holiday card photo day!

makin' it look easy...

well appearances can be deceiving. case in point: the flawless holiday photo card. ha! flawless... hmm. well, we did alright considering we enlisted my eager mom and less enthusiastic brother as photogs, two quickly fussy toddlers in the supporting roles (ed. note: clearly, sony is the star, what with that hat and all...) , and shadows left and right playing arch nemesis to my matte card vision. dude, forget appearances this is real talk. it was really hard. who knew. this was a first for me. i just thought as long as we looked good it would turn out great. so i planned our outfits weeks in advance, nothing too matchy-matchy just a harmonious and smart blend of brick red, aqua and brown. we looked GOOD. but those heels were vicious to walk and carry children in... and that huge hat. i have no face! whatever. beauty is pain and motherhood is beautiful and the holidays are part fantasy and i want you to believe that i can do it all. in heels and a big old impractical hat (ed. note: we get it. it's a great hat)(author's note: dick).

but like i said... appearances. appearances are a lot to me. if i look like i have it together than i feel like it got it together. maybe i'm just fooling myself, but dude it works for me. that said, next year i'll pay someone to make me look flawless.

thank you mom + andre. we love our photos and can't wait for you guys to see the end shot that made this year's card. (ed. note: *shots*, but more on that later)

and a few outtakes. some of these are truly my favorite photos ever. i wish i could just freeze time and stay this way forever. in a way, we kind of did. and that made it all worth the effort.

>>> i had this vision of an abbey road style shot. so we started with a few like this...

>>> then the porch shot. a bit cliché but we tried. some of us refused to participate though so NEXT.

aren't our fake smiles and knox's legit tears the best?

>>> the troops were beyond restless. we were quickly losing morning pre-nap hours.

>>> so we gave the little guys a break and took some pictures of just the two us. because we rarely even do that anymore!

>>> then we started to come close to something that could work...

>>> almost perfect...

>>> perhaps a bit of photo shop...

and you'll just have to wait and see which one made it on our holiday card. look out for our final shot posted on the blog on christmas day!

in the meantime, one more with this guy. because his face always makes the cut. and despite the effort it took to make this year's card, it was a pleasure working with this amazing cast. and that's a wrap!