Our Christmas Card

Oh what to do with the Christmas card.  I traded family portraits with my friend Karen Pearce.  So I went and took their pictures and she was all itching to come and take ours. So I was trying to think of something.  And then one morning I woke up to find this on Pinterest.  And I had it.  I showed my phone to Nate and said, "This is what we are doing for our Christmas card this year."  He was Totally on board.  Now to find the sweaters.  It took me a while.  I searched at several thrift stores.  Finally found the winners.  

I just love everything about this picture.  The goat just adds so much.  So we used that in our picture too.  Not a goat.  Although I thought about finding one.  But we did have a large rodent on hand, so that did the trick nicely.

Other wise known as our Master Piece.  This was so much fun.
We did the studio set up with the black seemless paper and off camera flash.  I wanted to have 2 flashes but my extra trigger didn't come in time.  But I think it turned out ok.  Luckily I had a reflector too.  We told the boys that they were supposed to be kind of silly, but we didn't want to direct it too much.
When we try to do that it usually goes south. 

While we were shooting, my friend was just cracking up.  It was so fun.  We did it really quick.  Not much time with all the short attention spans.  Probably about 15 min

Tyler Got it.  Ha.  Great job.  He is so hilarious. 

This time Oscar's weird expressions were perfect.

Kind of cute if you can keep George Castansa out of your mind.  Ooops, sorry I ruined it for you.

The beloved. Oh ya and her name is Pandora. I like to call her Cucumber.

Of course after it was done we thought of a couple more awkward things that should have been in there. Like some guns, which are big now in pictures. Spare Tire, inappropriate tattoos.  Laser lights, disco ball.  What have you...  I found one where the mom and kids all had matching jammies standing in front of the Christmas tree and the dad is standing with them in a speedo, only.  Fantastic.  He was on the largish side and fury.
We wanted so more fun this season. And we wanted to share our awkwardness with all our friends and family.