The Wells Family '09, take one....

Do you ever have one of those experiences where you really had the best intentions, but EVERYTHING just went wrong?? That pretty much describes our attempt at doing a family photo shoot of my sister and her family. Here's where we went wrong...

1) We tried to do it on Thanksgiving day. Basically this meant that we all got caught up at the Thanksgiving celebrations and before we knew it the sun was going down so we had to rush... rushing is rarely beneficial in a photo shoot, I've learned.

2) We aimed for 4:30, which in the Sims family, means 5 or 5:15, at least. We are all chronically late people. Add a 9 month old and a 2 year old whom you have to dress, it gets worse. Not to mention the bellies full of tryptophan turkey and delicious carbs. I was pretty much moving in slow motion. By the time we got out there the sun was almost gone.

3) We picked the sticker capital OF THE WORLD. And by stickers, I mean the evil, painful plant spore-things that get stuck in your shoelaces and then in your fingers when you try and pull them off. See that nice pretty quilt they're all laying on? (For the single shot that we were actually able to pull off...) That quilt will never be the same after laying on that grass. It was as if the stickers themselves could jump. No joke, we laid the blanket down and somehow it was already COVERED in those ridiculous prickly spores. ON THE TOP. It took us several minutes to even clear a space large enough for them to lay on, and we could let Bekah move an inch. We all looked like one-legged hopping dorks for 5 minutes afterwards as we attempted to get them off our jean cuffs.

4) I am very much still learning all of this. We shot all four of them first so we could get the girls out of the stickers, and they all looked SO cute, but I was rushing and didn't check all my settings. There were some really great shots of all of them at the beginning, but I had to throw most of them out because I TOTALLY messed up the exposure. So sad! There will be quite a few in my Box of Shame.

And so, only a couple pictures of Jen and Justin survived this one. BUT I am so thankful it was with my wonderful, patient family; they understand I'm still learning and figuring this whole thing out. We are just going to have to try again! And hopefully next time all hell won't break loose :)

This is literally the best shot we got of all 4 of them, and the girls aren't even looking at the camera! I had to include it though, just because it cracked me up :) Ah well... you live, you learn...