Family Portraits

My sis-in-law, Susan, recently redid some home decorating in her house.  One of the walls in her house is full of family photos and was on the list for remodeling.  I received a phone call from her after the painting job was completed.  She wanted to know if we had ever had a family portrait taken.  Then she wanted to know if we had any pictures with the four of us together that she could put on her family wall as everyone else on the wall had family portraits.'

I have explained my aversion to having my picture taken on numerous occasions on this blog (thanks Kelly for pointing that out) so there is no point in beating that dead horse.  But that is the main reason why we have never had a family portrait done.  That and my husband would think paying for something like that was ridiculous when we could have Kelly take a photo of us and digitally make it as good.  So I set about trying to find something for the wall.

The one family photo that we actually had taken was at my sis-in-law's wedding.  Everyone in the family had the wedding photograph take our picture.  I love the picture.  I think it is a very good picture of me despite my typical deer-in-the-headlights look, and it is a family portrait, although Darcy was in my womb at the time and of course isn't viewable.  I suggested Susan cut out a head shot of Darcy and stick it on my stomach.  She wasn't really amused.

I searched through my box of photographs labeled, "Madison & Darcy".  I will admit to getting sidetracked along the way looking at my girls.  I have tons of pictures of the two girls together, and oh, my gosh how adorable are these two?

 

But that wasn't what Susan was looking for so I continued on.  I have a few pictures like the family one above; sans Darcy.  The only photos I could find of the four of us were all taken, at different times, in Tarpon Springs on the sponge docks, which I found very odd.

This was on a boat when my Auntie Marilyn came to visit us.  It was very cold then and even colder on the boat ride.  I didn't really think this picture was what Susan was looking for either since Darcy is apparently asleep or just camera shy.

This picture is the same trip as the above photo, and apparently Auntie Marilyn thought a family photo was in order as she kept snapping.  That shirt I'm wearing is a maternity shirt that was easy to manipulate when breastfeeding, so of course I hate this picture of me.  Well, and Tom isn't exactly posing.  I moved on.

This picture too is in Tarpon Springs, and low and behold it was taken either by Susan or my brother as that is the trip we took with them.  Madison remembers this trip as the time a lizard bit Austin.  I thought this a fine picture as it also has Connie in it too so we kill two birds with one stone, but alas, it is quite old and well, my kids don't look like that anymore.

I turned to the digital pictures and began perusing the last few years in search of a photo that Susan would okay and hang on her wall.  I found a really good one from 2010:

And really Kelly is Tom's third wife behind myself and Susan, and Gabby thinks Kelly is her Aunt, and Kelly is photogenic so I thought this the perfect photo.  Tom agreed it was a good one and worthy of the wall.  Who doesn't love a family at Disney?

This was the only other family photo that I could find in the archives, and it was my Christmas card a few years back.  Tom  hated it because it was blurry and there were other creatures people in it.  He doesn't approve of it for the wall.

Susan demanded that we have Kelly photograph our family for the wall and soon.  Later that night we went to dinner with Kelly on the beach, and afterwards we walked out on the sand to watch the sun go down.  Kelly was talking about how everyone looked great in this light and how it was the perfect picture taking light.  My conversation and order from Susan flashed in my head and I told Kelly to take a family portrait in the "great light".  But as we assembled on the beach we realized that like the family portrait way in the beginning of this blog there was no Darcy.  She was off with a friend out of town.  So Kelly took this instead:

But we don't know all those people who insisted in being in the photo so I don't think it will be worthy of the wall.  Plus I didn't suck in my stomach enough and I have my cheesy grin in place, and so I don't like it.  Sigh.  Maybe it is time to have a real family portrait taken before everyone leaves the nest.  I'm working on it Susan...I promise.