If You Don't Like Pictures, Stop Reading Now

In the spirit of Easter, I thought it would be nice to get some family pictures. So, Saturday evening our living room became a photo studio. Nicole bought some lights to shoot my wedding a while back and I borrowed those. As a result, I spent the whole evening cringing and yelling, "Oh the cords! Please don't trip on the cords for the $500 light set-up that does not belong to me!" Really cheered everyone up.

Actually, my goal was to make this shoot go as stress-free as possible, so I started out with zero expectations. I worried for nothing though, as the children came through with amazing patience and great smiles. Most of the time.

One of the portraits below includes Brad and me. This was incredibly difficult because I had to use the self timer. Getting children to look at the camera while there isn't anybody jumping up and down making a fool of themselves behind it is almost impossible. Do you want to know my secret? We put Chicken Little in the portable dvd player and set it on a shelf that sits a little above and behind where the camera was set up. That accounts for the totally zoned out look on Carson and Memphis' faces.

As proud as I was to (finally) capture this shot, my high was short lived when I realized that I look a lot like Maria von Trapp. Now this would be fine if we were living in Austria in 1959, but we're not. However, this picture is about our family, not about me, so if I have to look like a dork to pull off that effect, fine.

Here are the shots we are planning on ordering to display in our home:

But we felt that these were a more accurate depiction of our family:

And, just because it's my blog and I can, here are some close runners-up:

Hope your Easter was happy!!