Picture Day

Yesterday and the day before were "Picture Day"! Each month, I take pictures of all the children. These pictures are used to send with the children's monthly updates to their adoptive families, to include with new adoption proposals, and just to use to see how the children are growing and changing from month to month. "Picture Day" is always a long, tiring day ... but the results are usually worth it! This month, I had 88 children to photograph. One month, I counted after taking all my pictures, and the total pictures was over 900! Of course, many of these get deleted when I go through them. I usually keep 4-6 of the best ones for each child.

All of the volunteers help out with picture day. First thing in the morning, I go up to the nursery and ask the nannies to do all the girls' hair. Then, I go up to the balcony (where I do the pictures) and get my backdrop and table ready. I try to get as much of this ready by 8 or so when the volunteers come up. I could not do "Picture Day" without the volunteers!!! They have the huge job of going down into the nursery, bringing kids up, cleaning their faces, putting lotion on them, and changing them. We have 2 trunks of "Picture Day" clothes - 1 for the boys, and 1 for the girls. We make sure that the kids are always very well dressed for their pictures! And, I really think the results are worth all the work ... although I'm not sure the volunteers would agree with me! :o) But, I know my sore back that I usually have the next day from all my manouvering when taking the pictures is worth it!!! And, the parents are SO happy to get their pictures every month!