why we have no family pictures hanging on our walls

We desperately need family photos taken. Our boys have grown and changed so much in the last year- it makes me really sad to think that we don't have any family pictures at all when Emmett was a tiny baby. There are a lot of reasons for this- for one, I'm normally the one with the camera, which means I rarely make it into a photo. The fact that I was basically a nursing slave to Emmett for the first several months of his life, and wore nothing but stretchy clothes that provided easy access for nursing, is also to blame. Not to mention the fact that I hated  my post-baby body so much that I pretty much avoided the camera lens like the plague. Sure, I have plenty of pictures of Elliot and Emmett, or of Daddy and the boys, and (thanks to my cooperative husband) a few recent ones taken with me in them, too. However... we have taken, sadly, exactly ONE family photo since Emmett was born.

Let's be honest, that one photo is pretty horrible. I'm embarrassed that it ended up on our Christmas cards last year. It was a spur of the moment idea, so our outfits were nothing special- for pete's sake, I'm wearing yoga pants.... and let's not even talk about my hair. Also, I took it with my tripod- do you have any idea how hard it is to run back and forth from the camera to the photo spot and manage to compose yourself (and two babies) in 20 seconds flat? Yeah. It wasn't easy. I know they make these nifty things called remotes that make working with a tripod a lot easier- but I wasn't about to buy one for my old Canon camera when I was planning on upgrading so soon. This was the best shot we got- and it's awful. Just awful.

So, my new mission in life is to schedule a family photo session- and soon. Hopefully, I'll report back within the next month or two with some great photos to share, okay? If not, feel free to harass me on here, twitter, facebook- wherever. ;)

Now, I haven't been failing totally at the whole capturing memories via photos with my kids, at least. Lately, I've been handing my camera over to Aaron and forcing bribing him to take some pictures of me with with the boys. Surprisingly, he got some really cute shots! Here are a few of my favorite recent pictures with the kids- all taken by my husband, who knows pretty much nothing about my camera. :)

How often do you guys get family photos taken? Do you ever use a tripod to take your own? Do you just ask your friends to do it, or do you make sure to get professional pictures taken regularly, too?