The fun and games of getting a family photo. Part 2

Many moons ago when Immy was just a few weeks old, I attempted to take a photograph of all three kids and myself. It wasn't easy - that old nugget "don't work with kids or animals" was on repeat in my brain as I painfully soldiered on. I finally got a shot and blogged the outtakes here. For Mother's Day this year (yes, I KNOW it was also many moons ago...) I wanted to print out a giant photograph of the kids for my mother and mother-in-law. That meant attempting to get a photograph of ALL FOUR CHILDREN. Sheesh. I figured the easiest thing to do was to have them all lying down on the floor (seeing as that's all Annika could do!) So I dressed them up in some clothes that would go together, lay out my new rug, threw some cushions and throws on the rug and asked them all to lay down. I figured they'd be all cute and talk together and smile and act naturally I could snap away and get the pic no problems. Yeah, not quite. Zak was not keen. Not one bit - didn't want to have a photo taken at all. Not even for his grandmothers. Layla and Immy were fine - at times. And Annika had a small window of happiness and of course during this brief period, the others were having their off moments or were so wriggly it blurred. I snapped 138 photographs (I just checked the folder!). I yelled, I demanded, I commanded, I coaxed and I snapped away. It was all too much and after moving them around a couple of times, even Layla and Immy weren't into it anymore. So I hoped I got at least one shot. In the end, I narrowed it down to the one at the top (which is what we went with) and the one below.

Steve decided on the top one - he thought there was a bit more personality in the picture. I agree. So I took it to Kmart and had it blown up to the biggest I could get instantly (though "instant" still took an hour!) I have no idea what the size was in the end, but pretty big! They were around $11 each and we just placed them inside gigantic cards we made with a single piece of poster cardboard. They were a huge hit! Here is Immy with the end result (and wearing the same shirt!)

And here are some of the "oh-it-would-have-been-perfect-if-only..." outtakes. I'm sure you can imagine the actual real-life moment some of these were taken, complete with whiny voices, giggles and groans, my high-pitched "Comes on!"s and the very, very loud squeals of one tiny baby. Good times!

Oh, you STILL haven't seen enough? Ok here's one more. I actually almost used this one because it pretty much illustrates Imogen EXACTLY. She is such a little class clown. And Zak can be quite serious at times, Layla is always happy... I just didn't want a crying Annika though! How dare she ruin it for me...