Family Portraits

Back in November my sisters and I thought it would be brilliant if we organized a family photo shoot since we all now live close to one another. The pictures would make perfect Christmas gifts for our parents and family.

We found a studio that was convenient for us all to drive to.

We made plans to meet for breakfast beforehand.

We worried about colors and wardrobes coordinating.

We scheduled around nap times.

It was still a disaster.

To our defense, we were on time for our morning appointment, early even, but the studio was running 40 minutes behind schedule. This is not good when nap time is around the corner and it's the week before Thanksgiving and the place is a madhouse.

Never again.

I wish I could show you the really hilarious out-takes (granted, it wasn't so hilarious at the time) but those didn't even make it to the CD they provided us. Here are a few of our out-takes that did make the CD:

We started with the kids first...

And then the whole family. We hate the pose and would have tried other arrangements but the kids were becoming uncooperative. What you don't know is that Jake it watching Barney on the iphone behind Angie's head.

Josh was holding the iphone.

And you can barely see Kim in this arrangement.

And why is Kyle waaay down at the bottom?  Terrible setup.

Then we tried just the cousins again. No go. Jake didn't even make it in the attempt!

Here's a little snippet of the chaotic, over-stimulating environment we were working with;

Like I said: Never again.

Well, I take that back. I'm sure after the next new addition to the family we'll decide it's time to update the family photos, but we have all agreed that next time we will have new stipulations:

1. No photo studios! We'll use a location of our choosing --  a nice calming, familiar locale

2. Private photographer all the way

3. The expense of said photographer will be soooo worth it.

4. Besides, said expense of said photographer, divided amongst all the families = reasonable.

Ok, it wasn't a total disaster. In the end we did manage to walk away with some surprisingly good photos, considering.

And we hoped the family loved receiving them!