Hellobee

Avengers assemble for a Super Hero Father’s Day

Our Father’s Day tradition is to take a silly and often very nerdy picture of the kids for my husband. I can’t help the nerd part. That’s just our family. We are geeks to the core. Part of this stems from my love of making family traditions. Part of it is that I love costumes and dress up play. I hope that someday my children will look back fondly on these things we did together. Either that or they will laugh with each other about their crazy mom.  I am alright with either outcome because I think they are still endearing family moments.  This year it was easy to figure out.

We have a Marvel super hero obsession in our house at the moment, and Mr. Train is right there in the middle of it with the kids. We have only recently started letting our kids watch some of the live action Marvel movies. Before that all of their super hero knowledge came from cartoons and books. I could say that this obsession comes from having three boys in the family, but I have to admit my daughter is a huge Thor fan and I think she might be leading the way in our love for the Avengers.

She was so excited when the photographer kept calling her Thor.

I knew this picture would be easy to be put together because over the last several years of gift giving occasions, our kids have accrued a large quantity of Avengers attire and toys. We already had all the masks and weapons for all four characters. The only ones I had to buy were the hulk hands. I have held off on these particular items because my kids don’t need any more reason to fight or punch each other. Joe has wanted them and asked for them repeatedly and I have always said no, so I knew he would be super excited when I pulled them out for the picture. I did go get the T-shirts for the boys from Kohl’s because we didn’t have any of just the single Avengers characters. I also had to make a skirt for Lilly’s Thor costume. She told me she wanted to be Thor because he is awesome, but it would be even more awesome if it was girly with a fun twirly skirt. I can’t argue with that logic. She was right. It was way more awesome with the twirly skirt.

I wanted to make sure to get some with their masks off as well so we could see their faces.

I felt a little silly walking through the mall to get to the Picture People studios with my heard of Avengers following me, but it was totally worth it. I love how they came out and and know Mr. Train will love them as well.

Captain America

Iron Man

The Incredible Hulk

Thor

This year when I went into the photo studio the employees recognized me from the past couple of years. The photographer laughed and said “Hey weren’t you the Star Wars and Dr. Who family?” I may have laughed and blushed a little bit. They know us as that family who takes nerdy but also very cute pictures for Father’s Day. I admitted that was us and she was so excited to photograph us again. She told me she loved the Star Wars pictures and couldn’t’ wait to take these ones.

After talking with the photographer about previous years, I couldn’t help but look back at the things we had done for Mr. Train over the years. Last year, like this year, was really easy for me to put together. We had a fabulous Star Wars family Halloween and I knew we could use the costumes for our picture. My mom and I made all their robes and shirts. Lilly was a little tricky because she wanted to be R2D2 but I also wanted her to be able to move around, so we went with a t-shirt and tutu instead of a bulky traditional costume. It was six months after Halloween and Lilly had outgrown her R2D2 shirt so I had to make a new one for the picture. Mr. Train didn’t catch me remaking the bits and pieces and sneaking out to have their photo taken, but  it still didn’t matter because Joe ran in and told Mr. Train, “Dad, today we DID NOT go take Star Wars pictures for Father’s Day.” He then ran over to me and said, “Don’t worry mom, I didn’t tell him the secret.” Nothing is ever a secret around our house.

The Force is Strong with these ones.

In 2013 our nerd fandom of choice was Dr. Who. Mr. Train and I are huge Dr. Who fans. I fought it for quite some time, not wanting to let myself to get into another TV show. Once I started watching I was hooked and we watched every single episode together. The kids haven’t really seen many episodes. Mostly we had just shown them small clips and little bits and pieces of some of the episodes, but it was enough for them to decide on a character they liked.

This one took a little more planning because I couldn’t just go find a cute shirt. I ended up making a lot of their pieces that were essential to recognizing them as Dr. Who Characters. I was able to find a cheap fake leather jacket but I had to make the other jackets and Lilly’s dress. They were so hyped about taking a secret picture for Daddy that they ran in the house and told them exactly what they had done. Like I said, there are no secrets in my house. We spent all of Father’s Day running around in costumes and playing with their sonic screw drivers.

My three doctors and a little Tardis.

Although I was not consistent for Mr. Train’s first couple of Father’s Days, I did have one other picture that I took for him when the boys were really young. Our families are all from Southern California and Mr. Train and I had a running joke about our kids rooting for the our choice of  Southern California baseball teams. This was before they could talk so I actually was able to keep it a secret. This picture was really simple to put together. I found the little outfits at Walmart and we had some balls and bats as props. It was super easy except for my little Padres fan was having a rough day. I always tell Mr. Train it’s because he had to root for the Padres while James got the awesome Dodgers.

I don’t know what next year will bring, but I am looking forward to planning it out with the kids. They love surprising their dad with our funky family pictures and they love going back and looking at the past years hung up on the wall.

Southern California Baseball Teams