An inevitable aspect of our school aged years are school portraits. We’ve all seen them lining the walls of many homes, parents hang them as an homage to their children, documenting their adorable, awkward, and angst filled years. Remember the year you forgot it was picture day? Remember the year with braces? Or the missing front tooth? Remember the dated clothes, goofy grins, over-worked, over-permed, over-sprayed hair or your Brooke Shield eyebrow days? I have a love/hate relationship with school portraits, based on both my own experience as well as being a Mother. I know I can capture a far better photo of my child then some stranger with a goofy backdrop but its a right of passage of sorts and if you don’t buy the photo package you’ll feel that one day, one year you’ll regret not buying the ridiculously overpriced photos. Overpriced photos that you pawn off to any accepting recipient, usually grandparents, and the rest finding a home in a storage box. My children are still young and, although I’m biased, their school portraits have been cute thus far.  So this year I decided to embrace these photos and proudly display them in our home. Because a time will come when my kids will blush or annoy at the site of their photo displayed on our mantel and God forbid the year they “rebel” and not take one at all.