Family Photo Faux Pas

I love pictures. Love them. And I'm not the best at taking them myself. Luckily, we have an amazing photographer, Tammy Marcelain, that has become very special to our family and captures most of our "big moments" for us. We found her while searching for somebody to take our engagement and wedding  photos, and after she did, we were hooked. I'll know I've arrived when I can afford to have her follow my family around and photograph ALL our special moments (still holding my breath for that one).

As you can imagine, I've been looking forward to our first set of full family photos since the day I found out I was pregnant with our twins. I couldn't wait for that perfect picture of our complete little family of five. What I didn't expect was the SHEER CHAOS that goes with trying to photograph three children all under the age of two. I mean, I should have known. I did already have one photograchically-uncooperative child by that time. But I didn't. Here's a little how it went: The twins were either sleeping or awake, but never at the same time. Brooks pooped all over his precious little diaper cover at the very beginning of the shoot. Parker peed on both my mom and Marshall at different times. Laney was having NO PART of cooperating for any picture to be taken of her. Instead she was crying and running around messing her hair up like a crazy girl. The temperature in the house was nearly 100 degree. And every adult in that room was in need of a VERY stiff drink. Tammy, though, was so incredibly patient with us and shot all sorts of pictures (and re-shot them when they didn't work out the first time) for over 3 hours! She got some really great ones. I am so pleased! If you want to see the great ones, go to her website by clicking here. If you want to see the out-takes, read on.

Many thanks to my sassy and stubborn sweet little angel-face Laney, we didn't get that perfect family photo. But we did get some pretty funny ones that are just priceless and probably better than a perfect one anyway. Here is my favorite one:

Parker is sleeping and Brooks is screaming. Laney somehow doesn't look like she was being the absolute toot she was being. Marshall is looking down and wishing he were anywhere else in the world. And I'm smiling this totally embarrassed and uncomfortable smile that only a mom can understand. IT'S PERFECT!

Here are some of the other ones that I love that didn't make the cut. Enjoy!