We try to do a “photo shoot” of the kids at least once a year (sometimes we even get to be in them!).  We try to think of a theme and over a couple months I scour sales racks to look for clothes that work together.  This year, I found the perfect outfits, and wanted a crisp, white location…got the kids all pumped up for pictures with promises of a treat afterwards if they were good, dressed them all up, showed up at the museum…and it was closed.  The good news was that this practice run had them totally prepared for the session we did yesterday.  We were driving through the gorgeous snowfall and thought it would be perfect for their portraits.  So in all of 10 minutes the kids were changed and we were back outside with the promise that if they had a good time Daddy would do donuts in the parking lot in the fresh snow at the end.  Here are my favorites!

They wanted to do a serious one, Ainsley said “I have my pose!”

The key to good children’s portraits…get a formal smiley picture first, but then let them have fun!

Time for a few pictures of each kid by themselves…it helps get real smiles out of the kids when both parents are acting like idiots behind the camera.

Sweet Lyra got a tad chilly…

One of their favorites songs is “If all of the snowflakes were chocolate bars and milkshakes…”

And then we let them throw snowballs at us, they LOVED that!

I can’t even tell you how happy we are that we moved to Minnesota from California…beach pictures would get boring year after year 😉  We LOVE the snow!