Getting everyone to smile simultaneously and in the same direction, without tantrums and other kiddie chaos, is tough. Very tough. When I have uncooperative subjects - their names are Paige and Taylor - I resort to bribes - who wants a lollipop after pictures?, who wants a sticker?, who wants ice cream?, etc. or whatever I need to do to try and get smiles on the faces for family portraits - tickling, telling funny/silly jokes, etc. Whatever it takes. Our recent family pictures in front of the Christmas tree lasted for all of 10-15 minutes probably, but we must've said "Cheeeese. Cheeeese. Cheeeese." at least a dozen times for each shot that was taken. Eventually I think we all had the robotic, glazed-eye smile by the time those 15 minutes were up. Each time the self-timer of our digital camera would take a shot, we'd all try to hold a pose, smile, look in the same direction, and of the 20-30+ pictures that we snapped, can you believe it, we got only a few that captured us looking at the camera at the same time, in the same direction, and for the most part smiling too. Everyone tried to look their best for this year's family pictures, but when you throw kids into the mix, well, sometimes the picture-taking gets hairy. Good thing we didn't try to add our puppy into the mix. Trying to get kids AND a puppy to look at the camera at the same time in the same direction, well, it would probably never happen....
