Family Photos 2013

Our family photos from our first year in Laramie could not have been better. My amazing friend Julia, one half of the couple who are Studio Despain, was so patient with our kids--especially Benjy, who was not at all into getting his picture taken. In fact, he spent most of the photo shoot looking like this:

Which made us feel like this:

And somehow, Julia was able to capture him like this:

Sam is a ham (rim shot!), so it was easy to get great pictures of him cheesing it up.

Even Ryan and I managed to get a nice photo together.

Here are some of the other ones I loved.

Ryan said croquet sticks were "preppy", I said they were cute. I think we were both right.

I really love this picture of Ryan

Zombies!

Benjy especially hated having to sit with Sammy, so we were really lucky to get this picture!

As a final note, here are my tips for getting kids to cooperate for family photos. Let them get used to the photographer for a few minutes before you start expecting them to pose. I didn't think Ben would have a problem with Julia because he sees her every week at church, but he was still leery of her once she had a camera in front of her face. And finally, bring a bribe. Once I pulled out the gummy bears, Ben was much more willing to smile!