Family Photo Prep Time

This coming weekend, we are meeting with the fabulous Jenn Hopkins for our annual family portraits. To be honest, every time we have done these, I have not thought about them until, like, the day before the session and then frantically tried to pull everything together from our closets so that we looked somewhat coordinated.

This was in 2011. Look at my babies!

And will you please look at Gracie’s chubby little legs and Bean’s sweet little baby face?!?! I die!

This was from Gracie’s newborn shoot…

Oh, Lord. My uterus is weeping.

I mean, REALLY. Someone give me a baby to hold STAT.

It’s always been fine, but nothing really popped for me in our clothing. Thankfully, Jenn is so great that the clothes never really mattered much anyway. But this year, I was determined to plan ahead and find an original color scheme that represented our family, instead of just whatever we happened to have on hand that matched.

I started with Pinterest. Ooooooobviously.

Hi, have we met? I’m Katie and every thought I have originated on Pinterest.

I fell in love with this family’s color scheme. So bright and festive! Also, this picture says, “How to take your own family pictures,” but we aren’t doing that this time. I am just looking at the color scheme here.

(Original pin here; Original post here – this photographer has great ideas for prepping for your family photo session.  I’ve used several of her tips so far for this shoot.)

I went first to the kids closets to see what they had, and instantly found Gracie’s red checked sundress that my mom made her. I love this dress, and so does Gracie. It is so happy and joyful. I built our outfits around this dress. (Shocking that everything should rotate around Gracie, right????)

Next, I headed to Michael’s closet. He had a red polo shirt and a yellow one. I originally had him in the red polo, but this blog post recommended that you think about who each family member will be taking pictures with. If Bean and Gracie have a series of pictures together (which I am sure that they will), then I don’t want them to be ALL in red. I think that would be too much. So, I put Bean in the yellow shirt instead and added a yellow bow for Gracie’s hair instead of a red one.

That left Chris and me. Chris had a really great red and bright blue plaid, but when I laid that out together, there really wasn’t enough blue represented in the entire family scheme. So, I went with his blue polo instead. I think that pops for him. Plus, he will look good when paired with me for pictures, or with either and/or both of the kids.

For myself, I had this super cute sundress I was going to wear that was white and heather grey striped. I thought I would put a denim jacket with it and a big chunky yellow necklace. But then I thought about it and worried that a dress might be too restricting for photos. I’d basically have to be standing still or sitting in order to make sure I wasn’t flashing the camera, and I know I want a lot of action shots of our family playing. So I opted instead of a pair of denim capris (“Flirt” style from Old Navy, and I went up a size in pants; Can we all stop and mourn that fact, please?) and a simple white eyelet shirt.

I also have ordered this adorable yellow chunky necklace from this shop on Etsy and it should be here this week, so that will add my color pop.

And the Shoe Fairy brought me these shoes from Old Navy today! It’s like she just KNEW that Chris had told me to stop shopping for spring clothes! She’s so sweet, that Shoe Fairy!

When it all comes together, I think it looks really cute!

Of course, I spent all this time planning and plotting, only to have Chris declare that he would not be shaving his hockey playoff facial hair because the Rangers have been winning and he couldn’t let his team down.

We laughed good-naturedly for a few minutes about this, and then I said, “No, really. Go shave your face.”

Good boy.

I think we’re all set now. I’m so excited to see sweet Jenn (who has become a mommy since the last time I’ve seen her!) and to have another year of our family documented for the memory books. Now, everyone say a prayer that Gracie cooperates. That child is the only thing I can’t plan for…