Plaid Paradise: Fall Family Photos

It’s no secret that I’m a pictureholic. But that is on OVERDRIVE now that we have babe (I probs take at least 20 a day of E, just on like a random Tuesday). So many adorable “firsts” pictures to take and so very little time. Especially with the holidays among us. This poor child is going to be sick of me before he’s even six months old, lol.

Anyway, October is a time full of fall pictures & crafts! Family pumpkin patch outings, babes in pumpkins from said patch, footprint crafts, & of course, Halloween costumes!  I love fall. I can’t wait until next year when E’s more aware & will more thoroughly enjoy all of the fun fall activities that we will do! 

It’s currently really hard to have outings. E HATES his car seat. He will sleep well in it, but awake is a whole different story. So we have to try & time things precisely. Normally, that means during a nap time (he’ll stay asleep as long as the car is moving!) but since I wanted him awake for pictures at the pumpkin patch this meant right after he woke up from a nap and had nursed.  It started off pretty good, he was smiling & cooing, but then he got excited & wanted to raise his arms. When that was met with resistance from car seat straps out came the pouty face!  So I popped in the paci, but then it was a fight to keep him awake. ?  Of course there was a detour due to the flooding & it was unseasonably warm so I was getting worried that we may not even make it. BUT we did!

E still doesn’t do well in the sunlight so we had to be strategic with where we took the pictures & I was concerned about lighting but it worked out better than expected. As soon as we got there I grabbed some pumpkins & a gourd and started shooting E (thankfully he was happy to be out of car seat & Mike makes an excellent assistant)!

You have to be efficient when shooting a baby. Lots of clicking & lots of noises trying to make babe smile. It was just us there but I’m sure people would have had a field day watching us had they been there. You probably end up with a 5% success rate, so make sure your SD card is empty and you just keep shooting!

Next, we moved on to Mike & E. This is tough because you want to try & get one of both of them looking at the camera. But when one subject is getting overstimulated & the other is trying to reign that it in it can be interesting (see Mike’s noise making face trying to get a smile ?) so sometimes you just settle with both of them with their eyes open. 

The logical next step would have been Mike shooting E & I but for whatever reason I decided to jump to the family next. Doesn’t seem like a huge deal, but when Mike struggles with turning the self timer off after we’ve been shooting 15 min it can cause inconvenient delays lol. Our tripod is seriously my best friend. We wouldn’t have half of the family picture we do if it wasn’t for that investment. Unless you are living my dream & have a prof photog following you around, get one!! You’ll end up with so many memorable moments captured as a family! (P.S. like how I made us all wear plaid? Mike is such a trooper!)

Thankfully, Mike was able to get some good ones of E & I once he figured out how to turn the the timer off but not before some Mr. Fuss action. But I suppose it is only right to capture E’s alter ego!

Phew! We made it through. But you know I like to push my luck.. there was the cutest little pile of corn & I mean, how adorable would  a plaid wearing baby in a bunch of corn be?!  E said NOPE, he clearly had other plans, poor kid.

At this point, we still hadn’t even picked a pumpkin HAHAHA so Mike consoled babe while I found a pumpkin that would be big enough for him to fit in! Then we were out of there as quickly as possible as E was tired & fussy. He was out 2 minutes into the trip home, he needed some rest after that exhaustion!

Stay tuned for the basic baby in a pumpkin picture! ?