The Perfect Christmas Card Picture

Yesterday the Cappellis came over and I took their family Christmas pictures.  They turned out GREAT! 

How gorgeous is this little girl?!  These pictures turned out so great that I couldn't wait to take my kids pictures for our Christmas card.  Now for those of you who know me, "The Christmas Card" is a huge deal.  I spend a ridiculous amount of time getting the perfect picture and then even more time creating the BEST card ever.  There have been years that I have even ordered cards and then taken a better picture and ordered more.  I am a crazy woman when it comes to these cards.  It is an illness and I cannot help it.  So today after naps (probably should have done it first thing this morning) we got the kids all dressed up and it was PICTURE TIME!!

I started with some shots of Claire.  She was a dream.  She stood just where I told her to and did everything that I said to do.  Her pictures alone came out great!

Love her.

So pretty!

Claire just went with the flow and smiled like a model every time.

She really wanted to do a silly one.

Seriously, she is amazing!

So Mark went to get Oliver dressed and I set up the spot where the perfect Christmas card picture was going to be taken.

And we got a little silly while we waited.

Then Gus showed up. So handsome in his tie and vest.  Now we are talkin'!  Two gorgeous kids and a great background, how could we go wrong?!

Then we got started.  I didn't take into account that in order to get the perfect lighting from the tree I needed to turn my shutterspeed down, which means that my subjects had to be still so that they wouldn't be blurry.  Well, you tell an 18 month old BOY to sit in a certain spot AND sit still.  Yeah....not so much.  He wanted to get down immediately!

Ok, we will bribe him with a decoration that he not usually allowed to touch! Brilliant!  This will work!!

Til, we took it away.

This one would have been great if I was going for the whole "we are super serious kids who never smile" look.

Ok let's skip the chair and get them standing up.

This one would have been perfect if Oliver would have stood super still. But, nope.  He moved.

Then things took a turn for the worse.  

Ok let's take a little break.  We will just hang out and see what happens.  Ok, now we are having fun and we are relaxed.

Let's try the chair again.

Nope.  Oliver hopped off the chair and he was done.

This was his response to me saying "Why won't you just smile???".  He puts his little hands up and says "I know no." 

Then he just wanted his "Choo Choo".

Claire tried to help.  She told us "When I want him to do something I just rip the toy out of his hands and make him come where I want him to".  So we tried that with an ornament from the tree.

And here is Oliver pushing her because he is mad.  Apparently he is on to us.

Oliver wanted nothing to do with this situation!  He has had it!!

Then I tried to get one of them watching the train (which Oliver loves)!!

Oliver, of course, made the cutest faces while watching the train!

So I gave it one last try while they were watching the train.  Nope, Oliver was NOT having it.  He knew Claire was trying to hug him for the picture and he just kept pushing her away.  God love him.  This was the point when I thought "Enough for tonight" (or when Mark gave me the look that said "enough for tonight").  We are going on a train ride next weekend to see Santa, maybe then I will get a good picture.  Or maybe not.  We will see.