Perfect Shot

Christmas is around the corner and that means it’s time to take the annual photo for the Christmas cards. A strange phenomenon happens when you go from one to two or to a family. It is no longer appropriate to send Christmas cards out that do not have a family picture on the front. Now this phenomenon reverses itself when the kids go off to college. At that point no one wants to see two old people wishing them a Happy Holiday.

This year I thought I would try a different approach. I want to have three pictures on the card one of Teagan, one of Kaitlyn, and one of Hubby and me. That way I could capture each one of us perfectly. Group photos in the past have been so hard to get everyone to smile and look at the same time. By the time it was over my frustration was so high it was almost not worth it. Except I must fulfill the duties for the Christmas card vogue.

I started the day by showering the bears, blow drying their hair and trying to curl the longer pieces. My curling iron is the crappiest ever made and it’s older than dirt. Plus the bears have never had their hair “done” before. This made for no fun for Mommy. Not wanting the normal frustration of the Christmas card incident I quickly gave up and decided they were cute enough. After I put them in their pink girly outfits from their Aunt Lori I let them loose into the yard so I could commence snapping away and get a lovely sunshine happy shot.

I’m optimistic.

I let them run around and play with flowers and sticks and I clicked away. After looking through a few of the shots I felt I had a good one of Kaitlyn but not of Teagan. So I started focusing my attention on her. This just makes her wild.

Anyone have pets? You know how you can clap or make a strange noise and the animal will look at you? Kids don’t work as easily. I made noises, talked to her, pleaded with her, lied that I had a lizard, but Teagan would not hold eye contact with me. “Teagan, look at me.” “I am.” As she is clearly looking at a tree, the sky, the ground, anything and everything but me. “Teagan, look at me!” “I am looking at you!” I have no idea what she is looking at but if it was me I wouldn’t have been turning so red. At this point I have enough avant garde pictures of her to fill a book and a few pictures of her looking at me with strange faces of her holding up “dinosaur claw” for the camera.

Apparently the group shot isn’t the problem, Teagan is.

First Real Bear

This is the first real bear on Land of Bears.

We went camping to Vogel State Park. After we finished setting up camp Hubby was going to wipe down when he called me over. As a second thought he add "Leave the girls." Meandering down the road was this little guy. Later on we saw signs that apparently he had been roaming the park for awhile looking for food from lazy campers. He looked to be around two maybe three and not healthy. I'm not sure if he was sick or malnourished.

Now this was Hubby's first bear but it was my second. Therefore my instinct took over and I walked hurriedly after the bear to get a photo. Intelligence stopped me from getting closer so sorry about the photo but if I hadn't been holding my Taco Bell drink cup I probably would have gotten a lot closer. Much to my Husbands dismay. Wouldn't my Mom be so proud! Okay that was complete sarcasm. If you knew my Mother you would be rolling on the floor. We didn't even tell her we saw the bear until after we got back home. She would have been beside herself for days until she got our call.

That was the only time we saw the bear. However I was definitely more on edge than normal. Now I've camped for years and there has always been the caution for bears but I had never spotted one. I was a little neurotic when it came to food smells at camp. We always put our food up and in the vehicles but if the girls got extra messy while eating I even put their clothes in the car. Just being extra careful made me feel a little better but I wish I wasn't a night time pottier because that was stressful.