Best Family Ever

One of my many goals in life to be a good photographer and I've been consuming all sorts of tips from National Geographic photographers and the like in hopes of increasing my skill.  One of the tips I've picked up from people whose pictures I admire, despite not having NatGeo cred yet (Emma, Dad), is that practicing is important.  This week the NatGeo assignment was "family" and I had ample opportunity to capture pictures of my family during our Christmas celebrations.

If I had to pick just one picture from the week to represent my whole family it would be this picture of my nephew.

Why? Because Tyler has been bringing my family together since the day he was born.  He's the first grandchild and taught us all what being an aunt/uncle/grandparent was all about.  More currently, he continues to physically pull us all into hugs and video games.  More personally, he made me feel a type of love I had not known before.  Tyler has Downs Syndrome and I've said before that I think it confers an extra degree of empathy to him.  Whether it's Downs related or not, that love he brings into a room with him is the most excellent feeling I've ever felt.  I got a few minutes of cuddle time with him on Christmas and it melted away the rest of my holiday stress.  He is great.

Since I have the space to choose a few more pictures to portray my family, I'll put up this one of my brother and sister with our dog, Max.  They might have let him get pretty fat, but they also let him know he is a part of the family.

And this guy.  He's basically family.  We spent our Christmas together travelling between my family and his family, and he had this mustache the whole time.  There's all sorts of love lessons I could write about here, but it's pretty personal, so just know that I love him a lot.  And I thought the mustache was dashing.

And picture about tradition.  Brent's family gets together to sled around Christmas every year.  This year was particularly icy, but his niblings showed no fear.

Finally, a picture I didn't capture (Brent took it). And it didn't happen this week  This is new haircut face, a Downard tradition.  These dorks are the best people I know and I love them more than anything.