I was hoping for just one!

A few Saturday’s ago, we went to downtown Naperville for a Fall family photo shoot. We were supposed to get them done the weekend prior, but we got rained out. Luckily, the day of our pictures was sunny and the weather was decent (not too cold, just warm enough). We met our photographer at the River Walk around 1:00 pm.  I was hoping for an afternoon of cooperation (by my daughter) and ultimately end up with a few good family shots. Unfortunately, we didn’t accomplish either. Leah was looking everywhere but the camera, sticking her fingers in her mouth and wanting to run around. She was squirmy and easily distracted when we attempted family poses. We were lucky to get a smile out of her every now and then. Getting our pictures done was more stressful than I imagined!

We walked around the River Walk for about an hour, getting pictures at various scenic areas (on the bridge, sitting on benches, by the water, etc). There was a big open grassy area and we thought it would be fun to let Leah loose and capture her running around. She had a blast, but I didn’t realize that the further out she ran, the muddier the grass became. A moment later, I see her tumbling down face forward, hands first in the mud. This girl hates to be dirty and immediately let out a scream. Her hands were covered in mud, along with her knees and boots. I ran to go pick her up and as I did, she accidentally kicked me with her foot smearing mud all across my shirt. Oh man - I knew our photo shoot was coming to an end. Luckily, there was a bathroom right there that I was able to wash her hands and clean her up. I had a cardigan style top on and was able to cover up the mud. We were able to do a few more pictures before we called it a day. I was not feeling very confident that the pictures would come back how I initially envisioned they would. All I wanted was one great picture we could use for our Christmas card. 

Yesterday, the CD arrived in the mail with all of the images from our photo shoot. I was SO excited to pop it into my computer and see how they turned out. I am not sure if I am just over-critical or too hard on myself, but I felt let down when I started going through all of the pictures. The CD had over 150 photos on it. There wasn’t one that jumped out at me where I thought “Wow – that is a great picture.” There are some okay ones where Leah looks cute and Rob looks good, but there wasn’t that one perfect family picture I had hoped for. I hate looking at pictures of myself because all I tend to focus on are my flaws. My hair looks bad in this one, my stomach looks huge in that one, wow, double chin city, etc. Ugh – I guess there is always next time in hopes of the perfect picture. For those not on Facebook, here are some of the better pictures from the shoot (remember – there were over 150!)