What are your favorite family "photo ops?"

Okay, I've done it, and I'm here to confess: I have planned family activities for the photos. At first I felt guilty about it and even felt a little dishonest, but then I realized that the smiles and the fun were real. The scrapbook pages I wanted to create were not contrived versions of an ordinary life, but were actually gentle nudges to do the little extras that normally would fall by the wayside in my busy days.

Carving pumpkins is actually something I do not look forward to doing. Even though we've come close, though, we've never gone a Halloween without a pumpkin on our porch. I've bought pumpkins the day before Halloween and we've quickly carved them that night, but we managed to have at least one...because I HAD to have those pictures!

My daughter loves to flip through our scrapbooks. She wants me to tell her all about what we were doing, and wonders why I took a picture of her with a stray pumpkin seed in her hair. All she sees is our memories, and they are quite dear to her. And, honestly, they are quite dear to me as well.