Black and White Wednesday - "It Never Turns Out As Planned"

Gosh, has it really been an entire week since I have posted?

Between adjusting to life with a new little one, just returning to work, and Christmas only days away, I am failing miserably at keeping up around here.

I feel horrible because I don't think I have even taken a picture of Reagan or any of the kids in almost two weeks. Reagan is changing so quickly and I really need to make sure that I keep taking photos even though I am back at work.

Most of the time, I can squeeze in a little photoshoot over the weekend, but this weekend, I didn't even have time for that. We had two things that were at the top of our "to do" list. Addressing our Christmas Cards and putting up our Christmas Tree. I am happy to say that both are done....FINALLY! Those Christmas Cards seem to hang over my head every year, but this year was extra stressful.

Usually at the very least, I have outfits in mind or purchased by Halloween, but because of the trip to China and not really knowing Reagan's size, I was totally unprepared and rushing around at the last minute to find something for all of them to wear.

It was the weekend before Thanksgiving when I finally got everything together and knew it was going to be now or never and I had to stop wasting time and being so picky with the outfits. It was really one of the last weekends that we had warmish weather and I knew if I waited any longer, I would be forced to do something indoors, which I wanted to avoid at all costs.

That Saturday morning, I prepared both Nick and Sarah and asked them to please cooperate because I knew I was going to have my work cut out for me with Reagan.

It took me almost two hours to get everyone dressed and everything packed up and ready to head out. You forget all the things you might need with a one year old. I had even packed little noisemaker toys, stuffed animals, and rattles so that I could use them to get Reagan's attention.

We arrived at the park and I start unloading the car and I see out of the corner of my eye Sarah starting to skip around the car. I walked over to her and told her that she should not skip or run beacuse if she falls, she will ruin her outfit. Cream leggings, cream skirt. I know, what was I thinking?

I had Reagan and my big bag of tricks loaded up in the stroller and we found a spot to try a couple of pictures. Reagan starts crying becuase she does not want Nick to hold her, she wants me. I knew this was not going to be easy..... I took about 5 frames and said to the kids, this is not working, let's try something else where we can put Reagan in a different position.

I turn around and start walking with the stroller when I hear "SPLAT"

Sarah decided to RUN down the hill and fell down on gravel. As soon as I heard the sound, I knew it was not going to be good. She stands up and the knees of her pants are black and basically RUINED. She was fine, thank goodness. Luckily the leggings were made out of a sweater material and were super thick and spared her knees of anything more than a few scratches.

UGH!! I don't know who wanted to cry more, her or me! The thought of packing it up and going home and having to do this all over again was not appealing to me, so I had to think fast.

I got her calmed down and cleaned up and told her we were going to go back to the car to fix her pants. We turned them around backwards so all the dirt was in the back and you would not see it from the front.

It worked and we made our second attempt to try to get something.

I was losing my patience and was really just not in the photography zone whatsoever. I just kept snapping in hopes of getting something. Looking back, I probably should have packed it up the minute she fell, but I just wanted to get it over with.

I did get a few usable shots. They are not what I wanted or what I had planned in my head and they are in no way creative, but they are my kids and I think they are pretty darn cute(Biased I know)so I guess that is all that matters!!


Next week I will post our actual Christmas Card, but for today, I thought I would post one of our outtakes in black and white because it perfectly captured the mood that afternoon! I think the only person who did not shed a tear was Nick. He did a wonderful job of trying to get the girls to cooperate and also gave his Mom some moral support when she needed it:)