My Mother's Day Gift - Keeping it real!

Hello and welcome to the middle of May!  We are rapidly approaching the end of the school year, meaning a lot is going on!  Life is crazy as always with school, sports, family, and activities.  Can you relate?!  I'm sure most of you are in the same crazy boat.  We run this way and that non-stop these days. That is why, this Mother's Day, all I asked for were two things:

1 ~ I wanted my hubby to do my "Sunday chores" which included emptying the dishwasher and the laundry.  Easy peasy, right?  

2 ~ I wanted my kiddos to take some photos together (just the two of them) and with me. Not so easy peasy, let me tell you!

Mother's Day started off great.  My wonderful hubs woke me up with a steaming cup of coffee in my favorite cat mug.  The kids greeted me with sweet kisses and greetings of "HAPPY Mother's Day" and then disappeared to entertain themselves.  Hubby told me to stay in bed while he made breakfast (and watched soccer).  So I sat up, drank my coffee, and scrolled through Netflix and Amazon Prime Video.  Unsure of what would entertain me, I stumbled upon the movie "Mother's Day."  Well, I've never seen it and it has a great cast so I put that on.  It was really cute!  About 1/4 of the way through it I was called to breakfast.  I made it downstairs to find French toast, bacon, fresh fruit, and a mimosa laid out nicely for me.  All four of us ate together and my kiddos gave me great hand made cards.  According to my gift from my 8-year old, I weigh 131 lbs and am as tall as a door!  After breakfast I hung out with the hubs while he cleaned up.  Then I convinced him to climb back into bed with me and finish the movie.  We finally got up around 11:00.  I took a shower while he went for a run.  Then I told the kids...dun dun dun...I wanted them to take pictures for me as my Mother's Day gift!

Now, you have to understand, both of my kids suffer from what's known as "PKS" or "Photographer's Kids Syndrome."  They HATE having their pictures taken.  They are over it.  These days they whine, complain, sulk, grump, growl, and groan about photos.  It is awful.  People always ask me how I get my kids to cooperate, thinking they are always so good.  But the truth is, they are just like every other kid out there!  Most of the time I only share the good shots.  But today, I'm going to share some of my outtakes.  Then you will see what I really go through. 

Let me start off by saying, for these photos I picked out pretty basic stuff for them to wear.  My daughter was to wear jeans and a tank top.  I did not curl or straighten her hair.  I did not put blush or lip gloss on her.  She got to come as she was.  My son got to wear shorts and a t-shirt.  That's it.  I tried to make it pretty simple.  I did have the hairbrush on hand but that is all.  However, that did not stop the complaining.  The second we got started my daughter was "FREEZING!" and her  pants were"TOO TIGHT!" so she was "REALLY UNCOMFORTABLE!" while my son was "HUNGRY!" and "HUNGRY!" and oh, so "HUNGRY!"  Let's just say it wasn't going well.  They scowled at the camera.  They glared at me.  The did very little of what I asked them which was to sit next to each other and smile.  

So, I did what any mom does when she's done.  I threw a little tantrum of my own and reminded them of all of the wonderful things I do for them, such as washing their underwear, making them lunch day after day, you know, keeping them fed, clothed, and safe.  This made them feel pretty bad so after I fed them lunch (resolving the hunger issue) and let my daughter change out of her pants into shorts (resolving the discomfort issue) we tried again.  This time they were much more cooperative.  I had to remind myself that sometimes you just need to give a little to get a lot in return.  My hubby even hopped in for a few!  And I'd like you to notice below that even though they pushed back a LOT, I still managed to get some great shots of them.  This is something I remind my clients about all the time.  Trust me to get some good ones.  Even if you think it isn't going well, I can almost guarantee that I'll get some print worthy shots!

So I eventually got my gift and I love it!  Maybe some day they will look back and realize that it is pretty nice to have pictures of themselves with their mama.  I guess time will tell.

In case you are wondering, I had my camera set up on my tripod.  My camera has this great feature called an interval timer.  I can set the shutter to release every 5 seconds and let it go to work.  That is why you can see me moving in and out the frame. :)

Thanks for reading and I hope you have a lovely day!

~ Bonnie