JOYful, JOYful...

Who: We 5 Kings: Ryan, Katy, Radley, Emersyn and Landry

Location: Our home in College Station - and looks can be deceiving. Ryan We actually moved our bedroom furniture into the living room for the light. Y'all... you gotta do what you gotta do. Totally worth it. 

Clothes: If you noticed, we went totally generic and cliche with the all white. I kind of like to mix things up a bit. I got the girls darling cotton dresses at Next and Radley's shorts from who knows, but all the other things were in our closets. (Or Cindy's).

Designer: Me and my friend, the Monkey. I converted the pics to black and white and then just used simple, clean fonts so the focus would stay on the images.  

Photographer: You may have heard of her, Sarah Burns from Butterfly Chaser Photography

Favorite Thing: This is us in our element and I love that. I love the clean look of the black and white images and the tiny pop of red. I love that the kids faces are lit up with pure JOY. Unrehearsed, unsolicited, unthreatened (ha!) JOY. (I also love that Ryan okayed the picture of him with feathers on top of his head.) 

Extras: We debated on a card filled with pictures from the shoot or just a single photo. We loved the shots of us and the kids, so I incorporated them into our letter and kept them in color. We really did have a year filled with JOY.

How can you recreate this card: Easy. Be you. Do something in your element weather it's outdoors or indoors - lifestyle shoots are great to capture just who you are. (And the kids are a little more agreeable when they aren't posing so much).  (It also helped that we were all ridiculously tan... we took these pics waaaaayyyy back in July, y'all.) (July.) (I have had this card planned in my head since July.) (SMH at myself). 

Get PINspired: Here are some of my favorite other lifestyle shoots I found after chatting it up with my girl, Pinny.

Lifestyle Ideas:

Instead of feathers, have the kids throw their favorite stuffed animals

Chealsea Marie Photography

Let's discuss how amazingly adorable this family of 3 is, mmkay?

Fawn Over Baby

I was actually pinspired to take this shot and I can't wait to hang it on a wall.

Butterfly Chaser Photography

Christmas Theme:
Love this caption - perfect! (And she gives a great "how to")

The HoneySuckle House

This is cute and worth the effort of dragging a bed outside...

Cayden Lane Photography

This would be perfect for "all snuggled in bed" card.

Sarah Wilkerson

And with that, I think I'm going to get snuggled into bed myself!

Merry Christmas, Y'all! May it be joyful and merry indeed!