Christmas Photo Shoot

So just to rub in the fact that we don't have any snow or cold weather down here, we decided to take our Christmas photos on the beach. And because we are too cheap to hire a photographer and none of our friends were available to drag to the beach we figured we would do it ourselves. As long as you've got a tripod and a timer no problem right? Well our first attempt didn't work out so well:

"Come on guys, hold hands. Look at the camera! Hurry up the camera is going to go off!"

After a couple more not so hot photos we actually managed to score a pretty good one.

Can you believe that everyone is actually looking at the camera at the same time?!? Alex isn't smiling but I'll take what I can get. I made up our cards already and ordered them, but I'm not going to put it on here just yet. Just so those who are actually getting a card from us can see it in real life first. And if any of you want a card email me your address!

But just in case the family photo didn't turn out I was snapping pictures of everyone individually too. Alex, of course, flashed his trademark face:

And Ella struck the model pose:

And then one of the boys:

Then Ella started getting goofy:

I wonder where she gets it from.

While I'm running around snapping all these photos Anton is doing this:

Maybe for the Christmas video card? Who knows.

I tried getting the kids together, but that ended up being harder than getting the whole family together. They just didn't want to hold still:

Wait! Alex! Come back!

Then we headed down to the water to play a bit. It was a little cold, but that didn't stop Ella:

She was loving it! She ended up VERY wet.

Silly us forgot to bring an extra change of clothes for anyone. Alex wasn't a big fan of the water.

He stood just out of reach of it and acted all whiny and squeamish. Silly boy.

I let Anton have free reign of the camera for a short while, so amazingly there will be pictures of me on this blog.

Of course, only the ones I deem good enough. I left out all the ones that showed my double chin. Yuck!

Isn't my little boy the cutest thing in the whole world?

Both my boys are.

After finishing with the serious photos we let the kids play in the sand.

Ella did a good job of rubbing sand all into her wet jeans:

And then making sure her head was thoroughly covered too.

Rascal.

And of course I got a whole slew of pretty beach pictures never intended for a Christmas card.

I tried to get a picture of all our feet, but it just wasn't working out.

She is so cute! And throw a beautiful ocean behind her and it makes for the perfect photo.

Abandoned shoes.

And last, but not least, the striped beach:

They had just graded it and it matched the pier perfectly!

I was actually brave enough to take my big expensive camera out onto the beach. I'm glad I did because we got some fantastic shots!

So for those of you stuck in the middle of the snowstorm, we're thinking of you, but not really wishing to be you. We'll take our white Christmas on the white sand beach, thank you.