Say cheese! Time for that candid camera to make its dreaded appearance. When was the last time you put in a roll of film or fired up the digital camera and snapped everyone in sight? Silly faces, funny poses, bunny ears behind heads? Anything goes.

If you need some help with the basics, visit www.kodak.com for tips on taking great pictures. Here’s one guarantee: Place your kids front and center in the photo, squat to shoot at eye level, and you’re on the way to great portraits.

To avoid an overdose of perfect plastic smiles or prevent squinting, poking, pinching, or crying, forget about formal poses. Photograph life as it happens and enjoy the results, whatever they may be. If you relax, so will they.

Large family events provide an opportunity to create an archive of friends and families for your kids. Enlist them to help make grown-ups smile and coax grumps into grins. They’ll love being shoulder to shoulder with the photographer for a change. Assign one person to make sure the new pictures are complete by adding names and dates to the backs. That little exercise will save lots of guessing later.

The truth is, we wake up with bed head and morning breath. Sometimes we push our kids and ourselves to keep up with all the other seemingly flawless families. We’re just wasting our time. After all, our kids see us without masks.

So help them stop worrying about exceeding the ideal by being the cutest, sweetest, best-dressed kids that ever graced a frame. God accepts us flaws and all. So does a loving family. You don’t have to be perfect to bask in God’s love and neither do your children.