Good morning and HAPPY FRIDAY!

Not sure why I got so excited there, except that there’s just something about getting back from a vacation and slogging though real life for a few days to make the weekend feel especially sweet.

Speaking of vacation, our lovely hostess Donna—who is a picture-taking fiend!—asked if we wanted to take a family picture or two down by the lake before we left for home. And I thought, “Brilliant! Why didn’t I think of that?” I love the concept of pretty family pictures, but the actual preparation for them is kind of brutal. Hair fixing and teeth brushing, outfit coordinating and shoe-finding. Not that I don’t do those same things every single day, but when you’re going to take a picture of it on purpose, it’s supposed to be, well, picture-worthy, which takes an I-CAN’T-FIND-MY-FLIP-FLIPS (again) meltdown to a whole new level.

But because this was just a casual “let’s go snap a few shots of your family down on our pretty pier” type of thing, I didn’t feel that stress. But you better believe that didn’t keep me from digging through our suitcase to see if I had accidentally brought us all coordinating clothing. Nobody was more shocked than I was to discover that…I had! Or at least close enough to look decent. So, we threw on our matchy-matchies, scarfed some dinner so we could keep the good light (yes, I know the order of that was not wise with small children {literally} in the picture, but I figured I could edit out any particularly egregious dinner stains on their shirts).

Then, we meandered on down to pier and “snapped a few shots” (more like 100). These are some of my faves:

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Best. Daddy. EVER.

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“When can we go swimming?”

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Ezra is not my most-photographed kid, for sure. He’s such a handsome, sweet boy, but his little sisters’ cuteness and his brother’s dimples sometimes draw my camera’s lens their way more often than his big boy looks (oh, where did my baby go?). So, I was happy to find this framer in the mix. It’s so quintessentially Ezra. Man, I love that kid!

These next several made me laugh just because they show what a process it is to get 7 people (5 of whom have much more important things like dessert on their little minds) situated enough to get even one decent shot.

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Ah. Finally one where we’re {almost} all looking. The twins could not be convinced that the camera was worthy of their notice. (Also, if I hadn’t already known who I was holding in this short, I could not tell them apart to save my life from looking at it).

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Hey! 5 out of 7 looking and smiling. NOT bad!

Of course, once we’d tasted (marginal) success, we just had to keep going!

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I do believe this one’s getting framed.

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And this one just might replace my long hair photo on the top right over there.

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How could I resist a shot with the twinnies?! {Nola, left, Evy, right}

Donna, who is nicer than most people ever dream of being, was trusting enough to let Della play with her camera as a distraction.

This was the result.

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I do believe we have a budding photographer on our hands. She snapped pictures of everything from her toes to the grass to the sky (I’m pretty sure there were at least 20 Della-eye-level shots of everybody’s hindquarters as well). She even has the brooding, artsy stare going on in this shot.

So, all in all, I’m going to call our impromptu family photo shoot a success. 

I just need to get my rear in gear and actually print some of these out for the frames! (I am terrible about that part).

Speaking of rears in gear…(was there ever a worse segue?)…are you ready to PAR-TAY?!!

Don’t forget to grab a party button so others can join in the fun (or just include a text link-back).

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