Family Pictures

My first "real" attempt at using my camera: family pictures. I had a bit of time to get used to how things worked, so I decided to give it a shot. No pun intended. I think they are okay, but not great. They need a lot of work.

Things I like about this picture:
I think for we're in good positions, we look natural and it doesn't look forced or too posed.
I like how the tree is on the side, giving it a bit of personality and not taking attention away.
This has nothing to do with the actual taking of pictures, but I like our outfits, they seem to blend in well enough and yet have a bit of the pop that they need. I hate family pictures of everyone wearing white shirts and jeans. Ugh! Although, I have to give these people the benefit of the doubt - do YOU know how hard it is to coordinate several people, but not be too matchy-matchy, and not make anyone upset with what they have to wear so they're pouting in all the pictures? I know how hard it is, and sometimes white and jeans is what works. And that's cool. 
Things I would change:
I don't like the background. I think it either needs to be a bit more blurred out, or completely different. At least take away the houses and the light pole. Those throw it off.
The lighting is a bit...wrong. I think it might be been a bit too harsh, because the sun started to just barely come out when we took our pictures. I might need to look into getting a reflector, or perhaps experiment more with angles. Using the flash may have also helped.
Overall, it simply does not look professional.

I love this picture. I think the pose is great, the expression is cute, and the lighting looks really good to me. The only problem was Daddy making a funny face in the background!

This one, again, is the background. I mean, behind us, of course. ;) The house there is so in the way.

So I've concluded that the main thing that bugs me in these pictures is the setting. I don't know this area well yet. It's hard to find somewhere online, because there are so many. So we settled on a park close to our house and I think we could have done a lot better. There are a lot of things to think about when taking pictures, and when you have a squirmy child and it's cold outside, you've just got to get it done. Hopefully soon I'll get to know this area a lot better and know of some better places to go.