Pictures

I've been thinking a lot about pictures lately. A picture is worth a thousand words, so if I utilized more pictures, I might be more inspired to post a blog more often with just a few words and a picture. The problem is, I'm not very good at taking pictures. I've been very spoiled that both my parents have always showed up to every baseball game, school play, or track meet with a camera. They take much better pictures than I do, and I'm usually too busy cheering to remember to take pictures anyway. Still, you would think I could do a better job at making pictures a priority.

This family picture, for example, was taken over Christmas at my parents' home in Omaha. My mom said all she wanted for Christmas was a family picture. We didn't even need to wear formal clothes. Her only requests were that the kids wear nothing with cartoon images or words and that we try to stick to non-clashing colors. I set aside what I considered respectable clothes for the road-trip to Omaha. I managed to get my two younger kids into polo shirts. The teenager and I compromised and agreed he could wear his nicest Nike t-shirt. I had set out a white blouse for myself that I thought would balance out our color scheme. Of course, when we got to Omaha and began digging through our suitcases for our picture attire, my blouse was not there. I had managed to pack everyone's picture clothes but my own.

So here I am in my clashing green shirt, looking slightly crazy in the eyes. I'm sure there was some horsing around in the form of silly faces and comments from my boys to account for that look, but I seem to have blocked out the specifics. Anyway, that was the best picture we managed to get that day. I guess that says it all. So, if a picture says a thousand words, this one says that parenting three boys has rid me of some of my perfectionist tendencies or any semblance of organization. It also says that my mom really loves houseplants. Maybe that's not a thousand words. In the case of this blog, it's more like 373.