Get ready for some serious Christmas recap posts! First, let's start with this year's cards.
The one we sent out was not at all what I had envisioned for this year. I had lots of cute ideas, but we never had a good time to pull them off. Teenagers have really busy schedules! We realized one Saturday night while Anna and Wyatt were at our house in November that we wouldn't have all three kids together again until Christmas time, so we had no choice but to try for a Christmas card pic the next day. And what did we wake up to? Rain. Of course.
The rain had stopped momentarily right as we were getting out of church, and I knew I had limited time before hunger stole the smiles from their faces. So we had a quick ten minute photo shoot and called it done.
This was the winner.
Three kids smiling at the same time made this the clear choice. Plus, I like that both Anna and Wyatt are touching Katie bug. They love her, even if sometimes they act too cool for her.
There were some pretty good outtakes too. And by "good" I really mean terrible. I thought it would be cute to take one of the three of them walking down this cute little pathway, but Katie Wynn wanted to be the leader of the pack.
Yes, I did some photoshopping on Anna's sweater in the chosen picture. I thought it looked a little busy. Is that awful?
I thought these where Wyatt was showing KW a big leaf would be cute too, but Anna was making some silly gestures. I also didn't love the chain link fence in the background.
This was the runner-up for our card. Equally as good of the three of them, but I let Matt choose and he preferred the one of the girls holding hands.
I'll have to plan way more in advance for next year's since, in addition to two teenagers and a toddler, we'll also be working with a little baby. Should be fun! :)
The past four years, we've done a full family picture for my mom and dad's card. This year, there was just not a time when everyone in the family could get together, so that didn't work out. My mom was stressed to the max over getting a perfect picture! We decided a picture with just her and Dad with the grandkids would work, but unfortunately Anna and Wyatt would have to be out of the picture since they wouldn't be around. This was a very spontaneous photo shoot we did on Thanksgiving, while all the extended family was inside the house eating lunch.
The biggest problem? How do you get five little kids to look at the camera and smile at the same time? I can't tell you how many pics I have like this...perfect smiles on some, and at least one or two looking off and/or being silly.
So, I tried out a little trick. I told them I was going to count to three and then I wanted them to all scream at the top of my lungs. They did exactly as told!
And then, as the screams faded, the giggles started.
And I just kept snapping away, because eventually, we got this card-worthy gem.
Genuine smiles from five kids and two proud grandparents. You can't beat that!
Hope some of you enjoyed seeing these arrive in your mailboxes! December is definitely my favorite time of year because of all the snail mail!
More Christmas recaps to come...