Blast from the Past--Outtakes from the 2009 Calendar

As I was looking back at some old posts, I realized that I never posted the third set of outtakes for the 2009 calendar, so I thought I would take a journey back in time this week. This is more for me than anyone else, since this is also my"journal". It fun to look back at these pictures----I can't believe how much they have changed! My babies really are growing up!

September—454 pictures taken (yikes! I think that has to be some kind of record!)

This was one of my favorite pictures to take. We shot each baby individually and then used Photoshop to put them all together. It is really hard to get all five babies to look good all at the same time, so taking them one at a time is a lot easier! At first the babies were pretty wary of the tub. Some of them were afraid to get anywhere near it. Once they warmed up to the idea, though, they thought it was fun (and so did we!). One behind the scenes secret—I only had three pairs of overalls, so most of the babies are wearing the same pair of overalls in the pictures.

Kassidy

Kaydence, who finally cooperated once we pulled out the Cheerios bribe

Kyndall, Kassidy and Kaydence

Ryder and Rustin. We could not keep Rustin in the tub for anything----the second we put him in, he would dive out!

Kaiya

Riley

Kaiya and Riley

The Final Result: September 2009 Calendar Picture



October—77 pictures taken

Originally, the M&M picture was not supposed to be in the calendar. I already had 12 months worth of pictures and we were working on the calendar layout when my friend, Kristen Duke, offered to come take pictures of the quints in their Halloween costumes. The pictures turned out so cute that I decided it had to be in the calendar! I let my family vote on which picture we should leave out so that the M&M picture could be included.

Kyndall, Kassidy, Kaydence, Ryder & Rustin---they all look a little dazed because we got out the portable DVD player to get them to sit still. Kassidy had a huge bruise on her nose (see this post to find out why), which we photoshopped out of the final picture.

Not even the DVD player was enough to keep Rustin still for long!

The tights were a little on the big side...

The Final Result: October 2009 Calendar Picture

November—50 Pictures Taken

The pumpkin patch pictures were taken at Sweet Berry Farms in Marble Falls. Ever since Riley was a baby, it has been our tradition to take pumpkin pictures. We lined the babies up on the haystacks and both my mom and I were snapping pictures as fast as we could while my sister-in-law, Tobi, was trying to get the babies to smile. By the time we finished, there was quite a crowd gathered to watch. The picture that we chose for the calendar was actually taken by my mom.

Ryder, Kyndall, Kassidy, Rustin and Kaydence

No one wanted to have their picture taken--they all wanted to eat the pumpkins instead.

Riley in the first-ever Wilkinson Pumpkin picture (2001)

Riley and Kaiya in a pre-quints pumpkin picture from 2005

The Final Result: November 2009 Calendar Picture

December—?? Pictures Taken (Kristen gave me 59 pictures, but I am sure she took more than that)

I think this picture is my favorite one from the whole calendar. Once again, we enlisted the help of super-photographer, Kristen Duke, to help us with the picture for December. We scheduled Kristen to come a couple of weeks ahead of time, but the night before the photo shoot, I still hadn’t decided what I wanted to do for the picture! We had lots of ideas, but nothing that I was sold on yet. I was searching around on the Internet and found this Anne Geddes Picture (see below) and loved it, so we decided to do something similar. The next morning, I got up early and ran to Walmart and Hobby Lobby in search of white sheets, Santa hats and candy canes. Kristen stood on my bed to take the picture and my mom and I tried to get the babies to look in the right direction and keep from falling off the bed. In the picture we used for the calendar, my mom is actually under the sheet holding Rustin into place—he did NOT want to lay still!!

Anne Geddes Picture that was my inspiration

Kyndall, Rustin, Kaydence, Kassidy and Ryder

Rustin, Kyndall, Kaydence, Kassidy and Ryder

Rustin, Kyndall, Kaydence, Kassidy and Ryder

It was a toss up between this picture and the one we actually chose to be in the calendar. I loved Kassidy's smile in this one.

Kassidy, Kyndall, Rustin, Kaydence and Ryder

Always on the move

The Final Product: December 2009 Calendar Picture

****Blast from the Past Calendar Special***

For a limited time, you can get a copy of the 2009 Wilkinson Quints Calendar FREE when you order the new 2010 Wilkinson Quints Calendar. To order, use the button on the right or visit our website at www.wilkinsonquints.org

Blast from the Past--Outtakes from the 2009 Calendar

Calendar Outtakes--Part 2

Here is the second installment of calendar outtakes and "behind the scenes" stories...

May—55 Pictures taken

This was actually the first picture that we took for the 2009 calendar. My mom went with my dad to Hawaii last year and she brought back outfits for all the kids (Riley and Kaiya included), When I saw the outfits for the first time, I knew they had “Kodak Moment” written all over them! For this picture, I enlisted the help of my professional photographer friend, Kristen Duke. A nearby neighborhood has a waterfall at its entrance and I thought it would be the perfect spot for the Hawaiian photo. Kristen came to my house and we got all the babies dressed and ready and we all piled in the Beast. Kristen even brought her brother and sister-in-law to help out. We had just pulled into the parking lot, when out of no where, it started to rain. We waited to see if it would stop, but it just started raining harder. We knew that even if we waited it out, the ground would be wet and the babies would not like that, so we gave up and went back home.

We rescheduled the photo shoot for a couple of weeks later. We got there bright and early in the morning so we could have the best light. After unloading everyone and all our gear, we made our way to the waterfall--or at least to where the waterfall was supposed to be. For some reason, there was no water falling from the waterfall that day. We tried calling a phone number we found at the pool (located fairly close to the waterfall), but no one was able to help us. After standing around for several minutes debating what we should do, we finally decided to take the picture anyway. By this point, the babies were hungry, tired and not at all excited about having their picture taken. We found another spot around the corner from the waterfall and got some semi-decent (although not very smiley) pictures.

Kassidy voices her opinion of the waterless waterfall.

Virginia and Mimi try an old favorite (Cheerios) to get the kids to smile---or at least stop crying!

Riley and Kaiya join Rustin, Kaydence, Kassidy, Kyndall and Ryder

I love this shot of Kaydence, Kassidy, Ryder, Rustin and Kyndall all trying to escape.

This one isn't really an outtake, but I thought Kristen got such a great picture of Kaiya that I decided to post it anyway!

The Final Result: May's Calendar Picture

June—139 Pictures taken

I have always liked Anne Geddes photography, and having five babies has given me the perfect excuse to try some “Anne Geddes” style pictures of my own! Taking the flower pot pictures was easier than some of the other pictures because I shot each baby individually and then used Photoshop to put them all together in the end. My biggest challenges with this picture were getting the babies to keep the flower headband on their head and keeping them from tipping over (or diving out in Rustin’s case).

Kaydence trying to escape

Kaiya posing for my lighting tests

Kyndall getting a bit tippy---after she fell over, we got Riley to go behind the backdrop and hold on to the pot--if you look closely you can see his hands in some of the other pictures.

Ryder

Kaydence--she hates getting her picture taken!

Rustin diving out of the pot

The Final Result: June's Calendar Picture

July—52 Pictures taken

Of all the pictures in the calendar, this one was the easiest to take. The babies were strapped down, so they couldn’t get away! (Not even Rustin could dive out of this one!) Our biggest challenge was keeping everyone from poking their eyes out with the flags. My sister, Tiare, was here to help me with this one---I am sure the neighbors enjoyed watching as we danced, sang, held props, and did whatever else we could think of to get the babies to look at the camera!

Kaydence, Rustin, Kyndall, Ryder and Kassidy---I am not sure what was so interesting about the fence!

Oops--prop overboard! I think it is funny how all the babies put their feet up on the chair in front of them.

The Final Result: July's Calendar Picture

August—192 Pictures taken

By the time we took the baby pool picture, it was well into September and baby pools were hard to come by. We were lucky to find the frog pool on clearance at Target for only $3! The lighting in the backyard was not very good, and there were lots of strange shadows from the trees, so we had to set up the backdrop behind me to create some shade.

Ryder was so fascinated by the frog eyeballs

Kaydence hates pools and she hates pictures, so this was a double whammy for her!

Once again, Rustin is doing his best to dive out of the pool!

The Final Result: August's Calendar Picture

To order a 2009 Wilkinson Quints Calendar, click HERE.

Calendar Outtakes--Part 2

Calendar Outtakes--Part 1

The older the quints get, the harder it is to get a decent picture of them! Getting TWELVE decent pictures to make the calendar was really a challenge! Just for fun, I thought I would share some of the “inside stories” and outtakes from the calendar photo shoots!

January—41 pictures taken

My mom and I really thought that this would be the easiest picture to take. After all, we were only taking a picture of the babies backs, so we didn’t have to get them to smile or anything---just sit still five seconds so we could take a picture. So we took off all their clothes and diapers and sat them down, facing backwards. We gave each baby a little bowl of Cheerios to entertain them (an idea we thought was brilliant at the time). We soon realized the complete un-brilliance of our plan. No one wanted to sit and eat their snack. Within seconds, babies were standing up and running around the room naked. Cheerios were spread all over and several babies had some stuck to their bottoms. It was chaos! My mom and I kept trying to pick the babies up and put them back in place, but by the time we got the last baby down, the first one was up and running again. I knew we were not going to get this picture unless we had help, so I called Virginia to see if she could come over. I must have sounded frantic on the phone, because she said all she heard was “naked babies, need help!” Virginia was out shopping when I called her, but she was at my house in about 10 minutes. When she got there, we came up with a plan that really was brilliant---we got out the portable DVD player and put on the Wiggles. Thanks to Virginia (and Greg, Murray, Jeff and Anthony), we finally got a good picture!!!

Kyndall, Kassidy, Rustin, Ryder and Kaydence---foiling my "brilliant" plan

Kassidy, Kaydence, Rustin, Kyndall, Ryder and Virginia who saved the day! Notice also the princess crown dangling from the top of the backdrop---we were trying everything to get the babies attention and keep them sitting down!

The Final Result: January's Calendar Picture

February—95 pictures taken

Finding the lollipops was one of the biggest challenges for this picture. I checked several stores before I finally found them at a world imports store in the mall. I was worried about everybody becoming a giant sticky mess before we could get a good shot, so at first I didn’t even take the wrapper off the lollipops. The babies were completely uninterested in the lollipops that way, so I peeled off a small corner of the plastic and tried to get them to suck on that part. This worked a little better. One of the hardest things for all the pictures is that the boys, especially Rustin, did not want to sit still. The second you put them down, they would try to escape.

Kassidy, Rustin, Kaydence, Ryder and Kyndall

The escape artists in action

The Final Result: February's Calendar Picture

March—58 pictures taken

My original idea on this one was to have all the babies together in the laundry basket. That didn’t go over too well, so I finally settled for any shot that had all five babies looking in the right direction!

Rustin, Kaydence, Ryder, Kassidy and Kyndall

Kyndall, Kaydence, Rustin, Ryder and Kassidy

No matter what prop we used for pictures, Rustin was always diving out of it.

The Final Result: March's Calendar Picture

April—232 pictures taken

I made the little chick costume by taking two turtleneck onesies, putting one inside the other, and then filling the middle section, in-betwen the two onesies, with batting. Then I took three feather boa’s and tacked them around the outside. The resulting costume was very hot, so the babies were not very excited about it. It was also a bit difficult to get on and off, so halfway through the shoot, I cut off the arms of the turtlenecks to make it a bit easier. After we got done taking the pictures, I posted the best ones on my family's blog. My brother, quickly pointed out that chicks are YELLOW, not white (I guess he really does deserve that PhD he has). I must have been thinking of chickens, not baby chicks, when I made the costume! After all the work we went through to take the pictures, I did NOT want to re-shoot. Instead, I became very good friends with Adobe Photoshop!

Of all the babies, Kaydence hates getting her picture taken the most!

Rustin, diving off his seat

Of all the babies, Kyndall is the easist to take pictures of. She loves the camera and will smile and pose. She also has lots of really great expressions.

Kaiya agreed to be my model while I tested the flash settings

The Final Result: April's Calendar Picture

If you are interested in purchasing a 2009 Wilkinson Quints Calendar, it's not too late! We still have several left! Click HERE to see more pictures from the calendar, or to order your own! Any proceeds will be used to support the consumption of diapers and wet wipes by the Wilkinson Quints!

Calendar Outtakes--Part 1