Overload

Get ready for a major overload of pictures.  But first -- here are some highlights and lowlights of the last week in which I survived half of it without Scott.  That lucky dog got to go to BYU for a few days worth of recruiting for P&G, leaving early Wednesday morning -- after the infamous night of no sleep {on my part} -- and getting back Saturday afternoon.  We survived.  Although I did experience a couple more nights of kid awakenings on my own.  Truth be told, though, the hardest part of each of these days was during the morning crunch to get the kids off to school.  And Scott's never even here for that anyway.  The kids were so kind to take turns with their complete and total meltdowns, so that each morning I only had one super hard kid to deal with and four regular hard ones.  Ethan's mad day resulted in a broken broom, a metal mail organizer being ripped off the wall, and a super late drop-off at school.  The children also suffered a consequence of no electronics for pretty much the whole time Scott was gone, due to a lack of chores being done along with general disobedience and sassy-ness around the house.  It was a lot of fun.

By Friday evening we were ALL ready for the week to be done.  I knew the kids had been waiting for the last month for the world premiere of Girl vs. Monster on Disney, so I decided to have mercy on them and gave them extra time after school to get all their chores done so they could still have their movie night.  The end result?  A clean house, happy kids, AND a cooperative Ethan willing to pose for his birthday photo shoot so long as he didn't have to change his clothes, shower, or get his hair cut first.  Winning!  {Duh.}  Hahahaha.

I've been looking up a lot tips and tricks lately for taking pictures of kids.  Let's just say that Ethan and I do not have a great track record when it comes to taking his birthday portrait.  The usual outcome involves a lot of yelling and pleading on my part, tears on his, and a lot of frustration and lack of fun all around.  After finding a couple of ideas online, I realized that my approach all this time has been wrong.  Go figure.  Hahahaha.  SO -- for this shoot I employed my newly Pinterested skills and embarked on the BEST PHOTO SHOOT with Ethan EVER.  Seriously.  EVER.  In a nutshell, I tried to make it fun rather than a chore.  {Hmmmmm.  Maybe I should try that with actual chores for the kids as well...}  I kept a constant stream of conversation going while I snapped away, I told him each and every pose and shot he gave me was great and awesome {even if it wasn't}, I asked him silly questions and gave him silly poses to do, and I let him take a look at some of the pictures as I was going to show him how great they were coming out.  It really worked!  This was the most cooperative he has EVER been for pictures and it was definitely the most enjoyable mother-son photo shoot we've ever experienced.  Here are some of my faves and the back story behind each of them:

I asked Ethan if he thought his teacher was pretty and this is the look I got.  She is really young AND pretty, just for the record.  Hahaha.

 This is a classic Ethan face.  A kind of go-to look for him, if you will.

 After asking him what girls he thought were cute in his class, he bent over in nervous laughter and avoided answering the question.

 When I asked Ethan if he ever daydreamed in class, he told me that sometimes he spaces out like Jane.  Who knew?  I told him to give me his best spaced out face and this is what I got. 

 "Give me your best Diary of a Wimpy Kid face!"

 "Give me your best crazy face!" is what I said, and maniacal laughter is what I got.  Hahaha.

I told him to think "cowabunga, dude!" in his head but not to say it out loud.  I think he thought that was the weirdest thing ever and then I had to explain that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were very popular back in the day. 

I'm pretty sure this is the one I'll put in a frame on the mantle.  This is Ethan.

 For the last three shots I told him to come up with his own idea of what to do, tell me the idea he was going with, and then hit it.  This was one of his poses and I can't for the life of me remember what it's supposed to be.  Hahaha.  It's kind of a cute face, though, don't you think?

 For his very last frame, he went with his every morning {absolutely obnoxious and crazy loud} yell of "LOAD UUUUUUUU-UUUUUUUP!!!!"

And just in case you were wondering where everyone else was while the picture-taking was going on, wonder no more.  We are seriously the most white trash family in our neighborhood. 

After Ethan was done with his pictures, Grace wanted in on the action.  After all, her birthday is coming up in just a couple of weeks and she needed to practice, of course. Since there was still some daylight left, and it wasn't quite time for their movie to start, I humored her request and took some "practice" shots of the almost-birthday-girl.  She's kind of a riot as her poses will prove. 

 This is one of the many sides to Grace.

 She has a lot of feelings.

 Looking at this picture reminds me so much of pictures of her as a baby and toddler.  Something about how big her eyes are and the way her cheeks still have a bit of that baby softness to them. 

 She was seriously killing me with her poses.

 Work it, girl!

 I don't know what the deal is with the hand to the face move.

 Grace unraveled.  I kind of love this picture of her.

Oh Grace.  Such an interesting child.  My favorite line of the night came just a while later when they were about to start the movie and I saw her heading to the kitchen and heard her say, "I need a fork to scratch my foot, 'cause my finger's not working."  Hahahaha.

And that was our Friday night!  I made the mistake {as we do EVERY single week} of letting them stay up a little later after the movie was over to watch one more show.  In this case, it was the series premiere of "Dog with a Blog."   The extra late night coupled with a regular early morning the next day resulted in a melting down Sophie all morning long.  I managed to hold off the fits for a little bit by walking down to the park with the 4 younger ones, but that only worked for so long.  I did manage to take a few more pictures of Alex for his 1 year birthday picture while we were there, and I think I'm going to just have to call it good.  He's already 14 months old now and I think these pictures are about as good as it's going to get!  He is a hard one to get to stay still and look at the camera.  I guess I'll have to do some more Pinteresting to find some tips on how to deal with that.

 I love this cute little face.

 Okay, I love ALL his cute little faces.

 He kind of has a bit of a shark look in this one, don't you think?

 This one's a classic Alex laughing face.

 And probably the one I'll put on the mantle.  Although I really hate that picnic table cutting into his head in the background.

Once we got back from the park, we killed a little more time by going to the store to pick up some birthday presents and when we got back I forced Sophie to lay down on her bed and take a nap because she was so incredibly out of control.  Surprisingly, she actually went to sleep, and we enjoyed a little bit of peace and quiet before Scott FINALLY got home from his trip.  It was a joyous reunion all around.  Thank goodness he will not be traveling again for the rest of the year!  And that, my friends, is a wrap.