Family Pictures

This year before Christmas, Knut and I had the honor of our friend Sara to come out and take pictures of our family.  The last time we had professional pictures taken of us, we only had 2 kids and it was done for $9.99 with a coupon at JC Penny and Silje is the only one who looks cute.  I thought I'd have her take some of each of the kids and save me a trip to get their yearly pictures done too.

We were planning on doing most of them outside, but due to my late-in-the-year-planning, and a strong South wind in our yard that morning, that was just not possible.  The wind would have blown us down, so we headed over to Knut's parent's house which boasted great lighting. 

In addition to our bit of venue change, the kids weren't exactly at their best that day.  It wasn't that they were all being bad, it's that they were taking turns being naughty and I was beginning to believe that we'd never get one of us all together that was anywhere near halfway decent.

We did our best and she said she would send us the pictures in the mail within 2 weeks.  The package arrived right on time, but since we left for Arizona a day early, we just missed seeing them.  So Knut's parents (who were looking after our house) sent the package down after us in Arizona so we could share them with our family down there. 

Ironically enough, the package arrived in Arizona the day after we left to go home. 

So after my mom got to go through them and pick out the ones she wanted, she sent them back up to me, and I finally get to share them with you.  Sara got so many more great pictures that day than I ever thought possible.  With Silje over-posing, David biting his lip and limping through each picture, Elias giving his whiny face, and Solveig...well every picture of Solveig turned out.  She was just delighted over the whole thing that day.  Anyway, it turned out great.

I got a little note from Sara saying she'd like to give us a complimentary reign check on our outdoor farm pictures this Spring since we didn't get to get many outside ones.  Sweet!!!

At some point we stopped trying to get the perfect picture and Sara came up with this one, which just might be my favorite.

Well, we did try to get a handful by going to the North side of our woods where the wind wasn't so bad, but the kids were pretty done then.  Really done.

This is just a taste of the pictures.  Oooo, this is going to be a fun naptime today going  through them all.