Family Christmas Photos...Lord help us

It's that time of year! Not that we manage to do this every year, but this year I said we have to because it may very well be Toby's last Christmas so we HAVE to get a family photo with everyone this year.   

The only picture I could find where he isn't walking away

Toby is our old man, he's about 14 or 15 yrs old (we have had him for 11yrs) and he has good days and bad days. When his bad days out number his good days I'll have to make the dreaded decision. He is my shadow, as hard as it is for him to get up and down he will do it just to follow me around and be at my feet. He's such an obedient, loyal boy *sigh*. So for now, we just love him hard and feed him the best parts of the beef trimmings, give him dibs on the heated dog bed and let him do as he pleases. Basically he's the king around here and all the young whippersnappers rank second. You guys rarely see him in photos because I really think he thinks that bullets will shoot out from my lens. He literally takes off when I aim the camera at him.

    That's exactly what happened yesterday when we were all ready for our photo shoot. We are all sitting down, camera on tripod and poof he was gone. I'm yelling for him..."TOBY!!" ..."TOOOOOBYYYYY!" Well of course that was useless because he's practically deaf and only responds to sign language now. So this is how our shoot began, needless to say when you have four kids and four dogs it makes for an interesting time. I'm at a point in my life where I've learned that things don't have to be spit shinned and perfect to be great.

And so we begin....

At this point Toby is gone, then we hear him coming up the porch...

Johnny turns and sees Toby in my arms and is not having it. You can't see it but he is going OFF on my poor old man. Now Toby being the deaf, senile old man that he is doesn't care because he doesn't realize...(this was quite a moment,lol!)

Johnny calms down and we proceed...

Bella and Reggie are pouting over the stupid Santa hats.

As you can see you just aren't going to get the definition of "perfect" with this many people and dogs. Yet I still think this is our best Christmas card photo yet...

(No animals were harmed in the making of this Christmas card and all stupid hats and collars came off immediately following the photo shoot)