Christmas Card Fiasco

I'm fairly certain that the most painful part of the holiday season is trying to get a family picture for our Christmas card. I decided to make things a little less difficult by only putting the kids on the card this year. That will be easy, right? We tried the other night when Alex was dressed for her performance at church, but unfortunately Derek was in no mood to pose. Here's how it went...

Good try guys, now let's have Alex take her finger out of her mouth, and Derek stand up next to sissy.
Almost, but this time don't fall over.
Ummm, can you stop crying for a sec? No?

So we decided to head over to the church and try to snap some pictures there. Maybe he would be in a better mood then. Here we are before the service started.


Right, okay. So Alex, stop jumping. And Derek, for the love of all that is good, will you stop crying?? No? Okay, so let's go to the service and we'll try once more afterward.

I think Alex was getting a little frustrated with him. And poor Derek, well, he was just not having his finest moment evening weekend.

This was the best we could come up with, but their faces are kind of washed out and Derek wasn't exactly looking at the camera. So this year we will have 2 individual pictures on our card and you know what? I think it will be okay. The good news is that mommy's Christmas present arrived in the mail this week and hopefully next year we will have a much better time! I got a new camera which I am so excited about and the instruction manual guarantees that it will make me an awesome photographer. Oh wait, I guess it didn't technically say that, but I'm sure that's what will happen. Surely by next Christmas, right?

Right?