Family Pictures

I had originally booked a photo session with my friend, Laura, for the first week of November to take Bo's 9 month pics and squeeze in a few family ones as well for our Christmas card since Max did not want to use the awesome roller skating one from Kellyn's birthday party. However, we kept having things come up and had to keep re-scheduling. Max said to stop reschedule because he did not want to hire anyone to take our pictures this year. So I didn't hire anyone....I asked my dad to do it!

I wanted to recreate the pic Laura took last year when we were expecting Bo to show what we look like now that he his here. :)

We rushed out there after Bo's dedication while we were all still dressed up. I bribed the kids with candy to smile. It was very windy and kids and Max wanted to hurry up and be done.

We put both of these on the Christmas card, but my vision wasn't complete. 

I thought my dad did a great job! 

He even caught this cute candid one as we were packing up and leaving. 

But it wasn't everything I wanted. I had envisioned the kids looking through the JOY letters.  So 2 weeks later we went back, just Max and I to take pics of just the kids.

Here's what I had in mind...kind of. 

Close, but not exactly what I wanted. Either I cut off part of the J or Rhett's smile was too fake. None of them made the Christmas card.

So we moved to the blanket with silly hats in the hopes of catching some real smiles. This first one came close, but not quite it.

This was it! Real, candid, funny, authentic. This one made the Christmas card. 

We tried some sitting up, but it just never looked quite right.

Rhett kept climbing the tree so I just decided to go with it and take some by the tree. 

This one is great! I didn't put it on the Christmas card, but I love it! All natural smiles, the wreath in the background, casually sitting in the tree....

Here are some crazy, funny outtakes:

Yep, nailed it!