Family Photos 2014

It was the middle of November and the trees were clinging to the last of their leaves. If we wanted to do it, it was now or never...

Welcome to the Nill family photo shoot. Fall 2014.

After seeing many different local ads for mini-sessions across September and October, I finally decided to splurge. I picked a photographer and we met at the Arnold Arboretum on a very chilly Sunday. It should be noted that I was the only person in our family interested in doing this. Jason wanted to build the fireplace, Ashton wanted to play with his cars, and Alex wanted to take a nap. The morning of, Ashton got a fresh haircut, I decided on everyone's outfits, washed them, made lunches, put myself together and packed the car up. Honestly, it took hours, and then Alex cried the entire way there (45 minutes) and we couldn't find our meeting spot. Then Ashton was whining, it was cold, and my stress level was about as high as it gets. We started off with a big "UGH" and I seriously contemplated just going home.

Which is why it is completely shocking how well the pictures came out. The deal we had was that the photographer would shoot for about 30 minutes, send us all the low-res files and we could pick roughly 10 of our favorites. She would edit them and send them back as high-res digital images and they were ours to do what we wanted with.

We had the folder of all the pictures the same night! It was easy to narrow them down: Ashton ruined 75% of them by grimacing and Alex was fussing in another 10%. I sent her my list and a couple of days later, we were the proud owners of these :)

And last but not least, the ones that went on our Christmas card. 

While the experience itself was a little tough, these pictures were worth every bit of the effort. One thing I wish I had been prepared for was to know which shots I wanted. For example, Jason and I don't have one of just us in the whole lot, we didn't take one of me and the boys, etc. But I really hope to do this every year - you can't go back in time to recapture these memories. It's the same reason, I suppose, that I maintain this blog. My posts don't seem like much at the moment, but I love to look back at certain things. Like Ashton at 9 months old, because my post tomorrow is going to be all about Alex at the same age. He hit 3/4 of a year old last week, like whaaaaaaaaaaaaat? :)