2012 Christmas Cards

Over Thanksgiving in St. George, we had the opportunity to take some family photos, both with the extended Dayton family as well as our individual families. My sister-in-law at the time, Erin, is from St. George so she graciously coordinated with the photographer, McKenzi Felt, who is also married to her ex-husband. Could have been potentially strange but I think that they have a good relationship. I just asked for a few pictures but the rest of the photo shoot for the entire family can be seen on her website, HERE under Dayton Family. There were some seriously adorable pictures of the grandkids.

Although the weather was gorgeous in St. George that weekend, the evenings were relatively cool, especially up in the canyon where we took our pictures once the sun went down. So the kids and wives got pretty cold by the time we got into the full swing of our photo shoot. But we managed to get some pretty decent pictures. Dress clothes wouldn't have been my first choice in what to wear for family pictures but we couldn't argue with the patriarch of the family since we weren't paying. And at least Brandon was warm for the pictures in his suit.

Here is the picture I decided to go with for our 2012 Christmas cards. We actually had Brandon's brother, Damian take some family pictures of us that turned out fantastic a few weeks earlier. But I made the mistake of asking Brandon to be in charge of doing our Christmas cards with a little bit too short notice and it just didn't happen.

I actually used to think that Christmas cards were really dumb and a waste of time, money, and paper. But I really enjoy receiving them and since Brandon's extended family is so large and all of our family is so spread out, I started to do them just to better keep in touch. It especially is nice now that we have children because they grow so quickly and it makes us more likely to take regular family pictures.

Anyway, Brandon was supposed to photoshop Damian's photos and order some postcards (which I was hoping would save us some money on postage since Brandon was still working freelance) and put it all together but we never really looked at the pictures together to choose one. So I literally received these pictures from Erin on December 20th and ordered one hour prints from Target that evening. It was a mad-house at Target when I went to pick them up and they almost ran out of envelopes but luckily, I got the last ones. So here is how they turned out:

I have to admit that I was pretty disappointed (well, the margins are all messed up from the way it scanned in). It's not really our style and I so wish we could have had it printed on some nice paper instead of the photo paper. With such limited time, I didn't have a ton of options to choose from unless I wanted to pay a small fortune for a rush order. And even at the cheapest prices, when you are ordering so many cards (100 - and I think that we may actually need more next year because we still didn't get them sent to all of Brandon's family), it adds up quickly. Ideally, I like to get my cards made in October or November (when I can find a great deal on-line like Groupon for a nice photo website) and then mailed out the beginning of December. But things just don't always work out like you plan them to.

What was so funny to me was checking out all the Christmas cards on the mantel of Kim and Adam's fireplace on Christmas day and seeing the hierarchy of Christmas photo cards. The quality is visibly different in terms of the designs of the card and the type of paper used/weight of the card stock. Tiny Prints and Pear Tree have some of the cutest designs (but are also the more expensive website). Oh well, there is always next year to try to impress your friends and family with awesome Christmas cards. But this time around, I am giving Brandon plenty of notice that he and his artistic skills are in charge of the 2013 Christmas cards.

These are a couple of the other pictures I liked. Please forgive my hair - I had a hair cut earlier in the summer that I didn't care for and I was doing the best I could with what I had in the hair department. And getting pictures taken when you are pregnant has its challenges as well (like limited selection of clothes - but thanks to my sister Emily for letting me borrow all her maternity clothes). And I'm really not very good at putting on make-up beyond my normal daily routine which doesn't usually include foundation. Someday I will learn how to do my hair and put on my make-up or maybe I will just hire and pay someone to do it for me the next time we do family pictures.

But I must admit, it is always nice to remember these moments, even if they aren't the most flattering.