A Clanahan Family Christmas - 2010

A couple of Fridays ago, our family met up with our favorite photographer (and also one of my closest friends) to take yet another round of pictures of the twins. I think this is at least the 4th time she has photographed the babies (including after delivery) and 5th or 6th to take of Matt and me. Quite frankly, I'm surprised that she hasn't fired us as clients yet :)

The first twin shoot we had lasted well over 3 hours and we were all beat after that was over! And as I have mentioned before, I would typically rather be hung upside down by my toenails than have my pictures professionally taken. I sometimes resort to a glass of wine before the shoots now so I look somewhat relaxed and not so uptight about every little piece of hair. And then I usually have a glass of wine when I get the pictures back so that I don't repeat over and over again how bad I look. Self-esteem issues much? Si. I would much, much rather have pics of the babies and Matt taken all day long. But family pics generally include the entire family so apparently my presence was necessary. However, Kendra always manages to capture pictures of all of us that even I like. And she has the patience of a saint. And she makes me laugh always.

Anyway, this was an interesting photo shoot as always because just a day and a half before, I had my visit to the ER where I was pumped up on drugs and fluids. So in half of the pictures, I am pretty much a miserable girl because I was hurting so badly. Then I think in the latter half, the pain medication finally kicked in and it was easier to pose and smile a little more genuinely (if not a bit giddily). And fortunately for me, most of the pictures were of the kids -- and they did GREAT. We even managed to get an outfit change in there and NO ONE spit up on their clothes. Now that's a Christmas miracle. And we must be getting this photo stuff down because the shoot just lasted about an hour and then I was on my merry way to jump back in my pjs and crawl under my covers.

Looking back at the photo shoot we did when the twins were just about 8 weeks old, I can hardly believe these are the same kids. No more sleepy babies. We had alert, little infants on our hands. It was quite the chore to get them to smile at the same time AND be looking at the camera - so half of the time they are smiling in different directions but what are you going to do? I can't wait for them to be sitting up on their own so we can get some good ones that way. We attempted to use this little rocking chair that we borrowed from a friend but poor little things kept tipping over when they were sitting in it. A couple of more months when we have this sitting thing down, we'll have to take some more :)

Ryan has this new smile where he sticks his tongue out - it's totally precious and makes me melt every time. I think he does it because he likes feeling his tongue on his 2 new bottom teeth. It's hilarious. And Quinn just cracks me up. I am soooo thankful that Kendra was able to capture some geat smiles from her (these are just a small, small portion of the photos she took). My dark-ages camera does not take the picture fast enough when she is laughing or smiling at home, so we are typically stuck with this open mouthed look as she is "coming down" from her smile. But now I have proof that the child smiles and laughs all the time. Whew!

Kendra, thank you as always for capturing these special memories and moments in time! You are so talented. I love you & the babies especially love you :) Thank you for being one of my closest friends here - I am so blessed to have you in my life.

http://www.kendramartinphotography.com/

(If you live in the Houston area, I highly recommend her!)

In Him,