Superheroes and Sweetness: Formal Family of 4 Pics 2013

I am the only one in my family who enjoys taking pictures. Perhaps it was the years of training with my parents growing up, or the three years in high school as a cheerleader where taking one picture meant smiling for 5 minutes while every mother snapped the same picture, or just my love for the finished product. But I was excited to take our annual family pictures - our first set as a family of four - with a photographer friend I knew in high school in early November.

We had been talking with Collin about family pictures in the days leading up to the Friday event, but we should have been more clearly outlining rewards and consequences of picture success, because on that Friday afternoon Collin was completely uncooperative! It is a miracle Taryn got any good photos since Collin wouldn't smile despite our feeble bribes or threats.

On this rare occasion where Collin was grinning, then Maya wouldn't get her hand out of her mouth. Our family of four -

Pretty sure this is Cas' favorite picture from our photo shoot -

And to be fair, mother & son -

We may look like a happy family, but we've got a death grip on Collin's hands while he fidgets around, trying to escape -

Our big boy -

Sweet Maya, who I thought would be our problem child in the pictures, was a dream -

I ordered the kids matching outfits - some of the fabric in Collin's vest matches the straps and bottom lining on Maya's dress. But when Collin held Maya, my specialty vest-and-dress order seemed a little pointless -

I had seen this swinging picture on pinterest but we didn't quite pull it off, though it did get a genuine grin from Collin -

Our handsome little dude -

We tried brother and sister agai,n but by then Collin was done posing.

In the last 5 minutes of our almost hour-long photo session, my poor parents arrived. I had asked them to come get Maya's attention so she'd look at the camera and smile. They ended up in horrific traffic for well over an hour, but Taryn talked my mom into joining me for a quick girls picture, and then they came with us to dinner afterwards.