December 17th

Pappy brought up the rocking chairs he made for Charlie and Alex so tonight the kids put on their Christmas PJs for a picture. At first, it seemed as if we were just going to have to call it quits. Lucy decided she was going to turn into a diva . . .

But she pulled it together and we got some cute shots. I was worried about the boys sitting in their chairs, but they did amazingly well! Of course, Michael is off to one side and I have one hand out ready to catch the other one. . .

Two out of three smiling is pretty good. . .

I also took Lucy's picture by herself as well. We have taken her picture in the rocking chair every year so I wanted a chance to compare those as well.

6 months old

(Yes, those are the same PJs that Alex is wearing above!)

18 months old

2 years old

 And then we have this year's picture. . . I read a pin on Pinterest that talked about how to get children to give you natural smiles. It said that when you tell them to say cheese, you're not able to get them to smile with their eyes. They may have a smile on their face (however "cheesy" it is) but it doesn't reach their eyes. You can tell that in the first picture I took. .

 In the article, it suggested that you either show them the facial expression you wanted or else tell them to laugh. (There were lots of other ideas too which I store away for later!) So I tried that and I was pleased with the results . .  maybe we can be finished with those crazy smiles she's been giving lately! ;) And I love how you can see the smile in her eyes too because that's how she looks when she's happy.

Just too cute!