"School" Pictures

So, every year, I send Shae off to school dressed her best for school picture day, and every time, she brings home the proof of the shot they got and I wonder why the photographer took a picture of her half-smiling or with a bunch of hair out of place, etc.

So, I decided this year that instead of ordering school pictures for Shae and Connor, I would take all 4 kids to WalMart and get matching portraits of each of them while I'm there to make sure I get the shot I want (OK, so I have control issues...). Turns out that even though it's $10 for 50+ pictures of the first kid, getting portraits of the other kids at the same time brings the total cost closer to $80. I thought that with all of Jess' fancy lighting and photography equipment, we should try doing our own pictures at home. That way, besides saving money, I could photoshop the pictures to my heart's content, which I enjoy doing. I had a hard time narrowing down all of Jess's pictures down to just one of each kid so here's what I ended up doing:


...and wouldn't you know it, this is the one year that Shae's school pictures turned out really cute and I didn't order any! Oh, well.