Long Weekend

Fourth of July weekend went off fairly well. I was very fortunate to have the day off of work (considering they used Friday as the "observed" 4th) and we used that day to have bebe's 9 month portraits taken. My mom and husband both joined Emily and I at JCPenney portrait studio. Little Miss Smiley as documented on my facebook page decided to sit on the backgrounds and just stare at the photographer. No smiles, no crying..just staring. She cracked a few smiles finally (thankfully, she had 3 outfit changes!). On the third outfit, bebe' wailed. She was not having it. We tried sitting her on a small couch in the photo and that was the end of that. The wonderful people of Briarwood's JCPenney Portrait Studio were kind enough to tell us that if we wanted to leave and feed her or whatever, they would be happy to squeeze her back in and try again in her last outfit. Out in the mall, bebe' quieted down and chugged a bottle. We ran into my co-worker Eric and his family, chatted with them, Eric managed to sneak a smile out of her so we were like "let's go! She's on!" Bebe' was like a pro the second time around. We got a lot of great shots and again, the people were so nice for allowing us to sneak back in and save our sitting without charging us an extra sitting fee or anything (I get free ones anyway for being in their portrait club). Plus, I had a coupon for a free 10 x 13..holla!

My mom and I went to JoAnn's later that day and I bought a bouquet of fake flowers that were really very pretty - I meant to take a picture. My momma took me to the cemetary so I could put the flowers with Granny. I hadn't left her anything yet. I felt silly doing it. Not silly at Granny, but silly for me. I'm still very angry that she's not here. I'm not angry at her but I'm angry because I don't think it should have happened. I miss Granny.
My mom and dad had their usual 4th of July cookout celebrating eating and my dad's birthday (go figure, the foreigner was born on America's bday) more than America's Independance but I digress. Granny was always a sweetie, but in the later years, she became really angry about cameras. REALLY angry. She would actually yell at us, well, snap at us if she so much as saw a camera in the vicinity. I had to explain to her when my baby shower was coming up that there would be cameras but no one would take her picture. She was so concerned about people taking her picture and she would talk about my mom and aunts and cousins by saying "everytime I turn around they've gotta stick that in my face." Truth is, once we knew it bothered her, we did everything to avoid that but she would still get mad. My cousin had a birthday party in the fall right after Emily was born. People were taking pictures of my cousin (it was her birthday), and/or the baby and Granny was all the way across the banquet room and had a fit! It was sad. I don't know why she got that way. Up until about 4 or 5 years ago, I have TONS of pictures of Granny and she was fine in them. Anyway, it was odd being able to take pictures at the cookout this year. I think Granny would have been alright. My mom and I had a good way of convincing her (truthfully) that we wouldn't take her picture. She probably would have been ok with it because of Emily. That is one thing I am thankful for. She did come to the hospital to see Emily after she was born and held her and let me take pictures of her doing so (she called me Sharon the whole time - something she never did before or after that day); she also came to my house a couple of weeks after we came home and we got a picture of our 4 generations: Granny, Momma, Myself and Emily.