Just Itchin'

...to tell you about our family photo shoot yesterday!

First of all, just let me say it took me almost a year to finally accomplish this, more if you count how long "call Kim" was on my to-do list before I finally approached her last November. Kim is a friend from church, a mom of three who has been easing into the photography business. After we talked last year, I decided we'd wait for warmer weather and do a spring outdoor session, but as you know, our lives were derailed for most of the spring and summer with the prospect of selling our house.

So a few weeks ago, I finally got around to calling Kim again, and we set the date for yesterday. With my hat thrown over the fence, so to speak, I had to follow through on what seems to me one of the most daunting tasks facing the mother of a large family: getting everyone ready for a family picture.

I don't know why I find this so overwhelming; perhaps it's because currently, I'm the hairstylist for five of my six children. I don't even know how I got this job for my sons, but they prefer my shaggy, "don't quite know what I'm doing" cut to the too-neat, too-short look they're afraid of getting anywhere else. I have to say I'm starting to get the hang of it, but it still takes me forever. I usually spread their haircuts out so that there's always one son looking like he's desperately in need. (Sometimes that's their favorite stage....)

So it seemed like a tall order to get them all trimmed up--and Chicklet5 as well--within the same week or so, and in fact, I didn't quite accomplish it, I realized when we got there: The son who had formerly looked the neatest and shortest for his Charlotte's Web audition weeks ago, who I thought was all done, now looked awfully shaggy compared to his recently-trimmed brothers! I trimmed up his bangs a bit right there at the park, with some sewing scissors our photographer provided, and had to call it good enough.

The other stressful part of the deal, to me, is figuring out what 8 people should wear to look reasonably put-together for a picture--an autumn outdoor picture to boot. Shorts? Jeans? Short sleeves? Long sleeves? Fortunately, the weather was beautiful, and most of us had solid shorts and shirts in either blue or brown; I only had to run out and shop for two of us.

The day of, it was a scramble trying to get the last haircut done and everyone bathed or showered and their hair styled and their clothes ironed (oops, coulda done that the day before)
and makeup applied and shoes located and out the door by 3:45. (Just for the record, I never--and I mean never--iron under ordinary circumstances.)

It felt like the accomplishment of the year!

The shoot itself was so fun--we did family photos, then individuals and then groups, like all the boys and all the girls. (I'll post a link to the proofs when they appear on her website.) It was a beautiful setting, and our kids had such fun running around on the lush, pristine grass and climbing among the large rocks in one area.

AND, while they weren't having their pictures taken, Bantams 12 & 8 decided to go exploring in the nearby woods, taking the two youngest with them...

And today, they're all breaking out in poison oak rashes!

Good thing we got those pictures taken when we did.

Today, I've spent the whole day washing arms and legs and dotting them with Calamine lotion, not to mention washing clothes, shoes, sheets and sleeping bags and applying several more rounds of Calamine. (Yes, the middle two Bantams routinely sleep in their sleeping bags--in three sleeping bags, actually. No, I can't explain.)

I also took Bantam16 to the orthodontist for his final appointment before his braces come off in two weeks--yea!!! In the car, I glanced at his face and noticed that when shaving with his electric razor, which he doesn't often bother to do, he had missed a patch of long scraggly beard hair on the side of his neck. I was so glad he had thought of shaving before the picture, but felt absolutely appalled at the thought that for our NEXT family picture, I'll need to add "facial hair" to my list of hair-related worries!

I'm so glad we did it, but it's going to be awhile before I'm up for doing it again....