family photos: twenty-seventeen style!

With a family our size, accomplishing a family photo session can be a real beast.  First of all, we have a million kids on a single income, and photos aren't cheap, so we've been pretty sporadic about it.  Second of all, it's literally impossible to get everyone looking decent in a photo.  The more people there are, the more variables there are that could go wrong.

In answer to the first conundrum, we were outrageously blessed with a super talented and generous brother-in-law, who is a literal pro, and who offered to get some shots of everyone when he and my sister came down for Laurelai's birthday last month.  In answer to the second conundrum, we never got a shot where everyone was looking pleasant, but I'm more than happy to settle for at least most people looking pleasant.

I just love the shots he got of each kiddo.

And only because I find this shot hilarious:

Their responses to whatever is happening behind the camera are so polarized.

Oh, how lucky I am to get to call these people all mine!

turns out we're good-looking people.

or, actually, austin is a really good photographer.

i mentioned a couple of weeks ago that my sister's boyfriend took some family photos for us right after christmas.  (wow, it seems like a lifetime ago that it was reasonable to expect the kids to sit outside without coats on.  at least, without having DHS sicced on us, and rightfully so.)  also?  i love the photos.  i want to marry the photos.  i want to hug them and dress them in warm scarves and cute mittens.  because i'm a weirdo, but also, because they're so good and i'm so grateful.

like, he totally captured the kids' personalities.

  

and he got some great ones of each kiddo individually:

and some good ones of me and todd together (we have very few photos of the two of us since myspace selfies stopped being a thing.)

and - gasp, shock, amazement! - some of all six of us!

and some of our relatively normal, day-to-day lives:

austin let atticus try his hand at shooting a photo, and this is what he took.  not too bad for his first try!

oh man, i'm just so happy with these i could smooch my screen and then order entirely too many prints and then have to wallpaper my house in them.  but it really wouldn't be so bad, would it?  a house wallpapered in these faces?  nope, it wouldn't, i agree.

the tale of the hard-to-get porch swing.

girlfriend had her heart set on getting into the porch swing.  the porch swing was all, nuh uh.  van voorsts are nothing if not pigheaded persistent.

 



and then she gave up.  porch swing wins.

in which i prove i'm a moron.

photographic proof from the last couple of months:

i look like a stepford wife.  who is wearing a ratty old sweatshirt. 

 

 

i look like a stoned stepford wife who thinks penelope's present looks like a pan of delectable brownies.

 

 



 

i have no words.

 

 

my less flattering side.

 

 

i look very happy to be asleep.

 

 

 

while this one is not of my face, i will mention that this photo was taken at 5:30 pm and you can conclude what you will from that.

and because misery loves company, i'm also throwing lauren under the bus:

 

 

and just because this one really is a classic that i love to laugh at:

and this is to prove i don't always look like a moron, even though my kids apparently couldn't care less about the fact that i actually showered before this photo taken:

 

 

 

if you have a blog, consider this your official challenge to post some dorky pictures of yourself.  then link back so that i can laugh and laugh at you.

merry christmas!!!!

um, yes.  i'm talking about christmas today.  but like i mentioned last week, a bunch of stuff has gotten lost in the shuffle, and today is the day i bring it to light.  at least it's not february yet.


okay, christmas eve.  we spent it with my dad's side of the family and got to hang out with my amazing grandparents.  i love this photo because the kids are all, "bored. bored. MANIACAL HIGH FIVE!"

christmas morning, we opened gifts at my mom's.  the kids got new jammies and wiggled too much to get a single great photo in front of the tree, so here are a couple runners-up.

i gave penelope the used-to-look-like-a-call-girl doll, and she really liked it...

...but finneas ultimately staked his claim on her.  must be the now-understated makeup she's sporting; he likes girls that look more natural.

penelope also got a toy kitchen, and this photo sums up how she now spends 98% of her waking hours.

she also got down and dirty clean with her new sis-sized broom.

todd opened this gift, which was inexplicably covered with cigarette ashes.  still not sure what was up with that.

atticus is now fully equipped to fulfill his dream as a member of a road crew...

...although, penelope did hijack the safety goggles for her own insane purposes.

and that was our christmas!