One Bigger Happier

While all the kids were together, we managed to squeeze in our second (hopefully) annual family photoshoot -- now with 50% more grandchildren and 100% fewer parents and at least 300% more chaos!

It's not a bad picture, but it's not great. It was much colder than it was last year when we tried this, and this was my first time attempting a quasi-sort-of-maybe-kind-of professional-ish shoot that involved posing an infant. I forgot to remember that getting the smallest of my models to look at the camera was going to be the EASY part. Shae's got something on her face and major hat-head and you can see the tags on the baby's blanket, but at least they're all not looking at the camera in approximately the same general direction.

By the time these kids are all in college, I should have this figured out.

What we actually wanted to do, originally, was get all the kids to pose together with their assorted-colored bunny ears on. Um, yeah, I don't what particular kind of crack we were smoking when we came up with that harebrained (HA!) scheme, but we were at least able to get nice pictures of them individually with the ears on. Joey was the one I worried about, because he does not really strike me as a headband sort of guy, but we let him play with a rake while he had the ears on, and he gave us surprisingly little trouble.

I would like one of these in my Easter basket, please. Are not those cheeks so perfectly, delectably nommable? (What is it about babies that turns people into cannibals, anyway? It has been a very long time since I have seen a baby and DIDN'T think to myself, "That head looks gorgeous and melonious and DELICIOUS." Especially in my family, where we make babies with heads like perfectly ripe cantaloupes. I mean, look at this example -- I JUST CAN'T EVEN.)

This is our fourth consecutive year with this particular pair of rabbit ears, and I for one will be terribly sad when they are handed off to the next "generation." These might be one of those things, like the sweater she was wearing the first day that we met her, that we keep in a special box in the bottom of her closet and never pass on, because they are so much a part of our family history. (Oh, hey, guess who has been working on a birthday movie for the last two days and feels really nostalgic and old today? THIS BLOGGER.)