Family Pictures

As you might have guessed, family pictures with 4 children is, well, interesting. 
It takes a minimum of 1 hour to get everyone dressed and ready, and that it is only if mommy was on the ball and thought ahead to laying out everyone's clothes, underwear, tights, socks, shoes, etc. ahead of time.  Add an extra hour if this preparation has not been done. 
Once you decide the time is right to start dressing everyone (it is a skill to get the timing just right) you then have to balance who gets dressed first, and how ready they will get, in order to have the final finished product (i.e. clean face and hands, dressed right down to their shoes, hair done and smile pasted on) last until the end of the photo session.  Its like fitting together a puzzle...
Phase 1- Lauren and Julie will get hands and face washed and strip down to their underwear and wait for Mommy to help them with their dresses.  Daddy will wash Carter up and strip him down to his underthings.  Mommy will feed Maya enough to tie her over until the older girls have their dresses on.
Phase 2- Mommy puts Maya in swing.  Helps Lauren put her tights and dress on while Julie sits and reads a book.  Daddy goes and finds what clothes he thinks he is going to wear and Carter plays trains in his room.
Phase 3- Lauren goes and sits on couch with book.  Mommy helps Julie with tights and dress, while telling Daddy that the tie he has picked is the wrong colour.  Carter goes and pokes Maya while she is in the swing.
Phase 4- Daddy gets Carter and plays trains with him while Mommy combs the girls hair.  Maya lets us know she is not happy with being left to swing by herself.
Phase 5- Girls are sent to look at a book on the couch.  Daddy dresses Carter.  Mommy goes and tries on 5 different shirts other than the one she originally laid out, because she has decided she doesn't like that one anymore.
Phase 6- Daddy gets dressed, while telling Mommy to just wear the top she has on.  Mommy gets frustrated because Daddy's opinion is not the same as Mommy's, so goes to do her hair.  Carter plays trains again, girls are now arguing over the colour of the sky.
Phase 7- Daddy dresses Maya, Mommy changes shirt for the last time but tells Daddy he now has to change his pants to match the shirt she has finally chosen.
Phase 8- Mommy combs Carter's hair, Daddy changes pants, everyone gets their shoes on.
Phase 9- Photographer comes to the house and we move furniture so we can all fit in the picture...we say cheese and....the girls have managed to mess up their hair so it needs to be fixed before we can continue!
In the end we end up with a beautiful photo of our wonderful family of 6!  I bet you are all wishing getting your family photos done was this fun!