A photographer's family picture fail

So this year's family photos were an epic fail. Mistakes I made:

1. Not hiring someone or trading with someone. I was too lazy to hire someone because I prefer to trade and I couldn't find anyone to trade with that I felt comfortable trading with.

2. My camera was not charged. 15 minutes before our designated "start" time i realized this, frantically tried to charge it, borrowed a friend's camera that is a few versions lower than mine. This compounded the stress and then my camera died half way through anyways and I had to use the other camera which again, was not as good which led to blurrier photos

3. I had plans to use a tripod and remote  but was too flustered to set it up and hoped that the person taking the pics would do good enough. They did great (thanks mom!) but just not exactly the way I would have, which I knew which is why I wanted to use the tripod and remote and that would solve problems, BLAHHHHH

4. I had plans to have our friend, Katie, and my mom there. One to take the pictures and one to entertain the kids to get them to look and smile and laugh at/near the camera. Well I forgot to tell Katie we were doing pictures that night until RIGHT before we left her house and then she heard the wrong cross roads of where to meet on the phone and wasn't able to make it

5. Most families I photograph have maybe 1 uncooperative child. We had 3. End of story

Parent's looking, pretending to smile, too much open space between mom and dad, Max not looking and refusing to smile in all photos, babies not looking or if they do look then a very unpleasant face.

 Parents waiting/hoping/coaxing Max to come back once he got bored after 4 photos.

 Space fixed, but again, children. There's literally not possibly a way for me to photoshop faces into one picture to make it work. The kids were all that terrible. And cropping and boring lighting.

 Even when it was me behind the camera and Casey next to me entertaining them, children still were uncooperative. Max too physical, Bryson unhappy being hugged, and Quinn there fighting for his life.

Maybe we'll try again next week...or next year