I Should Be the Favorite Child

All my mom asked for last year for Christmas was a family picture of each of her kids' families.  We had 3 grandchildren born last year and 3born the year and a half before that, and a wedding, so we all needed to update our family pictures anyway. We had a year-- ONE YEAR--to get my mom what she wanted for Christmas.

Fast forward to December 5, 2013. I still had not taken our family pictures. I hadn't even made an appointment with a photographer. If you hadn't guessed, it's hard to get an appointment with a photographer in December. Now, I do have an actual reason for not taking them earlier. I wanted to lose weight this year. Did I? Eh...I lost some, but not all that I wanted to. But in the last family picture we had done, Sabre was 9 years old. Yep, that's what we had hanging in our house in December 2013. So family pictures were a necessity, fat or not.

I managed to get an appointment for December 14, eleven days before Christmas.  The photographer took over 100 pictures. Guess how many of the whole family turned out? One. Uno. Yep. One. Thor was in a bad mood that afternoon. No amount of candy, promises, funny faces, threats, or stuffed animals was going to improve the situation. Take a look at some of the outtakes. 

Gary trying to hold him from running off:

Thor resisting all our attempts to get him to hold still and look at the camera:

Gary trying to talk to Thor and keep him from getting up:

Thor refusing to smile or open his eyes:

Thor refusing to engage with any of us at all:

All of us trying to talk to Thor at once while he tries to jump from Gary's shoulders:

We finally let him go see the horses across the street:

Thor is fearless. He wasn't afraid to pet them and was ready to leap over the fence and walk amongst them. We had to stop him from  crawling under this fence.

Then all Thor could do is stare across the street at the horses (while Gary tried to tell him to smile):

Check out Thor's "cartoon" feet running in the air:

Seriously?! I just need one cute picture for my mother!! Instead I got this:

At least Sabre looks beautiful!

And she loves her momma!

At this point, all we could do is laugh...and give up.

BUT....we got ONE! One picture where we are all looking at the camera, not talking to Thor, and smiling:

Success!!! I managed to order a print and have it delivered straight to my mom. It didn't make it until December 27,  but it made it in time for the Christmas season!

I thought surely I was the last child to get my family picture to my mom. But no, I was the FIRST. Yes, you heard that right. Out of nine siblings I was the first one to deliver my family picture. I was the only child to get my mom what she wanted for Christmas even after she gave us a year to do it. No wonder I'm the favorite. No wonder this blog is "1st of 9." Gauntlet is thrown down siblings. Get mom your family pictures. (Preferably before next Christmas.)