Family Photo

We Mormons can be a peculiar crowd if you aren't up on all our quirks and lingo. We seem to have a thing with matching or coordinating when it comes to dressing our families for photos or church. I don't know how I got sucked into becoming part of this matching phenomenon but bait, hook, and sinker........I'm in.


I think it all started when I had our second daughter and I suddenly felt the need to coordinate outfits, at least with the girls. Which means I couldn't very well buy clothing for Emma and not get the same thing for Halle and if they were matching then the rest of us couldn't very well clash with them. Slowly, this has spread throughout our family so we look like something out of the town of Stepford every Sunday as we leave for church. In my defense, I am definitely not the only one going with a clothing theme each week......(you know who you are, you fellow matchers) I just can't wear a red dress when the rest of my family is going with a brown scheme or have my son wear something that doesn't work with the girls' dresses, or let my husband wear a black suit when it is clearly the week for earth tones.


This was brought to my attention recently as my in-laws are leaving on a 3 year mission assignment in a couple of weeks and as such, there is a need for us all to have a family photo. We, as the women of the family and wardrobe specialists, were putting our heads together to try to come up with a color scheme for our pics and as we discussed the options of casual, formal, blacks/whites, pastels, polos, dresses, ties, patterns/no patterns, and one thing became clear. This was a big deal. A very big deal. I mean, you never know if one color variant will throw off the whole picture and keep everyone from looking their very best. I wish I had a picture of the look on our friend, Katie's face, as she listened in horror to the extent of our plans. When she asked why we were even worrying about colors and not just letting everyone show up in their Sunday best, we all turned to her with blank looks. She didn't get it. Not at all.


I cannot tell you how much time and energy has gone into the planning for what we are going to wear. It is a lot. We have planned for every possibility and have decided to base all of our colors on the little girls' dresses so that we can perfectly flow and blend. I know that everyone has worked very hard shopping for the right clothes and I just had to share my grand experience this week as I looked for some dresses for the little girls formal picture. I decided to take all four kids to Costco since they all enjoy eating lunch there, probably because the XL hotdogs, pizza, and churros are so healthy. It had been a crazy morning already and as a result, I left the house pony-tailed and make-up free dressed in an old KU t-shirt, flip-flops, and very unflattering knit bermudas. I should have listened to my inner voice telling me to reconsider wearing this outfit or even taking this trip in the first place. But I didn't. We made it there, got our food and in order to expedite the trip, I loaded the kids into the cart so I could shop while they were eating. So, we were halfway through the store when I ran into Trav's high school girlfriend shopping in her cute little tank top with her hair nicely done and her kids all perfectly dressed. (BTW, I tend to run into this ex-girlfriend frequently......too frequently) This is the reason I should have listened to my inner voice. I was in all my glory looking way hot with my four kids loaded up into one cart with ketchup smeared ear to ear. I said hello and then proceeded to run into her in every aisle until we both checked out. I just love it when things like this happen....its a real self esteem booster. I did find some cute dresses. They just didn't make the cut. But they should have. Especially with all the hard work and embarrassment that went into finding them.

The pictures are tomorrow morning, the outfits are all laid out....except for the dress I need to make tonight for my little niece, Isabelle, for the "casual" picture. It is going to be an epic experience with 11 adults,10 kids, and two sets of clothes but darn it, we are all going to smile and look perfect so Nana and Papa will have a great picture to hang on their wall for the next three years. I will post some of the pictures when we get them back.

Speaking of family photos, I found this gem and thought I would share some cheesiness.
This was my family about 7 years ago in what we thought was a good idea at the time....a family pyramid, overalls, and lots of different shades of red.