Our Annual Family Photo

It all started about five years ago. My niece was about three weeks old and my brother and his now wife were about to head off to Australia travelling for a year. I can’t even remember who suggested it now but we all decided that it would be lovely to have a family photo with our newest member before they headed off on their travels. It was a great way to capture our new family dynamic with the first of the babies arriving.

Fast forward a year and they were back from their travels. My niece has just turned one and and we decided it was time for another photo. To make it a bit more fun we decided to take it in the same spot and all be in the same positions as the first photo. And so it continued from there.

My brother and his wife now live in America but luckily we have managed to get a photo in every year.

We even had a special wedding version at their wedding three years ago in the US. The photographer was a close friend of my sister in law and she had told him about the photo. He really wanted to capture this for us so made sure he made time that evening to get a special version of the traditional shot. It was great and so lovely to capture the day in that way. What is even more special about this version is that my sister was about four months pregnant in that photo and unbeknown to anybody outside of the family I was also about eight weeks pregnant!

I have showed this version to Amelia a few times and she gets very confused when I ask her where her or her cousin are. It’s just lovely to think that they were both there cooking away.

So of course the photo has changed and new additions have meant some changes from the original set up.

In the original photo my niece was sat on my brothers knee. Three years later and she was upgraded to a standing position and space had to be made for the two latest arrivals. My new niece Olivia and of course Amelia. My brother had his hands full for this one.

Obviously with the distance it isn’t as straight forward to get the photo each year at the same time but we did manage to sneak it in for last year. My brother and sister in law came over for Christmas and we all went away for the Christmas break. It was lovely to spend the whole of Christmas with them and it was only on the day we were leaving that we finally found time to take the photo.

It’s so cheesy but I love this tradition and i an so glad it has stuck. I am going to love to look back on all of these photos as the years go by. It will be great to show Amelia the photos too when she is older.

I don’t know when we will all be together this year. There are no definite plans for us all to be in the same place right now but I hope we can manage it somehow.

I would love to hear of anybody else’s family traditions.

Catherine x