Family Pictures: The Selfies

We'll start with Phoebe, who was so pleased to be sitting on a wall

And here she is standing by aforementioned wall since she was a little too wiggly to sit up there for long:

And here she is by a different wall (the one by the pond):

We learned nothing from our previous attempt at sitting her on a wall and...sat her on the wall again:

She sat just fine until she remembered her new standing up skills. 

I knew standing up on this wall was a terrible idea (while sitting on the wall was really only a moderately-terrible idea) so I prepared to snatch her off the wall...just as she lost her balance and fell backwards. It was a pretty phenomenal catch, if I do say so myself! Probably not as good as the time I basically ninja-rolled across the kids' bedroom to snatch Alexander out of the air when he fell off the top bunk (nor probably as good as the time I saved him from falling out of the swing)...but it was a darn good catch nonetheless! 

Andrew thought this picture was funny because she picked up this huge stick and held it like a rifle:

And here she is standing all daintily by a tree:

Sitting her on the ground by the pond was perhaps even riskier than sitting her on the wall by the pond, since the wall was preventing her from crawling directly into the pond. My kids are so drawn to water...but, here she is sitting pretty for a second:

And then, finally, here is a series of pictures of her taking a few steps and then clapping for herself (and then taking a few steps and clapping for herself, and then taking a few steps):

Her stance was getting a little wide, so she fell down, of course, and then we turned our attention elsewhere...

To this little dapper dude!

Alexander has the sweetest little smile.

Even when he's starting to get a bit goofy...

Here he is by a green grassy hill (my little Canadian self will never understand the grass around here):

And, finally, here he is standing on a fence (a very important pose, if you ask him):

Now for Zoë. She'd just lost her tooth the day before so was pretty proud of her new grin:

There's not much to say about this one. She cooperates for pictures quite nicely; it doesn't take a lot to coax a smile out of her (she's much like Miriam in that regard).

But she also did a little tree climbing:

And, in addition to the turtle the kids found, she found a ladybug and carried around for the longest time:

Here's Benjamin:

He's can be a little trickier to capture a photo of because he...

...never...

...stops...

...moving!

We got a few good shots here and there (like the turtle shots; the turtle shots turned out lovely...because he was still...because he was holding a turtle). Everything else was blurry. But he sure does know how to keep us laughing (even if we're unable to get photos because of all the laughter)!

For the record, I got him some new pants for his birthday this year. But for picture day he decided to wear his well-worn size 8 pants instead of his nearly-brand-new size 10 pants. Because one should be comfortable when taking pictures, right?

Miriam had a bit of a wardrobe change for her individual pictures. She wanted to wear her yellow sweater for the group picture, but also wanted to wear the cape she sewed for herself in her pictures.

Here she is in her yellow sweater. She's also wearing a wool skirt, which was given to her by our dear friend Linda Rich (it was Linda's mother's skirt, sewn in the 1940s). Miriam loves it and was so proud of her outfit when I told her it was really giving me 1940s vibes.

Here she is having ditched her sweater altogether (the green shoes were a pair I picked up while I was in Utah; my Uncle Bruce and Aunt Sara brought by a big box full of shoes previously owned by...Miss Utah...I think? These cute things were among those):

Here is Miriam with her fancy cape on:

She's the type of kid whose smile is perfect in every shot. 

Rachel is also wearing a dress from Sister Rich and, I have to admit, is also pretty easy to take pictures of these days. All our years of screaming, "LOOK AT THE CAMERA! RIGHT OVER HERE! WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?! WE'RE OVER HERE!" have paid off!

Andrew said her look was like a farmyard chic.

I'd say she's just giving general chic. 

These are my very favourite shots. I just love how she's catching the sunlight.

She's gorgeous!

After Rachel took a few pictures of us together, Andrew and I took a few pictures of each other because we hardly ever remember to take "nice" headshots of each other. 

"And you never know when you might need one!" I said. "How many times have people asked me to photoshop a spouse out of a picture for a funeral program? More than once. So thus we see it's important to have individual headshots as well as couple and family headshots."

"I guess so!" Rachel said, realization striking her. "Otherwise it'd look like a double funeral!"

"That's right," I tsked. "Nobody thinks of taking individual pictures until it's too late."

"You guys are so dark!" Andrew said. "You also need current headshots for...in case you publish a book or something! Sheesh!"

Either reason is a good reason for a high-quality headshot, I guess. Unfortunately, like Benjamin, neither Andrew or I could stop laughing, either. So...we get headshots of us stifling laughter.

Years ago when I started this project—of taking yearly pictures of the children and our family, in direct protest of outrageously priced (in my opinion) school photos—it felt like a pretty easy thing to just dress up a couple of kids and take some decent pictures. With eight people to deal with now it can feel like quite the production, but, really, we can't beat the price!