Take 2, or 3 or 395

 Everyone loves family pictures, right?  Of course,  That is if you are the one getting to LOOK at them, rather than be IN them....or even TAKE them!

My kids have grown up with a mom who insisted on a family group picture at least once a year.  Sometimes it happened more often.  Kids all together, Occasion, Photo time.  Like it or not. I have to give them credit- there honestly wasn't generally TOO much grumbling.  Usually I did it at our summer or fall annual Church gathering because it was when we were all together & generally dressed up. The older the kids got, the more "testy" a few of them were. (or maybe that was just the SIL's that we added to the group... haha!)   Really the hardest thing was when we were away from home was to get everyone all together in the same place at the same time.  Some of the scenarios from those times are hilarious to remember.  Not so much at the time!

We have one child who shall remain nameless who always SEEMED to hear and understand the directions of time and place to gather, but for some reason when it came down to the time, he was the one missing.
It would go something like this:

To child 1-#(??) depending on the year. "Family pictures Sunday at 9 a.m. in the yard of the little house on top of the hill". Make sure you are there in plenty of time.  And please don't let the whole convention know! We don't need a huge audience.  We're enough of a spectacle as it is.
Sorry, I didn't really say that part...I just thought it....haha!
"Child X, make sure you remind child xx. Did you tell A?  make sure B knows.  YES mom...."

9 a.m. 3/4 of children are there.  look around where is ??.  "She's coming, she just has to do....."  o.k.  Where is ??  He's still getting dressed.  Does he know he's suppose to be here NOW?  Yes, but he....."
So everyone is there but Ryan.  WHERE is Ryan?  "Well, last time I saw him, he was....  Do you want me to go get him?  Yes!  off she goes, comes back.  Everyone else kind of wanders around...Later years SIL grumbles loudly. One year we finally found Ryan in a friends trailer, another year we never did find him in time for photos.  I left a space where he would have stood, later when the errant child appeared I dragged him by his ears to the spot, took a picture of him standing there & cut & pasted him in.  (Years before digital magic!)
We went thru all sorts of scenarios like getting time & place figured out, then someone decided they thought a different place would be better & told 1/2 the group. We did learn to have an non-family member go chase down missing family members because otherwise it took twice as long & there were more people missing than just the one!

Ah well, crazy funny memories.  I have a whole book of yearly (or more often) family pictures.  Some good, some bad, some hilarious but all precious.  I'm not sorry I insisted on it even if it was a pain!

So that brings me to the point of this post (I know--I could have skipped all that & cut right to the chase, right?)

Family Pictures.
Our last one was 5 years ago before Laura went oversees.  There was 19 of us.  Two SIL's & 3 grandchildren included.  A nice easy bunch to coordinate clothes & time.  Uh huh!  One child couldn't come home.  Oh well, no big deal.  Photographer daughter took a picture of him later and photo-shopped him in.  It worked.
Fast forward.  Last fall when Laura came back to the states I said "Family picture sometime this year!"
Last year was a year of new babies.  One in March, in August, in October and December.  We were all together except for Jana at Thanksgiving, and still had one more baby due soon, so we planned in the spring.
Now granted, I was totally aware that someone else could end up with a baby on the way, but it did seem kind of silly to do pictures so close to babies being born.

Plans were made for Memorial day weekend.  All 12 siblings were going to make it. This means:
2Parents+12 children+6spouses+12grandchildren=32people. A few more than last time.
The planning and shopping for clothes to try to coordinate would make a blogpost in itself. 
 Incidentally, in the meantime of waiting on the right time for this picture, grandchild #13 is on it's way!  We're not waiting on it tho.


 I was hoping to be able to have a weekend at the farm, pictures would have been fun here but that couldn't happen with Ryan's work schedule.  WAIT A MINUTE....It was RYAN messing things up again!

We all went to Sidney for the weekend.  For the first time in 10 years I had all 12 of our kids together.
I've told it before, I'll say it again.  My kids rarely fought.  They didn't this weekend either.  They are a very lovely special group of kids and they have given us 12 incredibly sweet grandchildren.  So far!  Yes, we think the spouses are pretty nice too.  Most of the time anyway!
 edit--I thought so until I saw the pictures anyway--haha!

It didn't work out to do the pictures Sat. afternoon like we'd planned, because of the weather, NOT because of a missing child--
I have to say that Ryan totally came thru.  He's redeemed himself! He lives 80 miles away from Sidney and works nights/weekends too.  He came down Sat to spend some time with us, back home to work the night shift, then back on Sun. morning so we could be together for Fellowship with ALL our kids, slept after lunch until picture time, showed up with sweet wife & baby girl, tolerated our 395 (more or less) of photos and then left to go home & back to work again.
Kids do grow up!  I think he's related to his Father actually!
Oops, guess I  named the nameless.  I won't pick on you anymore Ryan, we'll just blame it on the middle child syndrome o.k.?

In the meantime while Lynisha edit's the "395" pictures to try to get something that is not too far out there to hang on our walls I thought it would be fun to post a few outtakes along with a couple of my favorites that we already posted on facebook.

For your viewing pleasure;

 Why would you want to stand where you were asked and look at the camera while you were waiting on the photographer to get everyone "ELSE" in place?

 And if we can't get 20 adults to stay in place and all look at the camera, how on earth would you expect 12 little ones under the age of 8? Oh yeah, and when ask the others to move out of the background?  Well, surely just going further away will take care of that, right?

 So this is what happens when you say "you can do a goofy pose"--Notice the one who knows "goofy" will end up being public so is careful how she looks!  Of course then there's one of them that doesn't  care if goofy ends up being blogged, it's more the norm for her anyway!

 Yes sir, we all get along & like to spend time together--

*SMILE* for the camera!

 These were the most fun really!  Of course it may be because I got to take the picture instead of being in it! haha!

Look close--you'll see why this is another out-take.