Natalie & Ryan: Family Christmas Pictures

Flashback to late November. We were celebrating Thanksgiving at my mom's, but we had arranged for a family photo session with a "professional" photographer at Trolley Square. Don't get me started on how horrendously difficult it was to get everyone there, how frustrating it was when some backed out, and how it completely soured our night. All my mom wanted was a complete family picture to hang over her mantle. Considering that we have about a billion kids and step-kids, we just weren't able to get everyone there, no matter how much accommodating we did for some. I felt really badly for my mom. We tried to get over the missing people and focus on how good the pictures were going to be. Well, "good" is an exaggeration. Not only did we have to wait forever for the pictures, we were only given back about 20 out of the hundreds that she took. And they were TERRIBLE! I could have taken better pictures. Where every family group took a handful of poses, we only got ONE picture back each. Yeah, you could say that my mom and I are a little upset. There goes my Christmas card! But, the silver lining is that I do love the ONE picture that we got back of the three of us. Everything else has someone looking the wrong direction or blinking. But that's what you get with big families.