Family pictures

We finally got around to taking family pictures this weekend, deciding that the best place for them this year would be our own home. Andrew set up a photo studio in the basement, which worked really well for the little kids...but was a little difficult for the taller members of our family (so we ended up heading outside to take pictures as a group).

Here's Alexander, the sweetest-faced three-year-old you've ever seen i your life:

My friend Crystal sent that adorable sweater to us and I kind of want to put Alexander in it every single day because I love it so much. I told him he wasn't ever allowed to grow out of it and he started crying. "But I will have to get bigger if I'm going to turn eight!" 

Eight is his really big number. He can count much higher than that but when he has to think of a number off the top of his head that's really big, it's most usually "Eight!"

Zoë was a riot. This girl has sass spilling out her ears.

Benjamin was...a goof ball...which isn't unusual.

Miriam was positively glowing with her new smile:

Rachel's looking very grown up these days:

This is my favourite shot (even though we managed to cut the top of her head off) because it's her real smile and not her is-this-a-smile smile. She's beautiful!

I took a few pictures of the kids together, which turned out rather well, I think. Fortunately they were have a buddy-buddy day and didn't mind being in close proximity to each other (had we tried taking them today we might have had a harder time doing so).

Here are our outside pictures (in case you wanted to see more):

Rachel doesn't have any dress shoes that fit her, so she borrowed a pair of mine, which were (a) at least two sizes too small (no wonder she was Grinch-y today (just kidding, Rachel; I love you) and (b) high heels, which she's not used to. We were joking about how awkward it was to be walking around our hilly yard in heels. "Yeah! She was stumbling around like a drunken hor..." Miriam choked out. She had to swallow before she could finish speaking (while we all stared at her in shock) "...se," Miriam finished. 

"I'm very glad you finished that word!" I said. 

Anyway, here are a few more shots of Benjamin:

He's a perfectly normal kid, I assure you.

Here's sweet Zoë:

And those other three:

Alexander was thrilled about the timer on our camera. The kids have an on-going game involving "Mr. Invisible Man," or, as Alexander likes to say, "Biyo-yo-biyo-yo Man." Zoë married Mr. Invisible Man several months ago (when she was feeling particularly isolated due to the pandemic, I think) and wore a "wedding ring" made out of a hair elastic for weeks. When they play Alphabet Bingo, they always set a board out for Mr. Invisible Man. When their phone acts weird (it is really old and suffers from "ghost touches"; sometimes it will skip songs when they're listening to music and other nonsense and...) they blame it on Mr. Invisible Man. 

So...we're taking family pictures and Alexander realizes that no one is behind the camera...and yet...the camera is taking picture after picture after picture (we set it to take a cluster of five photographs each time we set it so we have a higher chance of scoring a good shot).

We captured the exact moment that Alexander realized that if no one was behind the camera but the camera was still taking pictures, then someone was behind the camera, and that someone was obviously none other than...

"Biyo-yo-biyo-yo Man!?! Biyo-yo-biyo-yo Man ih tating our pitter?! Biyo-yo-biyo-yo Man ih real?!"

He was elated to discover that Mr. Invisible man was, without a shadow of a doubt, real.

Lastly, we took a couple of headshots of me...for my book...which is a thing that is actually happening.