26/52

Wow.  Week 26.  The official halfway point of my project - to post once a week for a year.  I can't believe it!

Every other year, my brother and I give my mom a special gift.  It's now a tradition.  We do a photo that includes both of our families. It's our goal to make her cry and it works every time.

The first one we did was back in 2006.  We went to Sears and decided that we would color coordinate with the black, gray and white.  In the end, I didn't actually love how that turned out.  I've seen color coordination work well, but this was not a very good example of it.  LOL

Isaac was only 6 months old and Luke was only a couple weeks old - and if I remember right, he slept through the entire photo shoot.

Somehow we missed 2008 (maybe because my family had just moved?), but we had my cousin, Melissa, take our picture in 2009.

Because sometimes cute little boys need to wear matching shirts.  

As we were scoping out this location in Schaumburg, there are some artistic elements to the park.  One of them is a statue of a woman laying in a hill - and her foot is sticking out. We couldn't resist.

Our very first silly photo

In 2011, we went back to Sears.  We had a great photographer!  He shmushed us all together to fit into this picture.  But I suppose we're a close family, and that's the way we like it. 

This photographer introduced us to the silly face photo we now do every year.  I remember the kids looking at us parents behind the photographer like, really, we can make a silly face?  Are you sure it's okay? They were so unsure. But then it didn't take long for them to love the idea.  And this is one of my favorite photos of them ever. 

In 2013, we had planned to take a photo outside near our house, probably Peck Farm.  But there was a storm that kept us inside, so we improvised in our family room.

Abigail insisted on wearing her new cowboy boots.

My brother, oh brother. 

And then it's time already to take another family photo this year.  We had gorgeous weather.  Everyone was having a good hair day.  We rearranged the furniture at the Cantigny garden and stopped traffic for a few minutes so we could take this picture. 

Tell me it doesn't melt your heart to see those two little boys!

We look so proper in that first picture!  Hands folded, ankles crossed, smiles all around.  A mom and grandma would be proud.  But I'm telling you that my mom is no ordinary mom and this picture below will be the one she shows everyone with pride.

So silly we are.

Taking a family photo like this every two years really shows that time flies.  The kids have all changed and grown so much in the last 9 years.  Those little girls are now in college.  Preschoolers are now in middle and high school and figuring out their passions in life.  And adorable little baby boys are thinking about what they want to be when they grow up.  But I'm glad we have these pictures to remember how cute they were back then, how much less they talked back, and how easy it was to have them sit on our laps.

I can't even imagine what the photo in 2017 will look like.  But I can't wait.  Well, maybe I can.