Life is Bright: family pictures: how to take them with toddlers and babies and come out on top. (i.e. with your sanity intact)

My one request for the holiday break was to get outside and take a couple of pictures of the family that I could use for a New Year e-card for our friends and family. (see what I did there? A realistic timeframe expectation for our life with a new baby, didn't even plan on a Christmas card, baby steps...)
You could probably reasonably say that, with our oldest of three children still being a good 4 months from turing 3, any photoshoot at all was an unrealistic expectation...but I really really love having pictures of our family.

We decided that it would be loads easier if we waited for my sister's visit so she could snap the pictures of our whole family for us. The morning we decided on arrived, and we got ourselves and our children cleaned and dressed. I planned to just head into the backyard and do a simple fence backdrop. I thought that nothing could be easier than that, I mean, we wouldn't even have to load the kids up in the car.
Well, before we could snap ONE picture Drew (our 18 month old) was trying to dive out of Kevin's arms and get down on the muddy ground and baby Annalise (1 month) started screaming. We still took a few pictures but all you could see was an upside down back view of Drew and Annalise's scream face...
We headed inside and decided to take a couple in front of the Christmas tree, hoping for just one when you could see all our faces at least. We were successful though none of them were great. I thought to myself, "well, at least we have some outtakes to put a card together with, it'll be fun."
I was pretty disappointed that we hadn't gotten anything I'd want to keep but started loading them on the computer to see what we could salvage.
I headed upstairs to change clothes, while I was changing my sister came into my closet and started out with, "are you in the right mindset?" I said I was fine and she still looked skeptical, and then said, "something happened with the upload, it was corrupted and all the pictures were lost, but luckily the computer is okay."
Ha. Yep, I didn't think the situation could get worse... I decided that a run might help me work myself out of my funk and get over the frustration, but I was SO disappointed. I decided we should give the family photoshoot one more chance, everyone (except me) was still all dressed and ready, and besides, it couldn't get any worse, literally. So I got back into my dress and this time, with no expectations and nothing to loose, we decided to try things differently.

No, we still didn't get "the perfect" family picture but we DID capture our family at this (insane) stage of our life in a way that I want to record and remember and in a more realistic way that I still liked more than I initially anticipated. (plus you can even see everyone's face)

Here are the golden nuggets I came away with;

1. Pick a stellar location for kids.
You Do Not want a photo location that will be a nightmare for you with your toddler child(ren).
We picked a walking path near our house that would allow us to move around a little AND our boys didn't HAVE to be in our arms (i.e. SCREAMING AND DIVE BOMBING) because of mud or water or something else. We also utilized the park down the street for some of our pictures, turns out swings are a fantastic way to get toddlers to stay put without holding them. :)
*Find a spot that not only works well with your explorative toddlers but that is also visually pleasing for a backdrop, it may not be your absolute ideal location but if the kids are happy and don't feel completely constricted they will handle the pictures better, win-win.

2. Chill out for action shots.

Little kids LOVE to move and explore, capture those moments, walk with them, let them hold their sticks and leaves and just make sure that the adults are smiling all the time. :)

3. Let them do their thing and capture it.

Once we'd taken some family shots we let the boys wander towards a park. Kevin and I followed them around like paparazzi and got some unposed shots that capture their personalities that we absolutely love.

4. Expect and embrace imperfections.

The more pressure you put on the photo shoot the less likely it is that it will go as well as you want. Expect a bit of the crazy that is your day to day life to come through and choose to let the craziness make you laugh.

5. Enjoy yourself.
Kids at these ages are as delightful as they have the capacity to be maddening sometimes. At this age they see the world with unfiltered curiosity and excitement, enjoy it with them and you may find yourself having a pretty good time, even when you're taking family pictures.