1. Take your photograph when your children are well-fed and rested. (Not right after church when the baby is looong overdue for a nap and everyone's low-blood sugar is resulting in impatience and grumpiness.)
2. Make sure your husband is well-fed. (Because you'll need his help to wrangle babies, arrange children, shoo chickens, and hold ponies. And if he's hungry {see above}, he'll give up on your perfect holiday photo shoot way too quickly.
3. Find a clean, white pony to add something unique and meaningful to your family's photo. (Preferrably not one that was rolling in her muddy field just as you are all walking outside to take pictures.)
4. Make sure your children are well-groomed and bathed. (or else they'll be wearing handknits in all the pictures to cover up)
5. Drain all tubs of standing water. (Because you know the baby will find them. And while you're directing the brushing of the pony and making sure noone gets stomped on by the same nervous pony, the baby will find the water and be up to her elbows in it before you turn back around.)
6. Lock in the chickens. (They distract the photographer.)
7. Remember that one of the things you love most about your family is that it's big, crazy and chaotic. But every once in awhile, you get a glimpse of almost-perfection. And there among the five hundred wacky outtakes, there'll be one that captures just that.
don't know which photo i love most!
Posted by: Habit Blog | 12 December 2011 at 09:59 AM
mmm. that's me. xo.
Posted by: Habit Blog | 12 December 2011 at 09:59 AM
always a fun experience.
Posted by: Kelley G. | 12 December 2011 at 10:01 AM
How perfectly perfect... all of them!
Posted by: Catherine | 12 December 2011 at 10:09 AM
oh, molly. beyond perfect, really. each and every one!
Posted by: Erin | house on hill road | 12 December 2011 at 10:12 AM
Total perfection, Molly (and I mean the out-takes too)
Posted by: Heather | 12 December 2011 at 12:07 PM
So much fun to see the out-takes.
Posted by: Pam - captured by our cameras | 12 December 2011 at 01:34 PM
Love this! My own Christmas card photo session was remarkably similar - without the horse though.
Posted by: allison | 12 December 2011 at 01:52 PM
GORGEOUS!
Posted by: susan | 12 December 2011 at 03:06 PM
love it! I've been putting this off....
Posted by: Kelly | 12 December 2011 at 03:40 PM
Great timing! "family photo" was on our weekend list and didn't happen...Thanks for the tip about hand knits! All you pictures tell the story.
Posted by: Megan | 12 December 2011 at 04:17 PM
Beautiful
Posted by: Brenda | 12 December 2011 at 05:21 PM
You have such a beautiful family.
Very good looking chickens too :)
Posted by: Erin Wilson | 12 December 2011 at 06:02 PM
Lovely pictures! That last one is perfect! I like the one with your little girl touching the water in the tub too!
Posted by: Frambooske | 13 December 2011 at 10:29 AM
Thanks for sharing this - all the photos - beautiful!
Posted by: Sheeps and Peeps Farm | 14 December 2011 at 07:18 AM
Oh just perfect! Serendipitous, no?
Posted by: Cecilia | 14 December 2011 at 02:04 PM
just wonderful! any holiday photo with a four girls and pony is magic.
Posted by: amy | 19 December 2011 at 07:41 AM
What a great post. Made me laugh! And boy can I relate. Our photo taking sessions go a lot like that, too.
Posted by: Clearwater CPA | 20 December 2011 at 10:33 PM
oh molly, you have no IDEA how many grins this brought to my face.
a good card photo is my one to-do for today (yes, i know, it's december 22. my middle name is Procrastinate. also, these things bring me no end of dread. for while i have 10,000 photos of my kids from last year, not one (!) includes all 3 of them, actually smiling-ish.)
i needed this. thank you.
Posted by: Molly | 22 December 2011 at 10:47 AM