Fall Pictures

For a while now, I have been sending out Christmas cards with a picture of the kids on the front.  They seem to change so much over the course of a year and I love being able to look back at them and compare.  In the past, I seem to wait until around Thanksgiving time (or even the first week of December) to take the picture and that has been challenging -- especially if I want to capture a photo outside.  It also means rushing to get the cards designed, printed, addressed and mailed before the approaching holiday.

This year, I made a mental note to take the pictures earlier than normal.  Fall is such a pretty time of year (my favorite season of all!) and I wanted to incorporate the changing leaves in the background.  Our schedule has been packed lately, but we snagged a late afternoon to get the kids dressed after school and dance and headed down to the beach/park at the end of our subdivision.

It was a tad windy and the sun was just starting to set, but we made the best of it.  It's never easy to get four kids to cooperate and simultaneously look at the camera, especially when they are hungry and ready for dinner (soup was simmering on the stove top at home!).  But, I'm pleased with the pictures that we got.  I edited them the next morning and am proud to say that our Christmas cards are already printed -- before Halloween!

Some of our pictures:

Sophia never takes a bad picture.  Ever.

Sam is a bit more reserved with her smile than her sister, but I love how beautiful her dress was with the autumn leaves that day.

James never stops moving, so I was lucky to capture a few shots of him standing still.

He thought that the leaves were like flowers, so he tried to smell them.

It wasn't long before he reached over and picked a leaf off the tree.

Gorgeous.  Just gorgeous.

And when did Jack turn, like 12?

A fun photo:

A few photos by the lake:

Standing on their favorite rock, one that is in the middle of the sandy beach and has been used for MANY sandcastle creations over the years.

Standing tall:

We moved down by the rock and I captured this.  These two can fight like cats and dogs sometimes, but they love each other fiercely.  (I adore this photo so much that I am contemplating wallpapering one of the walls in my house with it, ha!).

My girl is turning 10 next month and I am having a hard time wrapping my head around that.  The last ten years seem to have gone by in the blink of an eye and I can't wait to see what the next decade holds for her.

As different as night and day, but still such good friends.

A last minute photo before loading up and heading home:

And this photo here.  I have so many emotions over this one.

You see, later that night, after I had taken the photos and the kids were in bed, Steve grabbed my camera and was flipping though the pictures on it.  He stopped and said, "there's a picture of my mom on here ..."

I questioned what he was saying because I knew that the pictures on the camera were recent and there would't be any of Barb on there.  I came over and he showed me this picture.  Sophia looks so much like Barb ... SO MUCH.

I have always thought that Sophia resembles her -- her hair color, her blue eyes, the shape of her face and her smile.  But now, it's unmistakable. 

It's been five years since we lost Barb and Sophia doesn't have very many memories of her.  While that sometimes makes me sad, it warms my heart to know that she has THIS -- her genes.  And she knows it now.