Consistently Thwarted

I don't think I'm alone in having certain frustrating experiences in trying to document our lives through the medium of photographs. (At least I hope not!) I know that I have shared some of those frustrations here - even accusing Audrey that avoiding the camera is one of her favorite pastimes.

But lately, Luke has been a culprit as well. You know what they say about older siblings sometimes teaching the younger ones bad habits!

A few days ago, I wanted to get a few pictures of my two kiddos together. Obviously, they had decided before my little photo shoot to be in cahoots and not cooperate with their Mama.

After a few failed attempts, I even resorted to bribery - in the form of Smarties.

That only complicated things.

Apparently.

Between Luke being totally distracted by the candy and forgetting altogether about what the goal was... although maybe he thought I wanted to take a picture of the candy as well? Audrey was hardly better... she ate hers quickly, then was on the move to get some more.

So, I did what any other mother at her wit's end would do -

enlist the help of her husband!

I do have to admit, it is a great picture of Adam, but not exactly the portrait I had in mind - with Audrey displaying that she did indeed get more candy, and Luke eying her enviously.




The next one was a bit of an improvement. It's a great picture of Daddy and Daughter. But Luke was too overcome with excitement at having received more candy, that he just couldn't be bothered to turn his attention to his frantically pleading, funny noise-making Mama behind the camera.

Then things quickly degenerated...

Adam was really trying to coerce some cooperation out of these two - holding them still, telling them to look at the camera, even tickling to get some smiles out of them.

It became clear all of our tactics were not up to the challenge of breaking their alliance.

And I gave up on taking the kinds of pictures that I had hoped to take... and simply took some pictures.

It is interesting to note that those last two "failed" attempts, the more candid ones of my three cuties, turned out to be my favorites. You can feel the love and fun that they have together. And that is a blessing to have captured.