Christmas Card Pics

November 5th, 2011

Every year, I love, love, love to send out Christmas cards with a recent picture of our family. I always try to capture what my family is like at that particular moment in time. The girls grow & change so much - it's always so very touching & important to me.

And every year, the actual taking of the Christmas card pictures is a total nightmare.

Let's just say that the children do not enjoy it.

The kinda, sorta matching clothes, the sisterly poses, the 15 minutes that feels like 15 hours... There is much complaining, whining & arguing that usually ends in with bribes, followed by threats and general unpleasantness...

Every year, although my intent is to accurately portray my very sweet family, I feel like it's actually a huge deception...

If people had any idea what was actually going on at that particular moment...

However, this year, suprisingly, actually went better than usual.

The kids weren't happy about it by any stretch of the imagination... It was windy & cold with no snow.

I had to bribe Ryann with a new scarf & hat. Mad & Skye with a promise of Pinkberry.

Then, seconds before the very first picture, the crazy, crazy wind picked up Bayli's winter coat and tossed it right into the pond in front of us. She of course, started crying hysterically. Her big cousin Logan tried to fish it out with a stick... All the while Corey's trying to take pictures before we freeze, trying to keep Logan from falling in the pond, while I'm trying to get Bay to smile just for a second... Here's what that pic looked like... :)

Luckily, the wind was so strong, it soon blew Bay's coat to the shore, where it was quickly retrieved & she was suitably pacified... Then we took as many outside pictures as my freezing cold children could tolerate...

It was just too cold, so we decided to head inside for a few more, and on the way, Ryann took these super cute shots of Garrett helping Bayli up the hill. Bayli absolutely adores her big cousin, who is the only person she knows who can talk as much as she does, & I thought these were just the cutest thing ever...

In the end, Corey worked her magic and we actually ended up with some super cute pictures of my very beautiful girls...

And we actually kinda had fun this time around... :)