The kiddos were just too cute in their Christmasy Sunday clothes, so I decided to try to get a pic of them together in front of the tree.  I really don’t know how mom’s of more than two kids manage to ever get decent pics of their chill’ns together.  This is speaking from experience trying to get good pics of all the cousins together! Talk about losing your mind. 

Basically what this means is that you pretty much get to the point where you are willing to concede and accept a less than stellar shot because, hey!  At least they were both looking in the general vicinity of the camera at the same precise moment. 

Haylee has always been the easy one in group pics.  (The girl is always ready to flash a smile and have her picture taken!)  But what inevitably ends up happening is her smile grows more and more strained and frozen until her eyes turn into nice little slits.  No matter how much I fuss at nicely ask her to smile normal, she can only give me her pained expression.  :)

B took our Christmas card pics and even designed my card!  I managed to be ready early this year, by some miracle, and have my cards *mostly* addressed, stamped, and ready to go.  All I am waiting on is my silly return address labels that I ordered end of October from Vista Print.  They have since issued me another order that they are telling me will get here December 9th.  Crossing my fingers that they are right, otherwise I can’t wait on them forever.  I’ll just have to scrawl out my return address like they used to have to do in the old days.  You know, back when they spent a fortune and stressed the family out taking the perfect pic and getting them out in time… 

Chris keeps nudging me to just email our “card,” but I just can’t bring myself to do it yet.  Maybe one day, but it just doesn’t seem as Christmasy to send an EMAIL as it does a lovely CARD, does it?

So, without further ado… Here our attempt at pics in front of the tree: