That could've gone better

Fred has been wanting us to get a family portrait done for the last year.We haven't ever done a 'real' family portrait yet with all ten kids. Seriously. Its not that I don't want to, it just never seems to work out. So, like I said, he's been pushing me these few months especially, but even that hasn't turned out well. First, we actually contacted someone and set an appointment, but weather destroyed that chance. Then my niece offered to do one, but we decided that since we had no indoor space available, we had to wait until Spring for any reasonable chance of a good photo.

In the meantime, our church is putting together a new photo directory, and they have been signing families up to get a photo done. I kinda avoided the idea all together, until the church ladies grabbed me outside of the parish one Sunday. Next thing you know, we had an appointment. When I told Fred, he was super happy because at least we were getting into the ball park of getting a decent family photo.

I mapped out the date and time to fit into the rest of my schedule accordingly. So, the photo was supposed to be tonight at 5 pm, only it wasn't.

It was actually LAST NIGHT at 5 and I realized this somewhere  yesterday early afternoon. But yesterday wasn't a good day around here.

Yesterday I wasn't even slightly prepared for a photo shoot.

I woke up needing to go immediately to a first med for an allergic reaction I was having to hair dye. This threw my entire day off kilter. I got home  at 11am and rushed through the school lessons my younger kids , finishing in just enough time to pack my bags and teach at Sacred Heart Tutorials like I do every Monday and Wednesday, closing the opportunity even further to plan and prepare. Pushing thoughts of photos back out of my head for the next 2 hours I taught my class. Arriving home at 3:20 I looked around and saw I had no, and I do mean NO clean clothes for the girls. At this point I mildly despaired. I actually considered just kicking back and having some coffee and letting us all show us for a REALSIES type photo-op. Then I saw that Mary still had jelly on her face from a donut and Sophie had some stuck in her  very , overly, lengthy bangs, and I snapped back to my senses.

 JP and I  dropped Matt at the barber since his hair was actually longer than the girls, and then headed to the thrift shop in town knowing at least their clothes would be cleaner than the ones laying all over my laundry room floor. I found three white shirts, not matching, but correctly sized for the girls and drove home. Boys were sent scurrying at 4:10 to find khakis and a dress shirt preferably in some hue of blue. I then clipped the girls bangs and washed their faces, and managed to dress them in the most unflatteringly plain clothes they have ever worn in their lives.

Stop. Don't ask about shoes. On good days we struggle with shoes. Remember this was simply not a good day. Shoes just didn't factor into this equation for anyone.

I texted Fred and Peter who still were not home and told them we were getting dangerously close to arrival time.  I also woke Andrew who had worked the night shift and was finally able to catch a few Zzzz's.

I proceeded to iron 3 pairs of pants, and the front of 4 shirts ( cause I didn't have time to do the back).
At 4:40 Fred walked through the door from work, as he always does, covered in a layer of grime, dust, wood chips, and dirt- he promptly headed for the shower. Peter arrived five minutes later and did the same.

At 4:45 I took my favorite blue scarf and cut it into 3 pieces, completely destroying it in the process, and tied the pieces around the girls necks so they had at least a splash of color to make them look human. At 4:50 Fred called for the kids to get into the van.

At this point I had no clothes picked out, no make-up on, and my hair, oh  gosh, never-mind. Peter headed to the car in front of me. I manged to be in the car at 4:55 with a hair brush and a make up bag in my lap.

We arrived on time, but slightly out of breath for our session. We were then posed and prodded and pushed together for the next half hour, into various configurations. Afterwards we were escorted to the large monitor to view how the photos came out.  I was so relieved it was over and then....

Fred gasped, (and it wasn't a good gasp). Looking at the pictures we realized one of our little darlings PURPOSELY made hideous-Jim-Carrey-like faces for most of the pictures. I wont draw any attention to the child  lest he be completely ashamed

 (MATTHEW)

 but half, HALF, of the photos needed to be immediately discarded. Fred let out an expletive in the parish hall before he fully regained his composure.

Not so sure we will have the courage to get back in that ring anytime soon.