The Perfect Christmas Card...Attempted

What a nice Christmas Card picture, right? Yeah right! Here's the story of how it came to be...

We had a TERRIBLE time getting a good picture for our Christmas card this year. Don't think I procrastinated and I deserve this...I didn't. Our first attempt was over Thanksgiving weekend. We went to the beach in Ventura to get a "Rub it in Your Face, We're at the Beach and You're in Snow" picture. I guess I was punished for my cruel intentions. This is the best we got...the sun was not cooperating:

So...we tried again a couple of days later. We figured, we're already dressed up for church, let's just snap a cute picture outside. Yeah right?! Tyson was in a foul mood and wouldn't smile no matter what we threatend. Go figure?! Here's our best shot from that episode:

Okay... so fast forward a couple of weeks. Yes, we are getting close to Christmas, we need a picture. One more attempt at the beach picture. Little did we know we were going to have some of the coldest weather I have experienced since moving to California. That didn't stop us though. We all bundled up and headed to Pismo. We tried several locations, ending on the Pier since we could at least get the wind blowing our hair out of our faces there. As much as the birds were cooperating, we couldn't get something worth sending out to everyone we know. This is as close as we got:

The next morning was Sunday so we tried the before-church-picture again. We couldn't get anybody to take the picture for us though, so we attempted the timed picture. It would have worked too, but I didn't get the camera high enough so the angle makes us look like giants. No dice!

I decide I will give it one more try and that is it. We only had a week before Christmas by this time. We had a ward Christmas party Saturday night, so we got all dolled up once again (notice I didn't make the effort to choose new outfits each time) and recruited a friend from the ward to snap a few pictures by the Christmas tree. I'm not saying it's is the perfect picture (Kelsie has the cutest smile that we couldn't get her to share with us in any of the pictures that night), but as you can see, it is the best choice. It didn't really matter what the pictures looked like after the 5th attempt...I was using them no matter what. So, I hope you all appreciate the effort that went into the cards you received in the mail...even though they may have been a little late! If there are no pictures in next year's cards, you now know why!