Calling all photographers

So, I'd like to send out pictures in my Christmas cards this year. I was hoping for a decent photo of Casey and I... but I realized pretty quickly that while the boyfriend's strengths compliment mine, they do not lie in the photography area.

Basically, I'm an "act before I think" person. The boyfriend is a "think....think....think before I act" person. So he does a near perfect, very meticulous job at whatever he is attempting to accomplish, but it takes about ten times as long as when I try to do it.

This drives me insane.

But again, he's really really good at what he does. So I've learned to accept his methods, as foreign as they seem to my way of thinking.

However, he tends to miss the good photo opportunities. You know, when you're aiming, and aiming, and moving and situating with a moving target (like Casey) you're going to end up with pictures like this one. Where's the dog, right? And why are your eyes closed, Emily? I know, and I'm sad. This was a perfect picture about three seconds before it was taken. But it's better than some of the others he took. I mean, at least Casey was still close enough to actually be caught in the frame on this one. (She's the brown blur on the left in case you were wondering.... I'm the dork who closed her eyes when the picture FINALLY snapped. With no warning, I might add.)

He's better with a more sedentary subject, like....oh....say....Tyson. It only took him two tries to get this picture. I sort of like this picture. I mean, my hair is doing something goofy on the couch...and it's TYSON and not CASEY....but we sort of look comfortable there on the couch, don't we? Like we actually like each other. Don't buy it. Tyson doesn't really move once he finds a spot on the couch that's comfortable. I think I sat down next to him. Hey, wait a sec....Tyson's not ALLOWED on the furniture. WTF?

But then, this is what happens if I am my own photographer:
or this EXTREME close up:

(Here's a confession. I only posted those close ups because I can hear my friend Kat(i)e laughing right now. Seriously. I can hear her cracking up at her desk at work and getting ready to send me an e-mail to tell me how much of a dork I am. Well, Kat(i)e, just for you, I have enabled comments to be posted by anonymous users. Well...for you and Jaclyn. That way you guys can stop complaining to me about how you don't want to create another account to comment on my blogs....wah wah wah. I had better be getting some damn good comments now.)

But I digress...

I obviously have a problem. I would like a Christmas card picture, but I have no photographer. It occurred to me that I could probably find a way to exhaust Casey and end up with a picture like this one, but upon inspection...even this one doesn't feel right. It almost feels like...something is...missing. Hmmm...

Is this the year that Emily will finally make her mother happy by sending out "family" Christmas cards? Has she actually decided that her Christmas cards, nay, her LIFE is not complete without the boyfriend and (gasp!) Tyson included? Has the Christmas spirit actually thawed our author's icy stance on "Joint Christmas cards? We're not quite there yet?"

Stay tuned.

(Some of you will actually get one of those eventual Christmas cards in the mail. What the readers of this blog will get that others won't is a peek at the outtakes also. You know, like this one. Lucky you guys :-) Any volunteers to actually take the picture??