January Birthdays

This evening the Chaney family all met up at the compound to celebrate the January birthdays. The birthday people were:
Paul, who turned 14,
David, who is still under 40
and Mark. We'll cut Mark some slack since he's the same age as me.

We celebrated with family and Sonny Bryan's bbq. Since this was the first time in a while all of us have been together at the same time, we decided to take a family picture. This is never an easy task and there are always many retakes.

The boys were required to get dressed up in these really nice shirts.
Here, Mia helps Brendan with his buttons.
Mia and Tanya.
Mia wondering if we're going to get this show on the road. Finally, after the costume changes, we get the crowd gathering for the group shot.
Now, where should we all stand? After much consternation, I think we were able to get everyone in the right place for the final shot. After a few retakes, here the final version.


I think it turned out nice. When we called for one more take...
...I think we all lost it and it came out more like this.

Again, it's rare to have all of the cousins together so we had to have one of all of them as well. The kids weren't too happy. We went through several shots. This first one seemed to express how they really felt.
I think James' expression says it all. He was probably done after the first picture. But after one final big push, I think we got a keeper.
Paul - age 14, Brendan - age 9, Mia - age 3, John - age 9 and James - age 7.

This time next year we'll have one more to add to the group. Dylan. Until then, we'll wait until he's ready to make an appearance.

It was a fun time.