{family pictures 2017}

i love having our family pictures taken.  it's so fun for me to see how the kids change from year to year and i love putting them on display in my home.  we usually get our pictures taken in october but this year i decided i wanted some summer ones.  the boys' outfits were my inspiration for all our clothes.  i just love their plaid shorts. i had bought several items for greyson and kenna that might work.  it was the night before pictures and i realized i hadn't figured out what we were all wearing.  i normally do this a week or two in advance so i can look at it and make changes or buy something if i just don't like the way it came together.  so here it was the night before and i was kind of freaking out. thankfully my sister has an entire closet full of clothes that are brand new with tags, so i was able to "shop" from her closet and get my shirt. :) i liked the end result!

picture day was on a sunday, which is typically a hard days for the boys because they are out of their routine.  their nap only lasted a half hour but they seemed to be in pretty good moods so i really didn't think anything about it.  as soon as darcy pulled into the park and got out of her van, the boys got really shy and asked if we were going to leave them.  it all went downhill from there.  graham was the least cooperative.  neither twin would leave john's side.  i couldn't hold them and they wouldn't even stand by me in pictures.  we left feeling like we were not going to get any good family pictures.  john, who isn't particularly fond of pictures, was more upset than i was.  he really laid into the boys and made them go to bed immediately when we got home.  

i was thrilled when we got the pictures.  darcy made the most of their grouchiness and even got some smiling ones! make sure you scroll all the way through, because i'm going to include some grouchy ones too! :) 

darcy was trying so hard to get pictures of just the twins and of all four of the kids together. graham was not having it.  (notice his head in the picture above, he wouldn't even leave john's side so we could get our picture taken together).  so here's some "out takes" that had me so frustrated on the day of pictures, but laughing now.

children are a blessing, even when they make it hard on us! :)