My Charmed Story: The Family

I made an insane decision the other day. I decided that I would take the family out to a forest preserve to capture pics of the kids. I was even going to do it by myself. Fortunately, my hubby decided to come along and try to preserve my sanity. I picked out outfit changes, hair pretties, and photo props. I even packed a lunch and brought the dog. I had so many beautiful visions in my cloudy brain! How hard could it be to capture pictures where a dog, an 11, 9, and 1 year old are all looking at the camera and the SAME TIME? Not too hard.....right?!

First up, Lily. I figured that I'd get her pics while she AND I were still in good moods. To be honest, we were already struggling before we even got out of the car! Ryan was not too happy to put our wooden bench in the back of the van. I assured him that it was a great prop and would look so pretty with the kids on it. He swore it was like 100 pounds! More like 25 pounds...it was put in the van!

So Lily took some great pics. The hard part was not working with Lily, it was having 2 kids and a husband trying to direct the photo shoot. Just as I had her looking where I wanted, someone would shout "Lily look at the camera." Not exactly what I was going for. I wanted natural pictures, after all we were in the middle of a forest preserve.

While I was taking Lily's pics, the other two monkeys were running around with the dog and hopefully not getting into poison ivy. The helpful assistant Hubby was chasing them and making quite a scene. I can't believe I got one good picture with the very distracted little Lily!

Andrew was next. Notice that his eyes are looking somewhere else! I swear every picture was like this. I really only got a few shots where my handsome son was actually looking at me. Ahhhhhh Next time, I will not bring the assistant. And I will probably go on three different shoots and forget about trying to capture a picture of all three of my kids! I was going insane and I still had one kid to do!.

My Chloe. That's all I have to say. She is beautiful and extremely stubborn! She felt the need to direct each picture and then space out as I was getting ready to take the picture. None the less, she took some beautiful pictures. Unfortunately, we got into some little tiffs about...I don't even remember what they were about! I think they had something to do with her keeping her hands out of her mouth!

After we ate out picnic lunch, we attempted to do a shot of all 3 of the kids and the dog. WOW! Talk about migraine time. I didn't think that the photographers at the stores had that hard of a job. Probably because they weren't taking pictures of their own kids.

Here's our bench from home. Doesn't it make a good prop?

All in all it was a pretty good day. I got to spend all day with my family which makes any day perfect. We were outside in nature without electronics....bonus! I captured memories and smiles that I will always enjoy looking at. And I finally have a picture of my three little ones, while they're still little!

Now for some out-take photos!