i love family pictures. it really means a lot to me to have our family captured in images. i honestly would love to do a photo shoot every few months, haha! but that would certainly add up in expense of both money and coercion of young children 🙂 we do always make sure to get family photos taken in the autumn to use for a christmas card. christmas cards are one of my favourite things ever – i love getting them, i love sending them, i love the connection (with an actual, physical thing!) that comes from them … i just love it all. (i’ve realised since moving abroad that sending a card with a family photo is a very american thing! the people we’ve given ours to here in the uk – that are not american – are pretty perplexed by it!)

we use shutterfly to make our christmas cards each year. shutterfly has a toooon of amazing templates to choose from for a christmas card, and they also allow for you to upload your own design. i appreciate this because i like to make my own images for the front and back of our card. i also really, really appreciate that shutterfly offers to address, stamp and mail out cards for you! especially because we live abroad this is amazing – i don’t have to send anything over the ocean. also, shutterfly seems to always have a sale going on! highly recommended.

my sister saydi came to london in october, and since she is a stellar family photographer, we asked her to take our family pictures this autumn. we went to a church near our home and bribed the children with jellybeans and ended up with some images we treasure. when i flipped through the photos after saydi sent them to me, i felt an incredibly heavy and golden brand of gratitude. so often i stand back a little and am actually totally astounded that i have a family of my own. family life is incredibly stretching, but it is also so so so outrageously sweet. having a family has always been my greatest dream and fondest ambition, and my three boys are such a gift.

here’s a bunch of photos from our quick family photo shoot with saydi that i wanted to share! we used the picture at the top of this post for our christmas card, but there are so many others here – especially the more candid ones – that i adore.

 
 
 
^^ mo’s little jump brings me so much joy. i love that photo! ^^

^^ this boy somehow inherited all of my passion and all of ian’s intensity. he is full to the brim with emotion and energy and fervor. both of these photos capture him well 🙂 ^^
 
 
^^ my true love. so glad we chose and choose each other. ^^

^^ the single photo we have with gabriel smiling. caught his total cheeser smile (he is literally saying “cheese” in this picture)! he had on his own agenda that morning! ^^ 
^^ and his agenda was: squirm, run around, find a stick, drool a bit, avoid looking at the camera, wiggle, pick up leaves, ask for a snack, repeat 🙂 ^^

 
 
^^ i love these silly faces! ^^
 
^^ we attempted a picture of just the two boys together. i envisioned arms around each other, sweetly smiling at the camera. this is what we got. and i love it. ^^
 

indeed, family photos are such treasures! and are so fun for christmas cards, sent and received.

here’s what the back of our card looked like this year! i like to do a collage of a bunch of pictures from the year. ian thinks it’s a little silly to have so many because they are so tiny on the card, you can hardly see each one … but i just love having a splat! of the year in photos. 2019 was sooo full and amazing. can’t believe it’s almost over!