Family Pictures

Two weeks ago, the Ertel Clan got together to takes some professional pics of our awesome family. There are officially 16 of us, 7 of them kids, 6 of them under 5. So you can imagine the crazy chaos that ensues when we all get together. It's pretty nuts.

We have been taking a Christmas picture at a studio (NEVER AGAIN!) and it's a crazy fiasco in public, the entourage touring the mall before and after, looking like a small army ready to raid the town. It's previously been a "surprise" to Mom and Dad, giving them a picture of all the grandkids they currently spoil the heck out of.

This year, MJ had a friend in the biz-ness, the fantastically talented Tracy Dorr, and thought it would be great to do outdoor, natural fall photos instead. Yay! No more forced and stuffy studio pics...thank God. It was a great and beautiful day, a little cold, but nice enough. And we all got some great shots of our own families, too. We started with the big family, all 16 of us, inside and out, and then broke it down multiple times. All the kids, each family on their own, each couple on their own, and so on and so on...

They turned out amazing. What a great idea, MJ! And you know, Tracy, you are never, ever getting away. ;)

Here are the ones from just our family, with us as Mom and Dad and then just Mike and Cheryle again. I think these are officially the first pics of us together since we were dating. I think that fact might just explain the ridiculous number of them I included here.

I would love to post the other ones, I just have to find out what the rest of the family thinks about their mugs being on the Internet. And I'm not talking about coffee.

What do you think? These suckers were tough to upload, so let's leave the wonky formatting out of this.