Worth a thousand words

Last week we took our annual family photos. This is a major mental undertaking for me and tends to stress me out. For the second year in a row our photographer was the wonderful Andrew Shepherd, son of the equally wonderful Ms. Karen (we like to keep it all in the family). Andrew is a documentary photographer and his clientele is usually much cooler and undoubtedly more cooperative than us.

I used to get the kids, and especially Connor's, photos taken all the time with a local photographer. I literally have monthly shots of Connor from birth to almost three posed with various themed props. These pictures are great, but I really started to notice that they all began to look like they belonged in a children's clothing catalog. While I think that my kids are catalog-worthy, it may come as a surprise to none of you that perfection is not the norm in the Hill Household.

Here is a major news flash......sometimes my kids don't cooperate, sometimes they get pissed and sometimes one or all of us cries. I love that Andrew captures that in our photos. Was it nearly impossible to get all four of us in one frame for a family shot, yes. But such is our life right now and the only person that seemed frustrated by that was me. Through lots of patience and chasing on his part, Andrew managed to capture in less than two hours a fantastic glimpse into our everyday life as a family. We laugh at each other, get mad at each other and run until someone's shorts fall down. We don't always smile on command or even under serious threat of ice cream deprivation.

So in conclusion, do we seek out adventure as fast as our tiny legs can carry us? Yep. Do we want to "accidentally" fall into a lake just so we can see how cold it is? Absolutely. Do we want to touch a duck with our bare hands and make it our very own? More than you could ever know. Am I glad that I have photos of this? Oh yes.