New Year's Greetings

I got hopelessly behind last year. Today is a new beginning and I plan to get off to a good start. 

So since the Christmas ship has already sailed, our family would like to wish you a Happy, Healthy, and Grace-filled 2013.

(For friends and family who still can't keep track of which name goes with which face

Front L to R - Anna, Kiah, Lani, Angie, Christina

Back - Andrew, Keith, Erica, Amy, and Rachel)

It was a toss-up for which picture to use for our Christmas Card pictures. The kids voted for this one. 

In our family, the kids all get one vote, I get eight votes, and Keith gets 16. This picture was fun and I'm not categorically or philosophically opposed to fun, I just liked the first one better. I made an unpopular, executive decision and went for smiling and normal instead of fun and crazy. 

Finding a day when all ten of us would be together is not easy since Andrew and Rachel live six hours south. This was the first time since last Christmas we all were together. 

We had a window of one and a fourth of a day to get this done. I opted for the full day, but couldn't for love or money get people to cooperate. Either someone had work or school or other commitments. 

Thirty minutes before Andrew and Rachel left we finally set about the difficult task of getting ten people to look at the camera, smile and look intelligent all at the same time. (As it is, we made the mistake of having two people take pictures at the same time. If you look closely, some people are looking to one side, and the others are looking to the other side.)

We refereed a few disputes over certain sisters wearing other sisters' clothes without asking.   

I have a Pinterest board with family photography ideas and envisioned something like cool like this 
  

But instead got this

Or even worse, this

Not sure why we thought eating bird seed would make 

a good picture. It seemed like a good idea at the time. 

After ten cold minutes, 

Keith said, "Okay, that's good enough. We're done."

"But wait, we haven't done anything cool yet." 

(Other than take outdoor pictures on a cold November day)

Some year we might get our picture 

on the Top 50 Family Photos List,

But not this year.   

             Thanks for caring about our family. 
                  Blessings on the New Year.