Ahh... School pictures

This week in honor of having school pictures taken, I am going to share some of my own classic school pictures.

This is first picture was taken in 4th grade. What is so great is I think it was the first time my mom let me do my own hair for my pictures. "Feathering" was all the rage back in 1983. I'm not sure if I didn't use enough hairspray on the right side of my hair or if I played dodgeball extra hard during recess, but somehow only one side of my hair stayed "feathered." Which I was probably mad about when I got my school pictures back, but now I think it tells a story about what I was like when I was that age. I'm glad my mom didn't insist on me getting a retake so my hair could look perfect. That wouldn't be near as interesting. And speaking of retakes, this is another one of my favorite school pictures.This was a year later, in 5th grade. Apparently I got the feathered look down, but not the keeping my eyes open look-because this was a retake. And even though this was my second and last attempt at a good 5th grade picture, I'm once again glad that my mom didn't destroy the picture because it wasn't perfect. Something I just noticed about these pictures is that in both of them I am wearing a button-down shirt with a sweater. I was living in Georgia during this time and I assume they took pictures in the fall back then like they do now. I can imagine I was hotter than hades in my sweater and button-down shirt in the southern heat and humidity. No wonder one side of my hair fell flat!
Needless to say, I have carried on the tradition of not requiring that pictures of my kids look perfect. I absolutely adore pictures of screaming kids on Santa's lap. Not that I enjoy making my kids scream, but what I like is that it accurately reflects the experience they had at that age. Last year I was out of town when my kids had school pictures taken. Before I even saw them, I decided I would keep them no matter what they looked like. I was very interested to see how they would look when their dad got them ready for school and especially on school picture day. And I was pleasantly surprised:

Sure they don't have bows, braids or curls in their hair and it looks like Katie and Annie have some static-y hair goin' on and could have used a quick comb-through but for the most part they look pretty good. I mean this is a more accurate reflection of what they look like day in and day out at school than any other school picture. Now don't get me wrong I did plenty to get them picture ready this year- Finn got a haircut the day before, I blew dry Annie's hair and Katie got braids but I think we should say no to retakes and let our kids' childhood shine through. I mean what says childhood more than big glasses, big-gaped teeth, half down hair and half open eyes!

P.S.- I got a little BYU/Utah rivalry experiment going on in my house right now. I'll let you in on the joke as soon as the intended targets figure it out!