Anatomy of a Family Picture

WARNING: There are A LOT of pictures on this post (and I left literally over a 100 OUT), so buckle your seatbelts and hang on.




So, it's that time of year; you know the time, THAT time, picture time. Get cutesy pics, print them on cards and wish people Merry Christmas. Ok fine, that was last month, but we here at the VP house don't do anything in a timely manner. So, we opted for a New Years greeting. Jere was QUITE excited to go and get some "real" pics taken. The only other formal family pic we have is when Maggie was 5 months old. Poor Max has been woefully under-represented on our walls. Anyway, we decided last Friday was the day. We picked our colors, found our clothes and called up my daddy-o to pull out his trusy camera and shoot away. How hard could this be right? I mean, look pretty (and I would like to take this moment to thank the hair gods for smiling upon me this day. No really, THANK YOU! And also, thank you for blessing Maggie with her Daddys hair..amen), smile for the camera and wa-la, you've got family pics. Well all I'm sayin is, WHATEVER! Whoever thought taking pics with toddlers was a good idea, EVER, is just retarded! For those "one" perfect shots that you get in the mail, there are 100's of nightmare moments...I am telling you now, for this picture to turn out:



You had to have a WHOLE bunch of these (imagine an arrow pointing down.)

Really? Could you PLEASE just look up? And what is happening with my eyes?

Really all Max wanted to do was play in the water that we were sitting on. Truly diffcult to keep him "in check."

Oh, new background, surely we can get something good????

Maggie totally had her own idea about where she wanted to sit and pose, and it generally wasn't NEAR us.

But somehow we managed to pull this one out, and it's pretty good.

So Jere got a couple of ridiculously fabulous shots with the kids. They were having a rare moment of "working" with us.

Are you kidding me? I sort of want to eat her up when I look at this pic. Oh, and I should randomly give Miss jenee a shout out for Maggies bling. I keep trying to explain to Maggie that she just lent it to us for the pics, but she won't hear it. She wears it all day everyday and insists that it is HERS!

So Jere gets fabulous shots with the kids, and I get nothing but 'tude. The kids were NOT having it.

I think I'm trying to plead with Maggie to just sit by me, and hold onto Max for dear life.

We managed to squeek this one out, and as you can tell, still not perfect. OY! Because all these kids wanted to do was....

Man did they want to climb and play. It was a moment of Heaven for these Monkeys.

But seriously, so cute, and it leads to pictures like the one below.

Love this girl.

And I'm sort of beyond in love with this little bubbers. What do you do but just put him on toast and eat him? WOW!

Now Jere and I however, we were totally ready to pose. We didn't fight the camera, we didn't run away to climb the walls. Nooooo, we just kindly and happily smiled for the camera. And when you do that, sometimes good things happen.

I feel like I look sort of old, but at the same time, I do enjoy the blue and cactus background. I'm telling you, Mesa Arts Center is a crazy plethora of background goodness.

This is my personal favorite, but that's just me.

Hi, have you met my totally hot husband? I'm so sure!

Totally using this as a new headshot. And look at those eyes. When we first met, he did not wear glasses, and his eyes were a HUGE draw. Where do you think my kids get such fabo eyes?

Eh, it's a picture anyway.

REALLLLLY wanted this background to work, but the kids didn't feel it for me.

Can you see how much they wanted to take pictures? hahaha

We tried for those cute holding hands and walking pics....not so much.

This pretty much sums up the whole day.

But I saved my favorite picture for last. Here are a couple of shots leading up to "the one" good one.

Wait for it......

Wait for it......

Super grumpy Maggie outburst. But, wait for it........

It was all worth it for that. No really, the whole day of fighting, crying, grumping, screaming, running away, wrestling, fighting, was all worth it for the 4 or 5 gems that we did get. I truly do love to have updated family pics. And many, MANY thanks to my papa for being willing to take our pics and for doing such a bang up job! Oh, and also thanks to my Mom for coming along and helping with the kids and such.

Happy New Year All!

Frowny faces and flash bulbs,

Allyson