This color-coded family portrait is just genius

When you’re one of six kids, once you and your siblings begin having children of your own, the cousin count is going to rack up quickly. And that’s precisely what happened for Chrissy Roussel and her family.

With a combined total of 17 children among the six siblings, you can imagine that “family portrait day” might get a little hectic. But this genius hack solved all of that.

The siblings each had their families dressed in matching, colored t-shirts, and then all the kids lined up in their birth order.

That way, it would be easy to spot each of the 17 children and immediately recognize which family they belonged to. Pretty smart, huh?

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For instance, Roussel, who had her family dress in hot pink, is responsible for six of the 17 children. Given their brightly colored shirts, it’s easy to spot all six of them.

As for birth order among the 17 cousins, Roussel’s children are numbers five, six, nine and 13 to 15 because yes — there’s a set of triplets in there!

Here’s a recent picture of Roussel and her own brood from their adorable Facebook page, Roussel Six Pack:

The color-coded photo of the cousins was posted to Roussel’s personal account, but it gained popularity online when it was also shared on the Love What Matters Facebook page as a touching tribute to Roussel’s father, who passed away a few years ago.

“When I look at this picture of my parents’ 17 grandkids, I notice in particular those five rainbow babies who brought so much joy in the months and years after my Dad passed away,” the photo is captioned.

Roussel goes on:

“I also reflect on how those 17 kind, thoughtful, funny kids are my Dad’s greatest legacy. A beautiful legacy of love, indeed. We miss him so much, but we feel his presence every day through the love and joy of all these kids.”

Roussel definitely can’t take all of the credit for the photo, though. This was definitely a group effort.

“The photo was my sister’s idea,” she told PopSugar. “Having a big family means lots of noise, laughter, and, most importantly, love. Between the 17 cousins, there’s always someone to play with and have fun with. They have a ball together. I loved having a big family growing up, and I’m so happy that my kids have the same experience.”

Roussel shared another photo of the cousins in their color-coded shirts, this one showing grandma with all of her grandchildren. Roussel posted this photo to wish her mother a happy birthday.

“She is my guiding light, my North Star, and I look to her for advice about everything,” she captioned the photo.” And I do mean everything: how to handle hard parenting things, what to do about my career, whether I’ve used a word correctly, whether a dress fits right, or how to get the lasagna to cook more evenly.”

Roussel continued:

“To know her is to love her, because she approaches everything (and everyone) with an extraordinary calmness and gentleness.

The older I get, the more I appreciate her and all the things she’s taught me. In particular, I appreciate her ability to see the joy and beauty in every day life with my kids.”

There sure is a lot of love in this large family!

With big families come big family portraits, but this “color-coding” was a pretty genius way of displaying everyone in a very organized way, and we’ve got to say — we’re impressed!

Are you making a mental note of this for your next extended family photo? Good idea!

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