Every year, no matter what, I make sure we take family photos. I think it's really important to have documentation of our family over the years, and I'd like to think that the generations that come after us will treasure them.

Since we have been sick a lot it was hard to plan a big photo shoot out, and, honestly, I'm kind of over all of the outdoor family shoots. Just like in any industry, new trends emerge and shooting families in their homes in a more "real life" setting seems to be where the family photo session trend is going. But, for us, it was also just about convenience.

So, since we planned to do it in our house we thought wearing our PJ's would be fun. We had Rennai Hoefer come over just before Thanksgiving and take pictures of us putting up our tree. Funny enough, our tree never got decorated beyond a couple cereal garlands. Haha, but, hey, minimalist is "in," right?

We found all of our jammies at Target this year, and chose gray and white because of our interiors colors in our living room. I thought bringing in our blue velvet sofa would make it feel a bit more holiday-ish too. We just put it by our blank white wall and had some fun.

Of course, the kids didn't really cooperate like you hope, but that's real life, right? It made for some good pictures for us to cherish. Like this one above where Elle was choking her brother (yeesh).

We put them all together in a photo collage for our Christmas cards that we made with minted. And, we actually got our cards printed, addressed and mailed this year, which was a big win for me.