Behind The Scenes of Our Christmas Card Pics

Every year we (ok, maybe more like me) like to coordinate taking pictures for our Christmas cards. Of course I could make it easy and just pick a random picture from over the summer or another event, but it doesn’t feel the same to me. Last year our attempt at pictures for our card were nothing short of chaos. They sure made for some great memories though and Eric and I still get a kick out of them. I mean, little nugget surely did not want the Grinch to steal Christmas. I shouldn’t have been phased by the chaos because A would not cooperate at all when he was younger. Those are still some of our funniest memories  and every year Eric and I pull them up and have a good laugh. Then, something unheard of happened this year. The boys looked at the camera, held hands, and cooperated! I still regret not playing the lottery that day because I think we could have won big. 

If it’s not Eric or I behind the camera, it’s usually my sister or my mom that I recruit and try to turn into my camera minions 😉 This year neither one of them were available when we wanted to take pictures so I had to do what I dread doing—using the tripod. I was just telling Rebecca Jo that I don’t like using my tripod because to me it seems so staged and fake. I love it for food photos but not for our every day moments. One of the things I love about capturing lifestyle moments is handing the camera over and saying, just click away. 

We have this large pile of wood in our backyard that we keep under the over hang of our shed/barn thing to keep it from getting wet. We took a picture in front of it last year and I knew it would make a great backdrop for something bigger one day. One of my friends even mentioned it would be great for pictures, so that sealed the deal for me. Of course I can’t make things easy for anyone, so I asked Eric to move it out from under the overhang into an open area. We’re just going to leave that right there because he was not the happiest with me at that moment. Husband of the year award should go to him.

We wanted to try and get pictures of all of us before we attempted the boys because it’s always easier to break away than regroup.

If it’s not my nuggets that love to find sticks, it’s my dog. At this point it wouldn’t be a picture for us if a stick wasn’t involved. Coaty was more concerned about tearing into that thing and kept doing his own thing. I know I was probably asking for a lot here and might have been a bit over ambitious to think we could capture all of us and our dog, but when I have something in mind I have to try it out to see if it’s doable.

With a growling bear face and a little rearranging, we all got it together. I think I yelled, Coaty look a squirrel! And then we got this.

And then he dropped his stick and gave the camera a look like, my family is cray cray.

With a stick on the lose, there is no room for leaving that thing untouched. Little nugget was the closest and eyed that thing up.

Mom to mom moment here, anyone who says they haven’t bribed their kids for a picture (or a dog in our case) in my opinion can’t be trusted. Eric was standing behind me with a piece of cheese, this bribe was totally for our dog, but it looks like both my dog and my son wanted the same treat. I mean, cheese does have that effect on people #allthecheese.

You see, sometimes I get these grand ideas in my head that I love to attempt bringing them to life, and what would taking family pictures be without adding some fake snow throwing into the mix.

It went a little something like this…

To finish it up, my precious nuggets were just that, precious nuggets that melted my mama heart. They smiled, they laughed, they held hands, and made looking at them behind the camera one of the best moments.