Family Photos and the Great Dilemma

I have the great opportunity to work with girls ages 12-18 on a weekly basis and find great happiness in doing so, however sometimes these girls don't necessarily come with filters.

Exhibit A:

A few months back I was talking with one of my friends while in the presence of some of these teenage girls about plans for our next "Family Photo." One girl piped up, "How can you get family photos if you don't even have kids yet?" My friend desperately tried to remedy the situation by explaining that you didn't have to have kids to be a "family," that when my husband and I got married we had started our own family even though it was just the two of us.

That conversation has since stuck with me. Why do I get photos taken each year with my husband even though we don't have kids and don't necessarily change all that much physically?

First off, I don't discuss my struggles with fertility with these teenage girls, so had this girl known the circumstances she probably wouldn't have said anything. Not having kids yet has not been a choice I have any control over at this point, however, I won't let that put limitations on other aspects of my life.

I like to send out Christmas cards each year, kids or not, and it would get pretty boring to send out the same photo year after year. I like to have new photos to put on my wall and send to our parents. Styles change. I use photos for Facebook, Twitter, Various Blogs, Google, etc and would like it if I didn't have to use the same photo for all of the above until we actually have kids.

Finally, while some may not see a whole lot of physical changes other than the length of my hair I feel like emotionally and mentally my husband and I grow leaps and bounds. We are definitely not the same people we were a year ago and a photo is the perfect way to document these unseen changes.

My awesome sister-in-law is a budding photographer and we volunteered to let her practice on us this year. We did two sessions. The dilemma is how to choose which ones to print. I think there were so many great photos! I need to print one for our wall, one for both our parents, and one for the Christmas card, only now I'm having a hard time narrowing them down.

... and this isn't even all of them!

Do you get your photo taken each year?

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