Happy New Year!

From the SIX Crosbys to you and yours!  May the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Linda be ever present in your thoughts and abundant with blessings and guidance in 2012!  Make this next year ROCK for Jesus!

Photo-shop, wonder of the gods

My book Learning to Laugh in the Midst of Mothering is coming out the first week of April, and the publisher asked for a family photo for the back cover.  We did get one decent picture, but what in the world is up with 11 year old boys?  In the top picture, Austin looks like he’s half Klingon with his brow forced into a series of wrinkles.  He has beautiful Caribbean-Sea-blue eyes…. but the only picture he opened them for (out of 32) was the fooling around orange peel picture.  Sheesh.  We can’t even photoshop his eye-wide-open face into one of the 29 pictures that the rest of us look fine in because of his citrus rind smile.

And the wind.  What to do when the wind blows?  Keeve’s hair did the Squiggy deal in the front…. oh, for the love of photo-shop.  I don’t know who invented it, but they were a godsend.

I’m pretty happy with the one good picture, but when I sat back later and realized what we went through to get it, the rigmarole deserves a blog spot.  Rick needed a quick haircut, so I obliged him and located my scissors. To my surprise, Larisa does not own a white shirt, so she borrowed one from our neighbors.  We asked my niece to come and take the pictures.  She’s a budding, young photographer that did a great job on her first gig.  The sun was bright, so we needed to create some shade.  We ended up using the top of the bench swing with a woven blue blanket from Mexico draped over the top to cut the glare.  We also used a piece of plywood 3’x8′, balanced on top of the swing shade and the fence.  A large rock was put atop for security reasons.  We brought out a large upholstered stool for Keeve and I to sit on, but the legs would sink in the lawn, so another piece of plywood was uncovered to save the grass.  The lawn was also a bit wet (rare for Phoenix) requiring Rick, Larisa and Austin to find flip-flops and small pieces of wood to kneel on. And we wanted the top-down view, so we grabbed a somewhat-flimsy plastic chair for Whitney to stand on while being Miss Photographer Extraordinaire.

What?  You want to see the only good picture?  Sorry, you’ll just have to wait for the book like everyone else.  :oP