May 21, 2012

Cousin Picture!

Posted by Ethne~

Thrifty Nana (my mom) has always been a photo-taker.  People tell me that I take good photos (as in I look decent in them).  I think it’s more along the lines that I have been raised to smile for the camera since TN always had one pointed at me.  If I didn’t smile on all those occasions, I’d look dorky in every shot.  If you pause and smile, instead, there is a decent chance that some pictures turn out ok.  At least less dorky.  HELPFUL TIP, my Friends.
Not posed: DORKY
Smiling with Aunt Pam: MUCH BETTER

Of course the photo mania didn’t end with me.  TN had her camera at the ready on all occasions, including family get-togethers, like the one we just had in Michigan for my cousin, ZW’s, wedding.  We would go visit our family in MI around once per summer when I was growing up, and each time, TN and the other aunts and uncles would line us kids up in birth order for a picture.  No one really complained about it.  It was just something we had to do when we were together.
TN was behind this picture, of course

This continues into adulthood.  At all my cousins’ weddings, we line up for the cousin picture.  The last time I was in MI, we took the cousin picture, but we were missing a lot of cousins.  This time, almost all of us were together, including spouses.
Grandma, my cousin JW, his gorgeous daughter K and me
With my cousin MN - I missed out on the family curls - isn't
her hair amazing?

With no argument and full cooperation, all the cousins lined up in birth order.  The professional photographer’s wide-angle lens will give us better results, but for now, check out our picture.  Isn’t it cool?  I’ll have TN track down a few of the old cousin pictures and I will post them in the future.  It’s amazing to see all of our transformations.  One of the craziest things this time is that ZW, the groom, is the youngest of all of us cousins, and he’s now the tallest of all!!
The cousin picture - several of us missing - but still a long line!

Well, Uncle B and Aunt S had everyone over to their place on Sunday for the gift opening.  When I wasn’t watching the gift opening…
Didn't K and Z get a nice platter?  I should've asked where they got it
Aunt Ethne wrangling Sam for a pic

…sneaking off to get cake…
Let's face it: you'd run off and sneak some
of this cake too

…or playing bocci ball with my cousins…
Cousin JW getting ready to throw - bocci is
also called lawn bowling - he let me wipe my muddy
hands on his pant legs.  You'd love him too if he were your cousin.
See the bowling technique?  I was horrible

…I was certainly taking in the mania of all of the younger generation of cousins running around all over the place.  You know how I like to delegate chores.  In this case, I was able to delegate the caretaking of KD and Easy Mac to some older cousins – and I didn’t even have to ask!  They all just had a blast playing together.
Check out KD's face (R) with Easy Mac and cousin N - classic sassy
This photo was taken with a zoom lens, which means I
wasn't doing much direct supervision - ROCK ON!

Of course, Thrifty Nana was thinking pictures (I’ll admit I took plenty of my own, being my mother’s daughter) and she determined that we needed to take a cousin picture of the new generation of kids since all of my cousins now have children of our own.  We lined them all right up, oldest to youngest.  I think we were only missing two – the oldest (BPY) and youngest (CW).  We’ll just have to photo shop them in.
Organizing the chaos.
Nicole tried to hold the youngest 3 and fell over

Nicole sat down with the three youngest so they would hold still; but the rest of the kids cooperated pretty well.  Except when Nicole fell backwards with the weight of the 3 kids she was trying to wrangle, and that caused a bit of gawking by KD, Easy Mac and RW.  The next generation is started.  Yeah TN for thinking of it!
We got them all: K, N, A, K, K, B, B, M, M, R, KD, Easy Mac, DB, L & Sam

Hopefully next time I get to MI with the monsters, everyone can be there and then we can have the whole lot – including the adopted cousins, you know who you are – in one long family line-up.