Nik said that yesterday’s family picture post was one of those, “Isn’t our family perfect?” kind of posts that proliferate on the Internet, just like the perfect marriage on Facebook.

So, in the interest of keeping it real around here, here are some outtakes from our family picture photo shoot.  I’m not showing you the really bad picture of me because it’s my blog and I don’t have to show you everything! 🙂

Mark stares off into the distance pensively while Ellie proves that she’s three.

That’s her “I”m smiling” smile – cute, huh? 🙂

“Why are you making me do this, Mama?”

Mark inspects the other side of the wall while Ellie is sick and tired of smiling.

Ellie refuses to look at the camera and Mark chews on his hand.

A lovely picture except that the camera decided to focus on the grass in the front rather than Mark’s face, a problem which we didn’t discover until we got home.  Aarrghhh!!

See?  We’re not perfect, at all! 🙂

Bonus tip:  I’d like you to notice one thing about all these pictures – Nik and I never change.  We just keep on smiling and looking straight at the camera (although you can see me getting a bit tired in the last family picture, just above Mark’s solo one.)  If you ever do a family photo shoot, that’s the A-#1 rule you’ll need to follow – never talk and never stop smiling.  The adults have to be perfectly consistent for every picture.  That way, on the off chance that all the kids in the picture actually are smiling and looking at the camera, an adult doesn’t mess it up.  Particularly NOT useful is for the adult to be hissing at the kid to “smile at the camera” because inevitably, that’s when the kid is smiling but the adult’s lips look weird.  Just keep smiling! Just keep smiling!