Mother’s Day at Alina’s house. I’ll save you the trouble of counting. There are nineteen people in this picture. My big, fat Cuban-American nieces and nephews, and grand-nieces and grand-nephews (phew).
The oldest (my mom) in the center, is ninety-three. The youngest on her lap, is three months old.
Eleven out of sixteen cousins ranging in ages from forty-three to eleven, are represented here, and all seven of her great-grandchildren.
She originally wanted a photo with just the great-grands, but they are all too young and wiggly to sit still for the photo-op, so I made an executive decision to include all the cousins that were present. (good call, huh? =D)
I took twenty-two (!!!) shots of them, trying to get them all to look at me and smile all at once. I was jumping up and down and making noise and trying to hold the camera still at the same time. I think I even broke a sweat. This is one of the better shots, but as you can see the Gma is distracted by the baby in her lap and Ben found a car that was much more interesting than Aunt Marta’s antics behind the camera.
The part you don’t see is the line up next to me – sisters and husbands calling out, making jokes, and laughing. All talking yelling at the same time, loudly, so they can be heard above everyone else, as is usual for a gathering of Cubans. Calling out the names of the toddlers, shouting instructions to their own children. "Natalie, don’t slouch!" "Mason look up here!" "Alberto, lean forward!" "Nikki, smile!" "George!!!"
Without the audio portion, it looks like a lovely group of young people. Such a sweet moment. Ah…
When you add the sound (with the cranked up Cuban decibels) your reaction would be more like:
"Damn Cubans!" 😉
(God, I love these people.)
alysa says
What a beautiful family.