Getting that Christmas card picture = pain in the butt

It's the time of year when I start thinking about Christmas, not seriously yet, but I'm thinking about it.  I start thinking about gift ideas, decorations, if we'll get lights on the house this year, how I'm going to deal with Christmas cookies on my new diet (remember, I have an illness when it comes to cookies... might as well be crack), and Christmas cards.

Then I start to worry because everytime I try to get a picture of my 3 kids together, someone looks weird, mad, or doesn't look at the camera at all.  I started sifting through pics throughout the year of my kids together... here's what I found:

Babydoll looks adorable, Little Man looks fine, Sweet Pea... not ready

These two shots were cute, but there's a big bright spot from the window, and blurry spots from a smudge on my lense.

LM looks ok, BD looking at the Easter bunny, and SP not excited to be having her pic taken with the Easter bunny

Apparently 7 was too old for that.

Near success, but though Christmas and Easter are most certainly related, sending a Christmas card with the Easter bunny on it is not quite my style... close, but not quite.  Funny, but not the pretty picture I want.

great picture of my kids dressed up at the Rennaisance Festival, but for some reason, SP with her belly showing is just not Christmas card material.

This is an option, not sure though.

I love this picture of me with the kids, but we can't send out a Christmas card with me and the kids and not Spence or people will get the wrong idea.

I love these pictures we took the other night of the kids in their new pj's.  In this one LM's smiling but his thumb is in his mouth, and when we had BD hold his hand he'd just lunge for it

This is one of my favorites of my kids together.. I love it.  Christmas card? maybe?

I'm sure this would be Spencer's pick for the card, but I don't like how mad LM is here, he has such a bright smile, I didn't want to lose it for the card.

So you can see I've had a bit of trouble getting that "perfect" Christmas card picture (not that I'm under any delusions that my family is perfect and should be represented as such, I just want my kids to look like themselves - cute, happy, and beautiful.

I think I've figured it out, and I have a card design done but not yet ordered, I may just get the "perfect picture" yet!

Once I get them finalized, and eventually sent out, I'll post it here for anyone who wants to see what I ended up with!