Our Family Portrait....what was I thinking!?

Ok so the plan was to have a beautiful family portrait on our new property with our dogs and horses and of course the kids. Well we quickly realized that we had to make a choice between the dogs and horses (since the dogs think they can take the horses and spend the entire time barking their annoyance at the giant beasties). Since we have done holiday pictures with the dogs, we picked the horses. I did the shopping, dark brown shirt, dark denim (which only 2 of us ended up having, more Photoshop work), brown shoes. Found matching shirts, bought each of us one a week ago. Tried mine on yesterday....hated it...back to the store and bought Cassidy and I a different style (so the girls match), but nice dark brown shirts. Looks good as long as I hold my breath during the portrait and stand as tall as possible with maybe the horse in front of me...yep liking that idea. Ok, we wake up this morning to heavily overcast skies so I thought we'll wait for afternoon sun, its beautiful here in the late afternoon, the sunlight streams thru the trees it will be lovely. Glitch...Dan has to work this afternoon so its morning or nothing. Ok do we ditch the oldest child in lieu of beautiful light....thats a hard one for me, I could drop him in digitally later but wheres the fun in that and besides the light wouldn't match and that would make me CRAZY. SO we decide to shoot in the morning....I am apparently the only one who moves faster than a turtle and by the time we are all dressed, bring the horses up, get to the front of the house....the sun is starting to break thru the overcast skies (which was NOT supposed to happen today and how can it be sunny and even MORE cold?!)....well you would think more sun is good...no, not when it blows out the trees in the background which are already pretty bad looking from the winter and puts blotchy spots all over. I, of course, did not prepare for this type of lighting and left reflectors and a good flash at the studio 30 miles away...not going to go get it. SO we set up, I get everyone in place, in cluding the horses, set the camera up and ready for my mom (Cory) to push the button, I take my place and immediately Cookie (our new 18 mo old filly) decides she is bored, we walk in circles bring her back get in place, take 2 shots....bad lighting, re position the camera.....take 2 shots....Cookie bored....walk in circle....boys cracking jokes and of all things MOVING out of their spot....get everyone set back up...re adjust the camera....take 2 shots...Cookie Bored....walk in circle....yell at kids to quit messing around and stand and smile.....Cookie still bore...more cirlces....back in place.....light changes...readjust camera...back in place, Cookie bored.....shove her back to her spot, threaten to never give her another carrot if she moves again....yell at kids to quit moving...back in place...2 shots....don't care what I have...we're done. I'll let ya know what we came out with :) and you thought YOUR family portrait was tough!