Family Pictures 2013

Its that time of year again where you take family pictures in preparation for the holiday season.  I love seeing my family all together in informal pictures, but to have a picture worthy enough to put on the wall is more of a challenge.  You have so many things to consider...clothes, location, time of day that is best for light and mood of your various children, and all other schedules you have to work around.  I have issues paying so much money for pictures of my family.  Especially when I feel like I can take them on my own.  The last two years I had a great friend take my pictures.  She was so kind and worked with my family.  The only problem was last year my family was kinda being stubborn.  So I decided this year I would take my own family pictures.  What did I have to loose, and if it worked out I would have to bother anyone.  So I tried....It was me a tripod and a timer.  The location and time of day was perfect.  Everyone worked together to make the most of the short time that we had taking pictures and I am way excited for what I got.  Its is kinda hard to do candid pictures when you are trying to be in them yourself and we ran out of time because it got so cold.  So here they are what do you think?

For those of you wondering, we are missing Alex from our family.  This last year was hard for him and our family.  He made choices that made it impossible to have him in our home.  We kept giving him chances and it never worked.  He moved to Ohio in hopes that separation from friends here would help...it didn't. He was able to graduate there and he came back to live at his moms house.  He was only there for two weeks.  We have only heard from him when he needed something from us.  It has been hard on our family, especially on Eric.