Family Pictures

I'm crazy. I realize this now. I don't know why I do this to myself every year. Yes, EVERY YEAR. I love sending out a Christmas Letter. My holiday kind of revolves around it and getting it out in time. And of course I want to give grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings and long lost friends pictures of what my most bodacious family looks like. (Hmmm...bodacious is too Bill and Ted's-ish. How about...) I like to send pictures of the most beautiful family ever to everyone. I mean, I have a blog and facebook for candid shots right? Besides most of our family doesn't really look at my blog or are on facebook. I'm not quite sure how they do this, I myself check several times a day. But I'm not addicted or anything. I promise. Hmmm...I wonder what my kids are doing?

Wow, I totally lost track of the story. Sorry. I take my family through the month of October to get family shots taken. Oh and individual shots of the kids. I started with Ally. Not a great decision on my part. But how was I to know she would turn into "Shy Ally" (really that is her description ). She not only refused to smile, but she also covered her face. So I left and came back a week later. I brought Elijah and my parents because with Elijah she goes from "Shy Ally" to "Loud and Obnoxious Ally". (Okay, those are my words there and not hers.) But it didn't help. She turned all stubborn on me and refused to cooperate. Let me see if I can find a good example of what she looked like...

This is the best I can do. She is so pretty, but she can take some horrible shots.

So a third try and this time I brought Matt. And we lucked out and got a really good photographer. And this is the result:

I didn't actually plan on taking her pictures this day. Luckily it was a school day so she was dressed kind of cute.
The rest of the pictures didn't go as poorly. Here is Elijah. The only problems with his was Ally hit him near the eye an hour before picture time. We put ice on it, but you can still see the injury if you look closely.
Then Lauren, my charmer. While she ran everywhere, she would stop and smile periodically. She is in love with this chair though. I think I'm going to have to buy one.
Lastly the family pictures. I am actually very pleased with these. Ally is smiling, Elijah doesn't have a goofy smile, Lauren isn't smiling as well as she could, but that is okay. Matt and I have learned to hold still and not move no matter what the kids do. It usually works well for us.

Next year I may do black. I'm getting tired of always being in red.
So what do you think? Are we hot or what?