Holidays = Family

With winter officially arriving today in full force, it's time to warm up next to your families in the form of parties and dinners and in our case, family pictures. For years I have been wanting to get some pictures with the family, so finally this year I set it up that we were able to get it done. We went to Portrait Innovations in Glenview. My biggest worry was the kids and how they would do with the pictures in the studio. As expected, both girls had a meltdown almost exactly when we started taking pictures. The boys did well and the whole time Daniel was trying not to laugh, so of course I tried making him laugh the entire time. It was a great day. Jaz, mom, and I stuck around the studio for the pictures to print out. Just went to a Starbucks down the street and came back. We picked them up and brought them back to her house. When we laid them all out, it seemed like she was going to cry. I guess I never thought about how it would effect her. She brought up the fact that it had been 18 years since the last time we took a professional family picture, and obviously the first one since my dad passed away in '97. She looked at the pictures for what seemed like hours. I am so glad she enjoyed the pictures the way she did. She just kept saying "This is my family!" almost making me cry everytime. She just had so much pride in it. So I guess this year, this picture is what defined the family. I'm sure we will look at this same picture in 10 years and just laugh at how small the kids were, or comment on how young we looked. For now, it will be a captured moment of time of my beautiful family.

Right now we are in San Francisco dodging the bitter cold winter in Chicago and more importantly, spending time with Jazmine's family. No portrait pictures here, just good times with her family. Sometimes I feel bad that we are able to spend so much time with my family and pretty much no time with hers. So it is important for us to come back to San Francisco so she can reconnect with her family. Sure I miss my family, but I know she misses hers a majority of the year. Plus, her godson is turning one this year so she definitely had to be here for that! Pictures will be up in the next week or so!