Photo shoot

Thursday evening, I hit a new parenting low. I bribed the kids to dress up and take pictures by offering extra time on video games. It's like I offered to remove a chunk of their brain cells just so I could show off to the world how adorable my kids are. And I'm shameless about it.

I would like to say that I will never do it again. But I can't make promises like that when the scheme worked so well! I told William and Micah about the idea and before I knew it, William was directing traffic, Sam was dressed, Micah was buttoning up his dress shirt, and Johanna was pulling on tights. I have rarely seen them obey with such alacrity nor help each other with so little fighting. This would be discouraging if I allowed myself to dwell on it. But I'm taking Scarlet's stance on this: I'll think about it tomorrow.

You can see that we came up with some successful shots and some not so successful. Just because I make it look easy, do not underestimate the difficulty of getting four kids to look in the same direction at the same time and to have smiles that are a comfortable compromise between goofy and downright creepy!

Occasionally, we deteriorated into giggles, but that's okay.
Giggles are cute. Tear-stained, blotchy crying faces are not cute.

We have many shots like this one where three of four kids is looking pretty good and the fourth is grimacing or making car noises or something.

Finally, though, Sam decided that enough was enough.

Sometimes it is best to let the three-year-old make that sort of decision. I'm okay with that. The trick is to make him think that Mommy made the decision and it just happened to coincide with his own desires. I'm okay with that kind of deception, too.

But please don't think less of me for it. I did it for the grandparents and great-grandparents out there who need, want, nay deserve, photos of the cutest children in the world. I did it...for love.