Family pictures

It seems my family is making a habit of taking family pictures right after I have a baby. Last time we took family pictures was in Hawaii when Kalena was 9 weeks old. (You can see those pictures here.) So when we found out the whole family would be here for Christmas this year, my mom wanted to get some family pictures done. My first thought was, "COME ON! I'm going to be fat in the family pictures AGAIN!" But I was willing to sacrifice so we could have an updated family picture. Because even though we took some in Hawaii not everyone was there. So the family picture hanging in our dining room? Is from the last time we had a family picture with everyone, and since it was taken we've acquired 9 more people (3 spouses and 6 grandkids.) It's been there awhile.

We also thought we should do some just of the cousins (separately from the family ones-- we had really cute dressy outfits for them.) BUT, as you may recall, I was actually due on Christmas eve so scheduling was interesting. The only days everyone would be here were Saturday and Sunday, the 26th and 27th (all the kids would be there before that.) That meant Saturday was our only option for the whole group and then we scheduled the cousins picture for Christmas eve in the hopes that Will would make his arrival in time for them.

As you know Will DID make his arrival by then so he got to do his first photo shoot

at 2 days old. We had a family friend do them (you can see her website here) and they turned out pretty cute. She had quite the challenge: 6 kids, the oldest was 23 months old (and the youngest 2 days old), 3 of them under 6 months old. Also, Kalena was SO not sure what to think about Will at that point. And no adults in the pictures, so no one to hold kids and keep them happy. Here's my favorite shot. It doesn't have everyone in it, but I just think it's adorable. Especially Amelia:)

So that was Thursday, then on Saturday we had the whole family picture. We had those done at Mauch Photography. (If you live in Grand Junction I'm sure you know that name.) We actually live down the street from the Mauchs and they've done lots of pictures for us in the past. Robin, the owner, did our pictures for us and she is amazing. She arranged us and got shots of the whole family as well as each of the family groups within a half an hour. They turned out really well, although in the picture we chose Will had his hands in front of his face. It was okay though, they just swapped his head with another shot where you can see his face. And now we'll have this picture on the wall for the next 10 years or so. I guess being 4 days postpartum is better than being 40 weeks pregnant in the picture right?