A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

It's a rare occurrence that Presleigh and Sydney get to hang out with all of their cousins at once (in fact, it usually only happens once a year). So when both of my sisters-in-law and their kiddos came to visit a couple of weeks ago, we crammed as many activities as humanly possible in a week. The purpose of this was two-fold: 1) to keep the kids as busy as possible 2) to make the most of the time we all had together. One of these memorable experiences involved taking all five kids to get their picture taken together. I don't know whose brilliant idea it was (oh alright, I take the blame) but somewhere in the back of my mind I thought, 'Surely it can't be that hard to get two 3 year olds, two 1 year olds, and a 5 month old to sit still and smile for a few pictures.' (I now realize that I was insane and delusional at the time). Anyway, at 9 am on a Wednesday morning Tracey, Kassie, and I adventured out with five kids in tow for what is now one of the funniest experiences ever.

First, we walk into the portrait studio and I immediately see the expression on the face of the photographer go from 'Alright, let's take some pictures!' to 'You want them in a picture all at once?' to 'You've got to be kidding me.' God bless that poor girl for she didn't know what she was walking into when she came in to work that day. As soon as Presleigh got even close to the camera, she threw a fit. I'm talking full-out-screaming, tears-streaming-down-the-face fit. And Dane, the other 1 year old, followed suit immediately. Collin and Keatyn, the two 3 year olds, did pretty well. Keatyn gladly sat front and center with a big smile on her face. Collin took a little more convincing, but soon cooperated. And Sydney, poor Sydney, she didn't know what was going on. She was just sitting in a chair with her eyes as big as saucers for she had never experienced anything so loud in all her 5 months of life. And the attempt to get one, just one, good picture began. And ended. That's right, we got two, count them TWO, pictures before the screaming and crying led us to wave the white flag and surrender. We got dominated.

And so, below is the picture of all the cousins that we chose to get prints of, and I must say, it's better than any picture I could have imagined. It shows the true essence of what these kids are all about. And the experience, as painfully frustrating as it was, was totally worth it.

Morning Surprise

One of my favorite parts of the day comes around 7:30 every morning when my oldest munchkin gets up from a good night's rest. I'm usually first greeted on the monitor with a sparkling rendition of the ABC's or if I'm lucky, a precise spelling of the first half of her name. This morning, though, was a special morning. Presleigh decided to sleep in until about 8:30! This would usually come as a surprise to me, but considering the constant activity of the last week (posts about these activities to come) I knew eventually she would need to catch up on some R&R. So around 8:30, I hear some chattering on the monitor and decided to go get P up and going for the day. What happened next still makes me laugh. It's not what happened, necessarily, but what I saw when I opened the door. My munchkin was standing up in her crib, awaiting for my arrival, looking like this:
And then I was instantly reminded of the band Flock Of Seagulls. Need I say more?