Shining Moments

As many of you know we did our family photos on Sunday November 15th at Gardner Village in Midvale. There are many situations that cause me stress, mostly because I have anxiety problems, but this one takes the cake recently. I was worried out of my mind about those photos. Allow me to explain.

It started Friday night. My sister Becca was in town for her classes at the U of U and was staying at our house. Ryan and I had planned on going shopping Friday night to get sweaters for the family. This task alone was keeping me up at night. What color? Should we all have different colors? WHAT? Becca then slapped me in the face and told me to snap-the-hell out of it. (Not really.) But she did suggest the color scheme of blue, green, and brown. And after over an hour at Old Navy, we found sweaters for Ryan, Sera, and myself.

Being at the Old Navy was nearly sending me into a panic attack. And no, I am not kidding. For one thing, I hate being in crowded stores. And second, I was on a very tight deadline for finding outfits for all of us. Third, I was planning on all of us wearing jeans but then I was convinced khakis would look better and I DON’T OWN KHAKIS! (I did have brown slacks though, so it was okay.) And fourth, I had so many opinions other then my own coming in, that it was a little, no A LOT, overwhelming. My sister’s opinion was welcome because I invited her for that reason. Then Ryan wanted to put his two cents in which is okay because they are his pictures too. And the dressing room attendant spoke her mind. And finally Sera was telling us all what she thought. It was a little much for me. I wanted to curl into the fetal position in my dressing room and go to my happy place where it rains gummy bears and snows marshmallows and family pictures turn out flawless with no effort on my part.

So we find 3 of the 4 outfits needed. Gabe still has nothing. Old Navy didn’t have anything green for him to wear. So I decided to let him go naked. No, actually, we drove across the street to the Carter’s store. (I should NEVER be allowed to go into the store unsupervised. I would probably buy everything that fit him. It is all so cute!) And after searching around another crowded store for a few minutes, I find a cute green and brown outfit for him. No we can go home and I can lay in the darkness and unwind my nerves.

Saturday passes and I still have Sunday on my mind. I am so nervous that it is going to be a blizzard and that we won’t be able to get our pictures done. And it has been hard finding a weekend when we have Sera and our photographer has the time. So I am praying to Chione, the goddess of snow, that the snow stops before Sunday. Please don’t let it snow on picture day!

Sunday arrives and I have the butterfly feeling in my stomach. I try to curl my hair, no luck. It doesn’t want to hold a curl. Strike one. I go to fix Sera’s hair. She gets upset because I need to use hair spray. Strike two. Go to put Gabe in his new outfit. I cannot find it. Strike three. I am in meltdown.

I begin searching the house for Gabe’s outfit. I know right where I left it. It was in a plastic bag on the end table in the living room. I know it! But now it is not there. Ryan very kindly starts helping me look. I am tearing apart my bedroom while he searches downstairs. Not there. I check the kid’s room. Not there. I check the bathrooms and the guest room. Still nothing.
I ask Ryan to check the garbage can outside because maybe it got thrown away. He goes out and looks and reports back with nothing. Now I am really panicking. Honestly, I was near tears. I don’t handle these situations well. And the next part of this story will demonstrate this even more.

In a last ditch effort I ask Ryan to check the garbage outside again. He goes outside and I walk to the door to watch him. He opens the lid to the nearly full can and stares into it…just looks. He doesn’t move any bags our shift to see deeper into the can. He simply looked in. (Remember I am admitting fault here!)

I storm outside towards the garbage cans. I ask Ryan to move Sera’s car seat to my car and I will look for Gabe’s outfit. I open the almost full can and begin transferring garbage from the can into our empty can next to it. One by one I remove pieces of garbage until I see it. The bag that holds Gabe’s outfit…and it is covered in pizza sauce. I feel my blood pressure rising. In Ryan’s attempt to clean, he threw away Gabe’s outfit on accident. And then when I asked him to look for the outfit, he just opened the can and looked inside. He didn’t actually look deeper into the can. I was seeing red at that point.

I pick up the bag covered in sauce and hold it up so Ryan can see. (He was still trying to get Sera’s car seat in.) His eyes got wide and his face fell a little. He knows he made a mistake. And I, in a brilliant moment of maturity, throw the sauce-covered bag at his car windshield. That’s right…threw it at his car. I didn’t even say anything I just threw it.

I don’t tell this story to make Ryan look bad. He made a mistake, which we all do. And felt bad and apologized for it. I tell this story to show how stupid I acted. Who throws garbage at their husband’s car when he simply made a mistake? Someone who apparently needs to work on how she handles stress.

Turns out the outfit made it out with only a tiny spot of sauce on the back of the fleece jacket. I was able to wipe it off and no one knew. Ryan swore that Gabe smelled like a garbage can though. I couldn’t smell it and neither could my mom. I think poor Ryan just felt so guilty about what happened. And that is my fault! I should have handled it much better than I did. But no, I threw a hissy fit. So I am publicly apologizing to Ryan right now. I AM SORRY I ACTED LIKE A TWO-YEAR-OLD!

When we got to Gardner Village the pictures went well. It wasn’t snowing. We made it on time. We had on our appropriate outfits and no one smelled like trash. It was a good day. And honestly, we had fun. I love getting my pictures taken. It makes me feel special. And I have wanted to get pictures of Gabe and Sera together while Gabe is still a baby. And since Sera often moves with little warning, we took the opportunity to get our family pictures done.
I think the turned out amazing! We used the same photographer that took our wedding day photos. Her name is Courtney Ryan and she does a GREAT job at a really affordable price. If anyone is interested in her info, drop me a line and I will give it to you. We have used her services twice and we have not been disappointed.

When all was said and done the day went well. And I cannot wait to get the prints done and hung up in my living room. Pictures are the one thing I would be sure to grab in a house fire (after my family of course.) because they are such an important part of my past. Gabe and Sera will never be this little again and with these picture, I will always be able to remember it perfectly. And with kids this cute, who wouldn’t take as many pictures as possible?