Summer Time Family Photos 2011

First of all where has the time gone? I haven't posted for a week! I swear life is at full speed right now and most days I don't know if I am coming or going :)

Well, we got our Summer Family Photos of 2011 taken on Saturday! I am so grateful to have a great friend Elizabeth at All About the Adkins who has found that she loves taking pictures and she graciously offered to use our family for some practice! I think she is wonderful and talented and I couldn't be happier!

For any mom out there you know that picture day is one that is dreaded (at least in our house). You try so hard to pick out the right outfits, the right time of day when you hope and pray your kids are at their best (i.e. not right at naptime) and you may or may not even have your 4 year old practice smiling a "normal" smile not the one where he likes to squint his eyes and show every tooth he has in his mouth!

But then the time comes and for me I start with beads of sweat on my brow and upper lip the moment we pull into the photography session. You brace yourself, say a prayer and get out of the car pretending like you are as ready as ever as you watch what you hope it is the "Hart" family pile out of the minivan.

Fast forward um let's say 5 minutes. Already at least one if not both children have sat down, doesn't want to smile and has lost all interest in taking pictures what so ever! You are trying to smile thru gritted teeth taking your wee ones off to the side to bribe them with everything from a shopping spree at Toys R Us to a 6 foot candy buffet if they can just march their pretty little bodies over there, smile and take some good pictures!! For the love of Pete people how hard is this! Apparently to my children picture taking is the equivalent of going to the dentist!

So after I have sweat poring down my head and face from all of the bribing and threatening somehow it is time to go. You politely thank the photographer and walk to your car dazed and confused asking your husband, "What just happened?", "Did that really just happen?", "I will just be happy if I get one decent pictures after that chaos!"

And then days pass by and you get an email or a "sneak peek" and you see that somehow this amazing person captured exactly what you wanted her to capture, she actually snapped a pic during the 5 seconds that your children smiled and she made our family look "put together" and not like a bunch of raging lunatics! ha! God Bless photographers!!!

Thank you to Elizabeth for these wonderful family photos and to all of the photographers out there that are able to capture these moments because you really are miracle workers to all of the sweaty moms who are off in the corner begging and pleading with their children for just one good shot! I think I got WAY more than just one good shot! :)

Next time we will try for one of all 4 of us, I just didn't want to come off as an overachiever! ha!

My beautiful Ann Mason who is rarely serious so I love this picture!

My sweet, sweet momma's boy.

Love this! This is totally Palmer he does this pose a lot when he is thinking!

That smiles melts my heart!

Love him!

Tex and I! It is so nice to have some of just us two, it rarely happens these days!

My beautiful baby who is only 2 but somehow looks 4 in these pictures!

I am a total SUCKER for the back shots and holding hands! This will be blown up, framed and hung somewhere in the house!

This pictures is worth 1000 words, this girl is a mess!

My bud, he still loves me after 12 years!!! I am SO thankful to be his wife!