed" pictures we captured that night but the more I worked with and looked at those pictures, the more I fell in love with them. We captured REAL moments of kids being kids. There were tears, boredom, frustration, silliness, smiles and laughter. As crazy as it was it turned out to be a wonderful thing! How I love this family of mine:).
Two more grand kids are on the way! One is a girl and the other one is yet to be determined. Just so there are no rumors I will let you know that they belong to my two brothers who are having their very firsts! I am so excited for Dallas and Riza and Cameron and Elyse! I have already told my mom this but I have decided she is in charge of the next round of pictures and I want Grandma and Grandpa to be in them this time. Should we mark our calendars now?
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