What It Takes

Easter is often thought of as that special day when the whole family puts on their new spring clothes, everyone looks beautiful, and pictures are taken for family and friends to see. It is, in essence, a highly photo-opportunity-rich event. At least that is how it works in the real world. In Odd... things always seem just a bit different. Here is a look at what it took to get this one photo. 

2/21 - win eBay auction for new Easter dresses after grueling hours of searching for, and finding the right ones
3/10 - get dresses in the mail, and try them on to make sure they actually fit
3/20 - ask girlfriend to be prepared to take picture of family when we get to church Sunday morning
3/22 - check dresses to make sure they are clean, pressed, and ready for tomorrow - run out to buy last minute nylons for girls, and slip for Hannah, stop at grocery store to buy fresh salad fixings for Easter dinner - set out everyone's outfit - chat with hubby about the following day
EASTER DAY
7:53am - alarm goes off... hit snooze once
8:01 - up, shower on and getting warm
8:17 - out of shower, baby waking
8:26 - downstairs, semi-dressed, baby changed, now nursing
8:39 - discuss with hubby plan of attack for day, baby still nursing
8:51 - baby still nursing, hubby in shower
8:56 - baby burped, in swing, Leah is awake and already "dressed", start blow drying hair
9:02 - hubby out of shower & waking up rest of kids, hair still drying, curling iron plugged in - Mary insisting on sitting on potty for 7 hours to go potty, Caleb asking 50 million questions, girls wanting to have me make them beautiful immediately
9:07 - hair dry, directing girls (while curling hair) to get their underclothes on, directing hubby on what clothes were picked out for littler people, keeping an eye on Leah
9:10 - curling hair, helping older girls with underclothes, Leah is showing me her new pretty dress
9:14 - curling Bethany's hair, Caleb wants to show me how handsome he is
9:21 - curling Hannah's hair, Mary wants to show me how beautiful she is
9:24 - get Bethany dressed in new Easter dress
9:29 - get Hannah dressed in new Easter dress, list off to hubby what needs to happen with the diaper bag, make adjustments to Hannah's new slip which requires finding two safety pins
9:35 - put make-up on Bethany, and add a "barrel" curl to her hair so it looks how she wants it to look
9:37 - simultaneously work on Bethany's hair and double check that everyone is on track
9:42 - remind Leah that I will put her hair up when I am done with the older girls
9:46 - put make-up on Hannah, clip Bethany's hair out of her eyes
9:51 - throw some make-up on myself
9:53 - put Leah's hair up, check diaper bag
9:55 - load up the van for special Easter brunch at church, drinking homemade chai on the way out the door
10:02 - pull out of driveway, everyone is fed, burped, powdered, cleaned, pressed, combed, perfumed, diapered, and hungry
10:09 - arrive at Bagel Bakery to buy plain bagels so when we get to brunch at church we don't have to worry about there not being food choices for the kids with all their allergies
10:15 - back on the road after changing our order 3 times because they didn't have enough of our first choices to fill our standard order
10:19 - almost to church...
WE FORGOT OUR CAMERA!
10:24 - arrive at church, 30 minutes before service starts and still miss most of the brunch goodies!
10:39 - making small chat with everyone, keeping an eye on all 6 little people running around, making sure dresses stay nice, trying to see if camera in phone will work for a group photo (that's laughable)
11:00 - Resurrection Sunday service starts (It Was Wonderful!)
11:42 - children dismissed for Children's Church and (under pain of death if they soil their clothes) are released from our pew
12:19pm - service dismissed
12:21 - hubby trying to procure a camera from someone to take a picture
12:23 - pick Josiah up from the nursery, check to make sure we have all sippy cups from the 2's and 3's for Leah and Mary
12:29 - hubby finds someone with a camera... but no flash card
12:32 - kids getting hungry we decide we are just going to need to get home and take a picture later when we are at our Aunt's house and who cares if we are in plain clothes... if someone wants a picture of all 8 of us at one time they can take it themselves!
12:37 - loading kids in van, who are breaking down from the constant "go" of the morning (not to mention the constant "go" of the past 3 days with park outings, friends spending the night, birthday parties to attend)
12:41 - finally find the second sippy cup in the church, leave church parking lot with at least 3 kids crying
12:57 - pulling into driveway and get bright idea to have the next door neighbor come over and take our picture really quickly before we put everyone down for naps so they can be sane for an entire afternoon/evening back out of the house
12:59 - next door neighbor taking a nap, but willing to help us out
1:03 - open front door and Leah literally runs upstairs to get in her bed for a nap, Josiah is crying for a nursing, Caleb is upset because we told everyone they were taking a rest before Auntie's and he doesn't think he needs it
1:07 - next door neighbor comes over, show him how to run our camera, set up what might be a good composition, try not to worry about how exhausted everyone is
1:10 - picture taken!
1:13 - bring everyone inside, take off Easter clothes, hang everything up, get everyone in bed, hubby and I change out of our clothes
1:27 - change Josiah, start nursing
1:39 - still nursing, chatting with hubby about the rest of the day, plans to make the salad, needing to get the picture uploaded and on the blog
1:48 - baby done nursing, downloading picture
1:53 - find 2 decent pictures in the ones taken, one looking great of me, one looking great of everyone else
2:06 - working on face swapping the good pic of me into the good pic of everyone else, hubby doing up few dishes
2:35 - hubby outside watering the lawn, still working on face swapping (it was a very unflattering pic of me)
2:51 - finish face swap! Start making salad
3:14 - wake everyone up from their "nap", promise to get back to pic and write post tomorrow, reload diaper bag, change out of pajamas into "nice" play clothes, pile into the van, head out the door for more fun!!!
3/24 - (I won't bore you with the other details of my morning so far, suffice it to say we are busy enough) Write blog to go with picture

And there you have it... what it takes to just "snap" a picture of my family!