Family Photo Shoot

A couple of months ago, we hired a professional photographer to snap a few photos of our family.  We wanted to do this so that we could have a family photo that included Xiao Yu in the pictures.

We know this person from church and having a two little girls herself, she is good with the kids and patient.

We had two shots that for sure we wanted to get...a shot of the kids and one of our whole family.  Everything else was bonus.

The photographer tried the method where all the kids would hold hands and walk/run towards the camera.  The kids had fun but no 100% normal shots came out of this.  We're not sure why the girls have their tongues out.

Putting them on a bench seemed to help them settle down a little bit.  But they were still easily distracted, as you can see.

But she FINALLY got a good one.  Yes!!!!

She also got other ones which were cute.  Here are the two "middle" kids together.  No matter how much we tried, we could not comb Gabriel's hair and have it stay looking like it was combed.

Here is another one of Gabey.  You'll notice the sticks laying on the table next to him.  He is really into sticks now and he is constantly in trouble for stabbing and hitting his siblings with them.

And here he is being tickled.

 Xiao Yu did not have the "uncombed hair" issue.  We had just given him a hair cut.

We were at a park and one thing that intrigued the kids was the water fountain.  It seems like all kids like water fountains and ours are no exception.

 We got a good shot as a couple.  You'll notice that in Elvin's pants pocket, a wooden stick is sticking out.  This was confiscated from Gabey moments before; you can probably guess why.

Here we are trying for the family shot.  Xiao Yu is crouched down probably because this is the very first time he's ridden on Elvin's shoulders and probably this is the first time ever in his life.  Elvin doesn't really ever put the kids on his shoulders and he is probably feeling very high up right now.

In this shot, all the kids are looking at the camera--what a miracle!  However, the composition, we feel like, is a little funky.

Finally, we got the shot we wanted.  Everyone is smiling (including Gabey--which is currently our most not willing to cooperate child) and at least in the picture, pretending to get along!