Family Pictures

For Christmas, I gave my mom an appointment to get professional pictures taken of our whole family. Nice...right?

You saw how our family photos went previously. Picture taking with toddlers is unpredictable at best. What made this even more difficult was that we had one of our worst nights with the twins in a while (a combination of days of bad naps and late bedtimes combined with teeth that I finally saw popping through...), so we were all tired. The hour long drive to get to the studio resulted in some crazy car seat hair. And our photographer seemed to have shockingly little understanding of toddlers - despite the fact that the place claims to specialize in children's photographs! We kept finding toy props to make them happy, and she kept thinking that taking them away and then teasing that she would give them back would make them smile...it didn't...it did the opposite!

The whole group...out of dozens of shots, there were only a few where someone wasn't blinking, adjusting hair or clothes, or crying (usually it was the twins who were crying!). And I accidentally did not copy any of the good shots! Sorry, Nic...

I only wanted to get a decent group picture, but the photographer wanted to do a bunch of smaller combo shots...

So we got this lovely shot with the grandparents...and this was the best of the bunch!
We got pictures as our family of four, but they were so awful I refuse to show them.
The photographer INSISTED on these profile shots...which required a background change and our children sitting alone on a stool...

Allie's looked kind of cheesy...and a little too much like she belonged on Full House... ...and Ryan was clearly scared (and crying and reaching for the camera in all of the other shots...) I finally found some toys to distract in order to get a decent picture - 2 footballs!

We love footballs!

Success! A decent picture!

We did get some good group shots...and my parents were thrilled with the small combo shots. They walked away with their holiday cards (Dad made mom wait to send out New Years cards because he knew I was giving this gift), and various combinations of their kids and grandkids. While the picture taking was an experience, the good pictures that came out of it are appreciated mementos. Plus, we were able to teach our photographer "The Wheels on the Bus" so now she has that in her arsenal for future trying toddlers!