Portraits of Love...and a Little More!

I blogged a few weeks back about getting our portraits taken at church for the new directory, so I thought I'd share them here. We have never had a family portrait done, as every time we thought about it or had a coupon it seemed we were waiting for someone to come home and we wanted to have the "whole" family in the portrait. Now that our family is truly complete, it seemed like the right time. While I still hate having my own picture taken and much prefer being behind the camera than in front of it, I realize the kids need to have a few pictures every once in awhile with mom in them.

They have a bit of a 70's feel to them, or perhaps it is my own personal preference of less staged photos, but we all did like they way they turned out so we will hang them on the wall next to our black velvet painting of Elvis and they will fit right in! Hahaha! Just kidding about Elvis...sort of... anyway, here they are:

Nice family photo, not half bad, everyone looking at the camera and smiling as if they are not being threatened with death.

Well, remember, we ARE LaJoy's and we always tend to do things a little bit outside the box...I think we had the photographer a bit stumped as to what to do with us! Here is a lovely photo of Mother and Father LaJoy, smiling demurely at the camera as if we will be hanging this in our stately manor:

And below is Ma and Pa LaJoy, the hicks from the country that we truly are! HAHAHAHA!! I loved this one, it really shows us as we are, never taking anything all that seriously!

Our darling children ready to attend the local academy, this was the photo the babe running the sales end of the evening insisted we take. We did, and we do agree it is a nice semi- representation of our children...

But THIS ONE below is really Team LaJoy, wide open grins and barely contained laughter...and my absolute favorite of the entire bunch of pictures taken that evening.

Now the menfolk, handsome bunch aren't they?? And why is it when I look at this I don't see a mismatched set? Am I that used to seeing our international family or is it that Dominick somehow has crept inside each of them and is reflected somehow in their smiles?

Funny after this weeks conversation with the kids about not caring about having kids that look liked us, etc. that this photo clearly shows me what our biological children might have looked like. So similar it is almost eerie...

So there you have it, preserved for posterity's sake, Team LaJoy in all its glory. It IS nice to have decent photos of us all together. Even nicer is that this was not put off yet another year as we waited for another "team member" to finally arrive. How blessed we are! I never, ever would have imagined 10 years ago when we embarked on our family building journey that THIS beautiful family would be the end result. It's not that any of us is overly attractive, it is that the love shines so clearly in the eyes of each one of us, gathered from hither and yon to create something wonderful and nurturing for us all that did not exist before.

Thanks God, for the pictures AND for the much, much greater gift.