brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!

so we went out to franklinville today to have a day of fun in the snow... good gravy it was cold out there! carter and i played outside for MAYBE 13 minutes. it was really chilly! i was trying not to be a weenie about it, but when i asked him if he was cold he said "yeah." and then i asked him if he wanted to go back inside he said "yeah!" i was SO glad! the radio out there said that the temperature was 13 with a wind chill of -4!now clay and gerry on the other hand... they did a little sledding. the driveway out there is 1/2 mile long... they made it REALLY far!

for some reason, after the kids were really overtired and trying to thaw out, we then attempted to take our annual christmas pictures. this is always an incredibly torturous event. there is always 1 kid that won't cooperate... today it was carter. we had clay carter and david in their matching (adorable) sweaters, and grace had on her cute red dress. carter would NOT stop sticking his fingers in his mouth, fish hooking his cheeks and sticking his tongue out... it was really pretty funny. but we didn't get any good pictures. we will give it another try this week... but this just might have to be another year of separate pictures. oh well... my question is this- how do families with numerous children pull off the group photos where everyone is not only looking at the camera, but are sitting nicely and looking adorable? HOW DO THEY DO IT? WHAT IS THE SECRET? anyone???