School Daze

The first day of school was very underwhelming for me from a photography perspective. On Tuesday morning, I took a few quick pictures of Liam on the front porch, and on Wednesday I had my camera with me when I dropped Mallory off for the first time, but it really wasn't what I wanted it to be. This is a big year for us - Liam has gone full-time and is now in an official grade. And it's Mallory's first year, period. This deserved some documentation.

Plus, it's a good time for a photo shoot. Reason number one: it's been a number of months since Birthday Portrait Season. Reason number two: it's coming up on Halloween Costume Portrait Season and Christmas Card Portrait Season. No time like the present to keep the kids on their toes and get them all practiced up for the many fun photo ops in their futures.

So on Saturday night, I dressed the kids up in some school-appropriate outfits and we went over to the school yard. (This is when it comes in very handy to live right around the corner.) I brought gummy snacks for bribery purposes and I brought Chad for entertainment purposes.

Mallory was crying about having a sore toe before we began and I thought this photo shoot was destined for failure, but the allure of the gummy snacks won out, Chad made some stellar faces, and in less than ten minutes I had several portraits of my newest little kindergartener and big Grade 1 boy that I totally prize.

We are getting there, slowly but surely - to the point where we can have the official picture-taking be over and done with in a very short period of time, if everyone will just cooperate from the getgo. Then they get to move onto the fun stuff - in this case, making use of the playground equipment.

I still have a hard time believing we have a kindergartener and a Grade 1 student in the house. Time is flying.

As for me, I still haven't figured out this formatting thing. Why do they have to go and change a good thing??