A photoshoot for my kids usually entails quite a bit of preparation. Showers and baths (because a certain second grader is afraid to take showers and don’t even get me started on how truly irritated this makes me but bathing in her own 7-year-old filth it is, I guess) and blow drys and carefully selected coordinating but not over-coordinating outfits and agreements that if the kids will pretend for 6 minutes that they actually like each other, I will promise to a) not yell and b) provide compensation in the form of Menchie’s.

Bribery is where it’s at. I am not above it.

We woke up early to get all of the prep work done and get outside and take advantage of the Atlanta winter weather—because if we had done this at home, there would be parkas and red noses and cold extremities and lots and lots of complaining involved. BUT IT WAS RAINING. I refused to capitulate or surrender or throw in the towel. We were making this happen. So, I took the kids down to the basement and led them out to the basement porch that was almost completely covered by the first-floor porch. I did some quick camera adjusting because the lighting under there was slightly more cave-like than I was expecting, and just shot as quickly as my trigger fingers would allow.

Poor Isabella got dripped out quite a bit, and you can actually see it in her hair.

But they were so, so good for exactly six minutes. They smiled, they hugged, the posed. I snapped away for six straight minutes.

Perhaps next time I’ll do a little rain dance before our shoot—when it rains it pours, I guess.