A Field (. . . and a moody 18 month old and his patient big brother)

Illustrated Story Time:
Once Upon A Time,
There was a mom who wanted to do her own photo shoot for her baby's 18 month pictures. She had taken him to Portrait Innovations for his newborn, 3 mo, 6mo, 9mo, and 12mo pictures. "Maybe my camera can save me some money on professional pictures," she thought to herself. . .

[enough of that third person narration]
I geared up for a photo shoot, props and all. I didn't know of a location, but had an idea of a park that I had been to for Jonathan's Eagle project. On the way there, I was on the look out for something rustic with no buildings in the back. I found a grassy field that was in the shade at that evening hour and made a U-turn for it!

I opened up the suit case then unloaded the kids. They liked picking the weeds.
Then they found golf balls and weren't interested in sitting in the suit case. So I plopped them down ON it. (With their own prop, the golf ball.)
Dylan needed to hunt for another ball, so I was ready for Isaac's 18 month pictures. And I got one. That's right. ONE. I'm not sure what I think about it, but he's smiling.
Then he started with his attitude and dirty looks. Sometimes he is silly with his dirty looks and laughs afterwards, but not tonight. In fact, he hid his face all together! I couldn't peek-a-boo him out of there so crept up closer. Nothing would get him out of his shell.
He thought he would smile and laugh at his funny game. But only to himself, little stinker.
He did Jack-in-the-box up at me, only to recluse back to his stubborn hiding position.
I gave up for a while. So he went to go talk with his big brother. He shared some grapes, and some advice.
He told Dylan to hide his face from Mommy.
Dylan can't hold his laugh in for long though, lucky for me:)
He rode the suitcase like it was Prickly Pete!
Isaac agreed to sit up there since it looked fun. But still refused to give me a silly or happy face. He gave me some death glares as he stuffed his cheeks with grapes. Wardrobe Change!
Dylan was actually sad that I hadn't brought a change of clothes for him. I even have a coordinating shirt for Dylan that I tried with the lollipop flop. The thing is, I like these kinds of outfits when kids are running around or sitting in them. I didn't realize that they looked this silly until I saw these pictures of his standing so mischievously.

When I got the lighting a little better, his smile started to fade.
Time to pack up!And walk back to the car.
I really should have ended our night there, but I didn't think I got any keepers, and I wanted this to be as close to a professional photo shoot as possible. So I went to that park, re-changed clothes, and got out another prop. Isaac had had enough. He didn't just want to sit and pose on this trike. He wanted me to push it. (It's a little hard to push AND take pictures with a heavy camera. It's a pain to bend down and push it in the heat even without trying to get the world's best pictures.) So I took some pictures of how upset he was and of his tantrums. He was upset no matter what we did. I pushed him for a while but he kept being upset. Dylan tried to push him, but it was no use. So as I was opening the back door to put the bikes away, Isaac took off with the happiest face of the evening:
What a lot of work! I learned a lot. Mainly not to push it. Even though that was my only free evening before he turned 18 months old, it's not worth it. I know he's just a moody kid lately, so that's why I pushed it. He would have been upset no matter what I would have done. I had even let him take about an hour nap on my lap before we left so he would be rested. Sometimes he just does whatever he wants.
Here are some of his moody faces:


There you have it. I deleted so many pictures. I do like the ones I have. Now I need to learn how to make them POP with photo shop so we can live Happily Ever After!