this is what happens when you attempt to take family pictures with a self timed camera, a one year old and a puppy

Jen: "Whatever happens, just keep smiling at the camera peeps and no one will know any different.."
Deek: " BAD DOG."
Reese: "He wouldn't ever do that to me right?"
Kita: "SQUIRREL!"

And then you try again, but your puppy looks like the spawn of Satan himself.  Or that she's about to take flight.  I keep waiting for flames to start flying from her ears and mouth.

Finally you give up the 'having our dog in the family picture' idea so you throw a stick as far as you can, yell "FETCH!!!," And pray it takes her longer than the 15 seconds to retrieve. What you can't see is Kita hurtling toward us just a few feet out of this next frame.

That was our one and only shot with everyone even remotely looking at the camera. Deek thinks he looks like he's squeezing me to death, and I think I look like I'm straight out of the class of 2016. It didn't help that our camera died right after we took that last one (Whose the bad mom who forgot to charge the camera beforehand?. Cripes.)

But I guess that's what happens when you're poor and can't afford professional photographers. Never mind the fact that photographers tend to live by other people. I guess it's just the thing to do. Scoff.

And since our town's permanent population is 3, a photographer (heck even anyone with some hands) was a little hard to come by. And so we did the self timed thing with a tripod and got slightly fuzzy pictures with some, shall we say.... personality. And some pretty funny memories.

But we did actually have one picture that I would consider a complete success. Before we attempted to take the family pics Deek snapped this one of me and me gal.

sigh.

She's getting so big....

and such is the the lament of every mother.

Love her.

 Anyway, so that's what happens when you attempt something you probably shouldn't. Maybe we'll try for round two this next week?

Pray for us...


SQUIRREL!!!