Days with the Dorans

Christmas Card picture time is no longer a fight- everyone grabs a white shirt and we are done pretty quickly. Nana took these with her phone and within a few minutes we were done. Sean and Z are still loose cannons and you never know what they're going to do. Marty is equally unpredictable but I guess that makes it fun! Marty decided to start looking for Santa!

Christmas card time has always been a bit tough but now that everyone is a bit older no one complains about getting on their white shirt. They know mama will get her picture!  This is our 8th year taking pics in our white shirts (which started with Seany's first Christmas!!). The kids are now pretty easy... well most of them. Marty was super excited about the Christmas picture. He was either on his back showing his stuff or kissing someone... (MAR-TAY!!!) Now that I think back he was probably trying to remind me that HE needed a white shirt. Of course as the mother, I should have realized that but I dropped the ball... Nana came over and snapped the pictures with her phone. It actually went really quickly.  I used two pictures for our card. One with Marty and one without. They were really quite similar and boring but... I have an idea for next year. Don't worry... We'll still be sporting the white shirts and Marty will pr...

 I love our traditional Christmas Cards!! We always wear our white shirts~ take the picture in front of my Christmas tree~ and I guess it wouldn't be tradition without everyone being annoyed with having to take the picture and also trying to get the dog to cooperate! We used the picture above plus a couple out-takes this year. Here are some more...  My parents also do a Christmas Card~ with their grandkids which is even harder to get! They're good sports though. The out-takes are my favorite! I stole these off my mom's facebook page!

I was late getting our cards out this year (they probably were delivered close to Christmas Eve)... Life has been so busy and I didn't even put up my villages this year!  I do love getting our family pictures done though! Nana came over as usual and was our wonderful photographer.  You can't really tell in the pictures but Marty had a white shirt on too! I think he may have wanted to eat Blue but he was a good boy. Morty also made an appearance for our family pic.  I think he was hibernating for about a month prior to this picture but has been up and active ever since! We had lots of out-takes, of course, but did get some good pics and you can see all the pics by clicking HERE .  I have A LOT to be thankful for but especially for my favorite five people (and also those animals who live with us).  Thanks Mama for taking our pictures!

Ahhh... The Makings of the Doran Family Christmas Card! It's become tradition now for us to throw on a white shirt and have my mom snap a few pics (Thanks Mom!).  I pretty much have learned over the years that if I have low (or no) expectation, things usually work out OK.  I will admit, I was a bit sad not having our Cobi with us this year... But we did get a few with the other Doran members... Pele', Morty the Torty and Little Blue. These pictures happened in about five minutes- after dinner, before dance.  It was a busy day and I recall not getting home from all my 'happenings' until 11... Glad we got them though.  I love checking things off my list! I was shocked we were able to get some shots with the non-human Dorans! That is until Morty started pooping like crazy.  There was a towel under Z in case this happened- but clearly Doran Family Christmas pictures are stressful when you're new to them (I think I felt that way the first ...

Well... we did it!  Survived another year of doing the family Christmas card fun!  We all got on our white shirts and were done in about five minutes.  It's getting faster, but I think that's because I've given up on getting the 'perfect' family picture.  For us, this is perfect.  Nothing says "Christmas" like Green "Hulk-Smash" gloves (check out Seany). I made all of our out-takes into a VIDEO .