The Fun of Christmas pictures.......

I was looking through pictures trying to decide what to write about that will update the last 2 months in the Berry house. Many things have happened but today I want to write about the fun of taking Christmas pictures for Christmas cards. As I looked through past pictures, I was reminded of all the fun that  parents go through to take a good picture of their kids. The more kids you have, the harder it gets. Now that we have three kids, we have to find the shot where all three look great.
I think I need a really expensive camera like the one in professional studios that take 20 pictures a minute assuring of at least one great picture :) This did not work when we took the kids to Portrait Innovations early December though. I feel it is important to document through pictures the kids growth each year. I absolutely love pictures. Throughout Liesel's first year of life, I took her to JCPenney to have her picture taken every month. That is a little extreme, but babies do change so much that first year. Two more kids later and Jensen has had his picture taken professionally 3 times since he was born. Wow, how things change! This last session, Jensen cried the minute we put him next to Liesel and Caedmon. By the time it was all over, we were just glad we got one shot of Jensen where he was not screaming. We had to forget about the thought of a smile. I really do hope he moves past this for his sake and mine.
Back to family pictures at the house.......Craig and I took 17 pictures and we never really got that GREAT shot I was looking for. Here is a funny look back of all we went through.
I like this picture because it shows Caedmon and Liesel's personality. However, I could not get Jensen to even look up.

When it was time to sit in front of the house, I used a ball (Jensen's favorite toy) as an attempt to get him to smile. The ball does not work so well when you can see it in the picture. LOL! When we took a family Christmas picture when Liesel was this age, we used an ELMO doll near the camera. Aww, memories!

This picture is sweet because Liesel is either comforting Jensen or telling him "Get used to it little brother, this happens a lot around here!"

Jensen is still slightly disturbed and now Caedmon is trying to comfort him.

Jensen has clearly reached his limit since the tongue has come out. Liesel and Caedmon are giving a "Mom you are crazy" look. "Can we please be done?!?"

After all that, this is the only picture where all three kids are actually looking towards the direction of the camera. Caedmon and Liesel clearly have a forced smile but I WILL TAKE IT!!! LOL!

On a positive not, when I just wanted a picture of Jensen by himself I had much more success.

 We did get some good family shots as you can see from the new one at the top of the blog. I don't know why those went better. I think next year we will skip Christmas cards altogether. I say that now but will probably not go through with it. It may be stressful but Christmas card time brings stressful I mean fun memories we will remember forever.