Cousins

Every year, in the name of family togetherness, we get all the cousins together for a group picture. As the number of cousins has grown, the dread that accompanies the picture taking increases exponentially. Shanna wrote a great post with the history of our cousin picture.

Last years picture included the following:

• 8 kids ages 6, 4, 3, 3, 2, 2, 1, 1
• Abigail and Tyler posed perfectly, listened and smiled at the camera
• Caroline would pose, but refused to smile or look at the camera
• Carter had a broken foot (cast was to be put on a few days later) that kept getting bumped--he was not having fun
• Alex was hospitalized the next day for dehydration--so he was pretty ill (we didn't realize how sick he was a the time)
• Grant cried the whole time so we had to get a special finish to the pictures so his face didn't look red

Needless to say, we dreaded this years.....that is until we thought about having Marchet from Butler Family Photography take the pictures.

The pictures were great--we got a fabulous posed picture:


And some wonderful candids....here are my favorites, but there are more here, and I got a preview of what will be on our CD and there are some I like even more :)

Here Caroline is holding a tiny frog in her hands--I love her expression and can never capture that on camera--she 'poses' too much when there is a camera around

This one I love--Alex and Grant were born 3 days apart, and at 2 they are still too young to really interact much, but here they look like they are chatting and sharing a joke.

Here we had a little parade, and you can just feel the fun and joy that the kids were having marching to "Its a Grand Old Flag" (sung by Shanna).


So this year, we all actually enjoyed the pictures--the kids were tired, but more of a "played a the park and had fun" tired rather than a "really cranky from having to sit still and pay attention" tired. As a bonus, we got more pictures, and it cost less, than last year for one only moderately decent picture.