Oh yeah, you touched our lives alright!

Our church recently had a photography company (cough*LifeTouch*cough) come out and take photos of church members for an all-new church directory. I was super excited to have a new family photo taken, especially since we'd get the 8x10, plus a directory for free! Well, Jeremy has a very hectic work schedule, bless his heart, so we ended up taking one of the very last spots of the photography run, at the very end of the day.

I got myself and the kids dressed and drove to the church, and Jeremy met us there. We were chatting with a friendly lady outside of the room where the pictures were being taken, and she told the kids, "I'm gonna take your picture!" I thought honestly thought she was just a church member, there to help direct people during the sessions. Then the next thing I knew, there we were, in the makeshift photography studio, and she was indeed our photographer!

The nice lady took our allowed amount of photographs. Seriously. They allowed us only so many shots. When the media card in the camera was full, it was all over. Let me tell you that when I was dressing myself and the kids for this, I didn't give much thought to the "below-the-belt" appearance. I don't recall ever having seen a church directory that gave much more than a head shot of its members. I dressed Collin in jeans with an untucked shirt and shoes with dried mud on them. I honestly didn't think it would matter.

Here is the money shot that we ended up with.

I love how in the above photo, you can see that Ainsley's dress is falling off of her shoulder, Collin's shirt is untucked, Collin's shoes are muddy, and their prop box is in desperate need of a new paint job. And that, folks, is exactly how you will see it in the new church directory. Sigh!

I asked the photographer if they could crop out their crummy looking prop box and the answer was "no". Apparently this company doesn't have editing software...?!?!?! C'mon people, I am not a professional photographer and I can do some basic edits! See!

Now, look how much nicer that looks sans muddy shoes and scratched up box! I will tell you that we did go ahead and purchase a sheet of 4 3x5's so that our families could have a picture of us as a whole family. And I probably shouldn't be so critical. I mean, it is a decent photo and we're all smiling. But do you think that the original picture will someday end up on this website? I dunno, it could happen!