It’s time to get those holiday cards processed, ordered and out into the world. I always know I’m behind when I start getting cards in my mailbox and I haven’t even ordered holiday clothing for mine yet (I like to dress the boys all the same)!

But… ‘Tis the season! It’s time!

With 5 kids, getting everyone to look in the same direction, never mind trying to get everyone to SMILE at the same time…  well – it just never happens.

It’s funny, I always sound like an animal trying to get everyone to look at the camera:

HEYY HEYY HEYY!!! William look here!! HENRY!! Smile!! LOOK AT DAD!! AHHH!!! AHHHH!!! That’s it!!! EVERYONE SMILE!! Just keep smiling boys, let Victoria just sort of do her thing!!!  BAHH!!! BAHH!!! BAHH!!

(Insert whistling and singing and anything else I can do to get them to look!)

Believe me, I would make fun of me trying to get everyone to look and smile.

But here’s the thing. Our life is ANYTHING but perfect. It’s imperfectly perfect. The house is always busy with stuff. There is always noise and chaos and energy. There is wrestling and laughing and dancing. There is true LIFE being lived here… and it’s not – at all – a quiet, hands folded-in-our lap type of life. It’s messy and funny and chaoticly-ours.

I’ll never forget the 1st time we did this in 2004 with our William.  We popped him in his swing and put holiday lights all around him. It was super cute and it was fun to be able to make our own little holiday card. After we had finished, I read the side of the box, it clearly said, “KEEP AWAY FROM CHILDREN.” I panicked and was like, “Does it count that he is a baby and didn’t touch them?” My husband – God bless him – just laughed and told me, “I’m sure he’ll be fine. He didn’t touch them!”

Throughout the years, we’ve just always done our own. We’ve found it the most fun to put “candid” shots in our holiday cards because that’s our true version of life.  The years we try for a perfect photo, I always look at the cards and think, “Hmm… we took 5000 photos and this was the only one with everyone looking, but it doesn’t look like them. It’s too posed.”

Well… last night we attempted for the 10th year in a row to take our own family holiday photos for our card.

To say that it was CRAZY is an understatement. Victoria has a mind of her own. She doesn’t know to sit and just smile yet, so we ALL spent the night trying to get her to sit. When we realized that this just wasn’t going to happen, we just rolled with it.

These photos are exactly who we are right now. They are perfect. They are imperfect, but perfect.

My advice to moms and dads out there looking to get their photos done, roll with it. The photos you will remember forever are the outtakes, are the funny ones, are the ones that show the real moments of life.

I created a funny little montage for our holiday photo this year, I can’t wait for them to come in!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS everyone!