My family is beginning to dread that one weekend every fall where I make everybody dress up in outfits decidedly not fit for a Saturday and pose for family photos. They hate sitting and smiling and when they begin to grimace they know the lecture is coming, the one where I remind them that they're smiling for all of our friends and family who will be receiving a Christmas card from us and do they want everyone to see what a sour grapes they were being for our photo. They always reluctantly answer no and continue grimacing. Thank goodness the children have a fun dad who ends up cracking a joke and injecting the whole painful procedure with a little fun. Once the sitting and smiling photo quota has been filled, I ask them to play and jump and run and that's when I begin to enjoy taking the photos too.
Here are some fall photos that I meant to share on the blog and never quite got around to. These are from 2014. My husband always offers himself as the test subject to help me get my camera settings right. In these shots, he shows his breadth of acting skills. Get the man some screen time already!
I don't know if you noticed Blue Steel in that second photo!
These below are our fall photos from 2015. See? I'm catching up. Slowly.
Those two beautiful dogs are our Great Pyrenees that work here as our livestock guardian dogs. They're so wonderful that I wish they could be our indoor dogs too but life in the pasture and barn is too messy and dirty to be allowed in the house. And it turns out they need to be in a fenced-in pasture protected with electric fencing to keep them from wandering the entire neighborhood. Seriously. They like to roam an area with a couple miles radius. I was getting daily phone calls (sometimes several times a day because, for such big dogs, they were extremely able in escaping through small gaps) asking me to come get my dogs because they had eaten all of Fluffy's cat food at 5am. Yes, 5am. Even on Saturdays. It had to stop so the electric fence went in. Being pregnant and having to get your huge 80+ pound dogs at 5am is not funny. Hence this photo.
That's Phoebe. I adore Phoebe. She is honestly one of the best dogs I have ever met in my life. Her half-sister, our other Great Pyrenees, is Aster. Aster is also very smart. Aster has the street smarts and Phoebe has more of the psychology smarts. Here she is in the photo telling me that it's alright because they had a very fun morning raiding all the local houses for cat food and dog treats and then swimming in ponds. She thinks I'm upset because I am worried about them (which I was, sort of, as much as you can be prior to 5am when you were sleeping) and not because I'm mad. Oh, also funny about this photo? She gave me poison ivy.
Anyway, continuing onward with the photos of the joys of my life including our furry family members Phoebe and Aster.
This is Phoebe again. Isn't she beautiful? I swear she's smiling. That's why she's the psychologist dog.
That's Phoebe kissing my son. Aster is in the front thinking about how much she hates being on a leash. I'm already thinking about next fall's photos. Should we pose with the alpacas? The goats? All of them? How about a live Nativity and manger scene? I can't ever take enough photos of my children. Add some of our beautiful animals and it's a winning combination for me. Anything you'd like to see on our Christmas cards for next year?
