When Grayson was about six months old, we were given a gift certificate at Christmastime for a family photo session with a real, grown-up, fancy photographer. But that following year we moved and it took me a moment or four months to locate the certificate. Turns out I had stapled it to the family calendar so I wouldn't lose it. Ha. By then it had been about a year and we'd discovered we were expecting Jack. Ward Photography very nicely agreed to let us hold off using the certificate for another six months so we could capture life as a family of four. We picked a date in early July, when Jack would be about a month old and I remember it seemed so far off in the distance! It was strange (in a good way) to have something scheduled on the calendar for our family of four during the last half of my pregnancy.
The day arrived! As is always the case, summer nights in Virginia mean the likelihood of thunderstorms... July '06 outdoor wedding anyone? But they usually pass over pretty quickly, and always make for beautiful light in the sky afterwards. July '06 wedding anyone? Wendy and Jason Ward met us at my dad's house and spent a couple of hours snapping away after the storm. Within minutes of officially starting, Grayson slipped on a damp slate walkway and fell face-first, completely destroying both his pants and his shirt with lots of dirt and a wee bit of blood. But we rallied, putting him in something from the diaper bag, and the Wards somehow got fantastic shots of our family that we will always treasure.
Given our delight with last year's session, doing it again this summer was an easy choice. But that might have been the only easy part... Cue Mommy planning everyone's outfits weeks in advance, buying the menfolk all new shirts, and readying the boys' cute little khaki pants but dear Daddy running around five minutes after we were supposed to leave looking for the shoes he wore last year out in the storage building. Cue, also last minute, Mom rejecting Dad's chosen (athletic?!?!) pants for having stains on the front. Cue the thunderstorm, cue the kid falling on slate in a mud puddle I swear wasn't there five seconds ago, cue the dirty, dirty pants. Cue the photographer being an awesome guy about it all, mentioning every once in a while that, as a dad himself, he understands. And that when he sees perfectly angelic kids at wedding shoots sometimes he wonders if they've been drugged.
He certainly knows our sweet things weren't drugged. At least not sedated. Grayson was just... wild. And Jack who had all of two teeth to date, well we'd like to officially welcome the remaining chompers that chose family picture day to *start* their painful arrival process. (If they go the route of the first two, they should be fully here by Christmas.) He was soothed by his pacifier between shots, which turned out to also be convenient for keeping chicken poop he found and mistook for play-dough out of his mouth. All in all, it was a fun afternoon and we can't wait to see what comes back from it!
Here's Ward Photography's sneak peek for us, and good evidence if we ever have to testify to that teething... :)
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