Fall Leaf Pictures 2010

WARNING: Unless you are a grandparent and love seeing TONS of pictures of my (albeit adorable) children. Please disregard this post.

This is our annual fall leaves photo shoot. We went to Woodward Park and the leaves and light were PERFECT. Golden light, not too harsh at this time of day, and the leaves were all turning.

I brought a couple chairs with me and went for it to see what I would get.

Ainsley got pictures taken first. Simply because she's the most squirrelly and I knew she wasn't going to last long or focus worth a darn. She was the most miserable to get pictures of.

So in no particular order....the shoot.

Still I got a few cute ones like this.

Next up: Hunter.

For some lame reason, I cut off the edge of his boot. Granted I was yelling at Ainsley to stay out of my shot. That may have had something to do with it...I dunno.

He is so easy to get to smile and laugh and he is so compliant now with the whole photo thing. Phew. That's at least one out of three.

Oh and the boot thing...my kids wouldn't be my kids if they weren't wearing something somewhat quirky in photos.

They dress themselves. You should see what they pick out to wear on a normal day.

You don't even want to know what kind of aweful noises I was doing that were supposed to be "silly" to coax smiles out of them. It may or may not have sounded like bodily functions.

Don't judge.

It's working....Well,

It's apparently only working on two out of three.

One looks a bit like a thug.

As you can see, Tess is so thrilled with the whole experience of getting her picture taken. It might have something to do with the fact that she's propped in this chair so she won't fall over...

I think she's entirely bored and disgusted by the whole process.

That's supposed to be a three month DRESS that she's wearing. We like it as a shirt. Those are 12 month leggings we have those thighs shoved into.

She's only 5 months.

We adore her "squishies".

Tessa.

So chill. I can hear her thinking,

"Hey. Waz up? Wanna hook a girl up with some food or somethin'?"

Tess is totally thrilled with the whole experience can't you tell? However, I think this will be our Cristmas card photo. On the other hand, at Thanksgiving we always try to get a family photo with Tone' and I, so if that one turns out, this one may get vetoed.

Hunter decided he wanted a turn with the camera and chose this spot. It's not a great spot because of the dappled light, but he was having a great time being behind the lense and was adamant that this was the place for me. So I just set the camera and let him go. It made his day.

Now the kid is happy and choosing his own spot for me take a picture of him. I actually liked it.

Ainsley was fascinated by these reeds. She was done posing for me, so I was just letting her be her own thing at this point.

While this was a pretty spot for pictures, Tessa and Ainsley were SO not cooperating. Tessa wanted to throw herself backwards, eat the reeds, fuss, etc., and Ainsley also wanted to play with the reeds. This was the best I got of the three of them here. Fail. So we moved on to play and I no longer posed them. They had had enough.

I just can't get enough of those light light blue eyes with his blond hair and really dark tan skin (though you can't tell how super dark he actually is in this photo). It's striking. Where did that come from?

We found this bridge where the light was fantastic - filtered and golden and the kids wanted to play on it. I snapped TONS of pictures that were so great here, but I'll spare you and give you only a couple.Of course right after this picture was taken, he fell in almost up to his knees. I kind of expected it. Afterall, it's MY child we are talking about here.

Cindy Lou Who from Dr. Seuss showed up apparently.

Ainsley being super safe on the bridge.

We decided to walk over and watch the ducks. Hunter just happened to look back over at me and this pose was perfect.

I promise you that I didn't style her hair this crazy on purpose. I had those pigtails slicked flat when we left the house. It's just the nature of them and it quite fits her personality. Silly girl.

Anyhow, over the course of 2 hours, I snapped 330 photos. I was able to edit and keep about 62 that I thought were good enough. That's a ton of work, but worth it I suppose. Or I could just be an idiot for even attempting such a project with three young children.

Your call.