Family Pictures

My amazingly talented brother in law graciously took our family pictures while he was here on vacation.  Bless his heart, it isn't easy photographing a family with 3 young kids. 

In an effort to try and not portrait my family as perfect, as it is so easy to do on social media, I am including the good and the bad so you can get a glimpse of what the photo session was really like.

When you walk into my house you will see this picture framed....

And this one.  Awe, don't we all look so sweet?! 

What you won't see is all that went into capturing the "perfect shot" of this crew.  We had an army of people clapping, making funny noises, shaking rattles, jumping up and down and bribing with the kids chocolate chips to get everyone to look at the same place and smile.  

Here are a few shots that were taken in between the "one."

Daniel pinning Levi's hands down so he wouldn't grab Kayla's hair, make her cry and pretty much take away any chance of ever capturing a "perfect" picture.    

I was kneeling in an awkward postilion and both Joshua and Kayla where putting their weight on me making it worse.  I guess I couldn't hold my smile any longer.  

And this is us right before going down...my foot gave out and Joshua thought it was pretty funny apparently.  I was the one domino hold us all up.  

Joshua did very well for his independent shots.  He stood there and smiled the whole time.

The hand in his pocket was his idea.  #stud

Next up was Kayla.  Sure she looks so sweet in these shots but she started out very crabby and uncooperative.  It took Aunt Anna bribing her with chocolate chips to calm down.  

Levi's turn.  He was so easy.  He just sat and smiled the whole time.  No surprise there.

The only issue with him was trying to keep his hands out of his mouth.  But even so, he still takes a sweet picture. 

The group pictures are my favorite.  I think they really capture the relationship between all of the kids.

Kayla so sweetly has her arm around Levi which is the nurturer in her and Joshua's arm all the way around Levi shows how protective he is of him. 

These next 3 are my favorites!  

"What about you Joshua? Are you going to give me some kisses too?"

And now we are getting antsy and silly. 

And now bored.

Something over there is obviously more interesting than smiling for the camera.

Where did Joshua go?

There he is, laying on the ground.  He's so over this picture thing.  

And now a shot with the grandparents.

"Will somebody please just smile?!?!"

Levi will.  You can always count on him for a smile. 

Now we have 2/5 smiling and 1/5 looking away. 

This one is pretty cute if the sun wasn't in Noah;s face.

Joshua is bored and Noah disappeared behind Giovanni.

Noah and Joshua are done!

Mom and Dad's turn.  Adults should be easy right?!

Even Mom and Dad got a little tired of pictures and were antsy...

A big shout out to this crew (minus one) who stayed behind the lens most of the time and did all sorts of silly things to make these pictures possible!

We sure aren't perfect but we are all filled with lots of love and gratitude.  At the end of the day that is all that matters.  When things don't come out Pintrest perfect I like to just say, "well that is okay because this is just a picture of what our life is in this moment."  I wouldn't change any of it!