My family.

On the morning that we were to get our photos taken by Analiese (from *Dimples* by AnalieseJane) Ronin fell onto his face and bruised his cheek.
Can you tell?
NO.

Analiese's photos have basically confirmed two things that I pretty much already knew.
1. She is an awesome photographer with some leet photoshop bruise removing skills.
2. I have adorable children!

 See? So cute. (If only this were a perpetual reality because they were both little nut cases today...)

I actually really dislike having my photo taken partly because of the regular boring reasons (wah wah my eyes are crooked blah blah) and partly because I think that I look especially stupid in posey photos.

These photos weren't like that. With occasional guidance (lighting and composition ideas) Analiese just took photos of us being a family and when Ky decided that he wanted certain photos of him with his boys she was more than happy to oblige.

 (Fun fact: Ronin is eating grass in the photo on the left and is shoving a flower in his mouth in the photo on the right... Just keeping it real)

The turn over between getting the photos taken and getting the link to the online gallery of our work was fast, and I was SO happy with the photos that she chose to send us. Especially because she sent through the photos of us being real as well as the ones of us being atypically (comparatively) good looking.

I love this photo... (that green colour in the back? One of my favourite colours in the world)

And I love this photo even more... because this is basically the story of my life. Kyle laughing at something (probably something that he said himself) and me looking at him just like that.

It's REAL!
I suppose that's the take home message.

Photography is awesome because it captures real moments that are worthy of remembering - and I love those real, honest photos much more than posed photos. Analiese was great because she made the boys feel comfortable (Gabriel LOVED having his photos taken) and let us laugh and parent and joke and just be ourselves and still managed to make us look good!

Gabe's mismatched socks :) He was really worried he was going to fall off Ky's shoulder.

Sometimes it's a difficult thing to prioritise family photos when other things come up (like power bills and registering your car and all those other gross real life things) but you can't really put prices on memories like these. I have a lot of photos, a lot of them have great memories attached to them, but they don't look super nice like these ones. Why bother paying to get photos taken? BECAUSE THEY LOOK BETTER. You know... cos it's their job!

Good photographers have skills that you probably don't.
I know how to use photoshop to make art, I can even edit some photos but making beautiful photos isn't my job. Thanks to Analiese I even know how to shoot using the manual settings on a camera... but my photos don't look like these.
Also - I am usually the one taking photos and so there aren't a lot of photos of me and my boys together (selfies absolutely do not count) so these photos are amazing for me.

I have already ordered prints.

Ky and I have set a goal to get photos taken every year to track our families growth.

 It is worth it.