Summer break is here.

We have no big plans. A lot of nothing everyday. Just the way I like it.

Lots of hanging out at the kitchen table.

Lots of pretend picnics in the playhouse.

Lots of water fights and sneaking sips of my sweet tea.

Lots of sneaking sips from the hose when I won’t share my sweet tea.

And lots of little plans and schedules. I’ve learned the hard way that our unstructured summers need some structure for us to really enjoy them. Too much of nothing easily leads to quarrels and complaining around here. With summer upon us, I need a game plan. We’ll do a Meg inspired Summer Fun list. But I need little things planned out too…normal things like lunch and dinner.

So, I began this week with a plan. Every lunch and dinner menu is written out and shopped for ahead of time (no last minute trips to the store with four kids). I’ve also planned some kind of small craft or activity for each day. Summer Camp Campbell style. I pulled out several old magazines to get ideas. I’m all for pinterest, but sitting at the picnic table with an electronic device just is not as relaxing as flipping through magazines for me. (I’m only planning one week ahead…not the whole summer at once)

The kids jumped in and pointed out what they’d like to do too.

We have four crafts planned this week. I’m talking simple crafts…everything already on hand. They’ll probably only take 15 minutes each, but it will help have some structure to our days. And…it will help me be more intentional with all this free time.

So, the session began with this shot. Can’t you tell how incredibly thrilled he is about it all?

I asked, begged him just to look at me and smile. And got this.

The more I asked for cooperation, the more I got this.

Now, here is my trick – I just keep snapping. Eventually in the midst of the grumpy & goofy faces he is bound to let a smile out simply because he is actually having a little fun being a squirt about not smiling for me. So I just kept snapping…never getting upset with him, being calm about it, not making his mood worse, just waiting. And in that waiting, for one split second an adorable grin is released. Because I was still snapping and being calm about the whole process, I was ready and able to capture that very short smile.

And a nano second later, this face returned.

I changed angles a bit and told him how much I love seeing his smile – he gave me a little one on his 0wn.

Then the smile disappeared. I let him jump off the chair. Trick #2 – let little boys (and girls) jump off things. Brightens their mood instantly. But, once the jump was over…the not so happy face returned.

I asked him to stand still….he responded by moving around. Watching me try to capture him in movement made him laugh. And, I captured that smile. I could have got upset with him for moving around, and then we would have just both been grumpy. I let him play his game, it allowed him to smile and I got 2 cute natural grins.

Then we moved to location number two. He was thrilled to have more pictures taken…

“Please just a couple more with a happy face.”…and I got these:

I told him that some people believe if you make a silly face long enough, your face will freeze that way. He thought that was funny and laughed. I was ready for the laugh and caught the big smile.

He realized I caught the smile and his face quickly changed.

No problem…I got what I wanted and our very short session was over. That made his smile return.

Update: The settings for all of these photos were the same! ISO 100, 1/500, f2.8 The sky was overcast so I could just leave it all the same. If you notice the background..the closer I am to the him, the blurrier the subject. The farther I moved away from him the less blurry the things closest to him.

The boys don’t appear on my blog as much as FireCracker. They don’t beg me to take their picture like she does! I can’t imagine life without boys. Though I will soon have two daughters, I think I’ll always consider myself a ‘boy mom’.  Goodness do I love these little guys….but don’t tell them I called them “little”!

My boys…8, 6, 4.

8 is a hard age to photograph, at least with this guy. I often resort to letting him jump off things.

The majority of the shots were awkward forced smiles or his random faces.

He thought out this series. Totally Cool Dude.

Then there is my 4 year old. Still too young for the awkward self aware phase, but old enough to choose to be goofy or serious.

He brought a caterpillar to his session. I convinced him to let the little guy go.

Totally him.

He is learning the odd faces from his big brother.

And like his big brother, he dictated to me what he wanted too.

Then there is my 6 year old charmer. Crazy photogenic….but was very much not in the mood for pictures. I’ll share about that tomorrow.

All of these photos were shot with my Canon 85mm f/1.8 lens.

And totally unrelated: I am WAY behind in emails. If you have wrote in May, I am working through those.