Annual Christmas Portrait Misery

One way or another, Christmas Picture Day always turns out to be one of the worst days of the year. The only ones who are genuinely smiling in this picture are Sarah & Clare.

Scott just had a fight with his girlfriend. And no, he's not standing on a box, he's just getting that tall.
Brian and Conor were fighting.
Theresa hates all formal portraits, and started crying the second we told her it was picture day.
The babies only cooperated because we gave them candy canes.
Andy is disgusted with the house and family in general.
I just got finished crying because today I managed to screw up everything I touched.

I guess we're all getting much better at just sucking it up and smiling for the lousy camera, because we don't look like we all hate each other. Boy, the outtakes are something, though. Merry Christmas, one and all!

Crazy Babies

Snapshots of December

We were quite surprised to have Saint Nicholas drop by on his feast day...

Saint Nicholas with Conor, Clare & Theresa

Our television is on a ledge in the corner, and the twins seem to think the closer they can get to VeggieTales, the better...

Natalie, Noelle & Archibald Asparagus

The aftermath of a very messy sock battle...Mom won, of course.

9/10 of our family has been ravaged by the stomach flu for the past two weeks. This has been a common sight in our house recently:

Theresa, Noelle & Natalie passed out on the floor

As soon as we felt a little better (and the rain stopped) Daddy and the healthy ones went to get our tree. They picked a real beauty...Conor & Clare

And had a delightful time decorating it...Noelle

Theresa & Brian

Clare

And every day since then, the twins have been steadily un-decorating every inch they can reach. It's kind of like a reverse Pin The Tail on the Donkey - whatever they can grab is fair game. There's a sparkly silver disco ball just out of their reach, and they are so cute jumping for it, in an annoyingly mischievous kind of way. They haven't gotten it yet...they do know how to drag a stool over, so I imagine it's only a matter of time until they put two and two together. This is what the tree looks like now (and how I suspect it will look from now on).

Video: *WARNING* Not For The Squeamish

You are about to witness a 2-year-old feeding herself. Well, it's not that bad, actually. I just wanted to post this to show my husband (poor sap is at work) Natalie eating Spaghetti-Os with the biggest spoon in the house.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

The Twins' 2 Year Portraits

A few weeks back I posted about my negative experiences at the portrait studio. I am sorry to say that against my instincts, last month I took the babies to have theirs done. There is only one studio within driving distance (starts with 'S' and rhymes with 'beers', which is what I needed after it was over), so my choices were limited. And the results were predictable:

* the same miserable woman was working there (and she was still miserable)
* they made me wait an interminable amount of time
* they wouldn't honor the coupon for both babies
* the pricing tiers were so high that I could only afford portraits for us and the grandparents. Couldn't even afford wallet sizes.

I was concerned with getting inferior results at home, but I just don't care anymore. I'm going to do it at home from now on. It wasn't like she could get them to smile, anyway.

Noelle (refused to smile at all - this feeble half-grin was all she would give us)

Natalie (couldn't wait for her turn, and smiled enough for both of them)

Police lineup practice

How on earth do they stay in business??? They prey upon overly-sentimental parents who just can't bear to part with any image of their precious child. I know, because I used to be one of them. I had many experiences of "Awww, look at her face in this one...and ooooh, I just love this one, and awww, we HAVE to get this one...Let's get the 164 photo package. And all the proofs. And don't forget the keychains. And the photo cd!"

Then time after time we were left with envelopes filled with enough leftover pictures to wallpaper our bathroom. 164 pictures? I don't even have that many friends and family.

Am I the only one this happens to?