Making of the card

Each year, the most dreaded thing about the holiday season for me is the card. When Abbey was a baby, I was so excited to send out Christmas cards and have done so every year since. There have been years when I haven't felt like it, but somehow always manage to do it anyway. Sometimes we do professional photographs but the last couple of years that has been overwhelming as well. My goal for next year is to have family pictures taken in the summer. We haven't done them since Asher was 18 months old. Definitely time for an update. 

I am usually pleased with how my cards turn out(or I wouldn't send them) and this year I was shocked that I actually pulled it off. We went to California for Thanksgiving which cut into my Christmas prep time and then we were slammed with a winter wonderland, so I thought I missed the window for outdoor pictures, but lo and behold, we hit a warm spell which melted everything and so at 4 pm after church on a warm Sunday I had everyone throw on their sweaters and meet me outside before I had an appoinment at 4:30.  I seriously only had about 10-15 minutes. I was hoping for a single group shot that I could upload to Costco and wham, bam, be done. Didn't work out that way.

Eli was more interested in climbing the rocks.

After a few of these, I realized the group shot was not going to happen.

Easy fix, I'll split it up into boys and girls.

Easier said than done.

I thought surely I could get some good individuals.

Again, not as easy as it sounds.

Asher loves to do sweet closed mouth smiles but for some reason his "teeth" smiles are either action shots or just plain awkward.

A closed mouth smile with braces isn't as attractive as it may sound.

And for this sweet child, bless her heart, it will only be closed mouth smiles until she gets her braces.

Claire pretty much never takes a bad picture if her eyes are at least open and she is looking at the camera. Her smile will also be benefiting from braces in the next few years.

 The final project turned out pretty decent given what I had to work with. The coloring is a bit off because I had to scan it in. You get the idea. Also, Costco didn't have a card with enough picture slots on it so I went with Shutterfly and I'm fairly certain I can never go back to Costco now.

Happy Holidays 2010