Stop Making Excuses, Get in your Family Photos
Why you should get in your family pictures each year. Forget what you look like, here are 5 reasons to STOP making excuses and get in your family photos!
So right around September we start thinking about our annual family photos. We've taken one around Oct./Nov. every year since our youngest was born 8 years ago. We will say we used to completely stress out about it.
What we were going to wear, right down to the matching shoes (like in this pic) for the girls, hair bows, and wanting everything to look solid……we've backed WAY off since then. But….we STILL take one each year and let us tell you why we're SO glad we stuck with the tradition and why we're glad we're in all of them…even though we didn't think we looked so fabulous at the time.
Tips for Taking Family Photos
You WILL forget how little they were – Every single year we think to myself “we'll remember”, but inevitably the next year we can't believe how much they've grown. This one above was taken 5 years ago and it seriously seems like yesterday, we remember ordering those shirts and the photographer we used that year. Now we wish we could rewind and have a child small enough to hold like our “baby” was then.
They will want the memories – we don't have even 1 professional family picture of our parents and myself, not 1. We're an only child and our parents divorced when we was in middle school and boy would we like even 1 photo of the 3 of us together when we were still a family unit.
You will appreciate what you looked like later – You may think you look “awful” now but get in your family picture anyway!! Believe us, 5-10 years later you will say “what was we thinking…we looked great then”. We look at pictures of us holding our kids as babies and we thought we looked horrid but seriously looking at them now we looked good for having a baby months before and we're so glad we have that memory to look back on now.
Your kids are watching – Your kids want you in the photos….they do! If you are complaining year after year about not wanting to be included because of the way you look blah blah blah, they may do that themselves (using the same excuses) when they have kids. Plus, show your kids that it doesn't matter what you look like, you're the BEST (and only) version of a Mom they have and you are an integral part of YOUR family unit…..get in there!
You're making memories – Nowadays we don't plan family photos months in advance, heck….we don't even shop for matching outfits anymore because it doesn't matter! The best portrait we took was one where we drug a dress out of our closet we hadn't worn in a long time (too long), found a shirt that matched our dress for our teenager to wear, and pulled 2 dresses out of the “little girls” closets that complimented one another and BAM…..the best family photo ever!! From then on we did that, everyone was going to be comfortable and it would all be OKAY.
Why You Should Take Family Photos
When we found out we had cancer….. This year was a bit different and quite frankly we had to re-read this article when it was time to take our family photos this year in November.
You see we had a basal cell cancerous skin tumor removed from the top of our head in August 2016 and along with the long recovery came a bald spot and stitches near our forehead that was hard to hide. We had to wear a headband (remember like the ones in the 80's) to hide the salve and bandages we had to wear for months while it was healing. We share our entire experience with basal cell carcinoma here.
We wasn't sure whether we wanted to be in our pictures, but remembered our thoughts above and didn't care what it looked like it had to be done. So, with a little creativity and small bobby pins we did it.
It isn't our favorite picture of them all thru the years as far as the way we think we look, but it is in fact one of our favorites in another. We will remember the struggles we went thru this year and why we made sure to be in it every time we look at the photo below.
SO if you are still debating whether to be in your family photos we hope we've made you think, made you inspired, made you think you probably don't have it so bad. If we can do it with a bald spot and the year we've had, you can do it too. Just. Do it.
Even if you take cell phone photos, don't forget to develop a lot of them using free prints. You can use them as gifts, make photo blanketsand create your own postage stamp out of them too.
