So this might sound pretty silly, but I am extremely self conscious in front of the camera. Not always, of course, but if I'm the only subject, then yeah absolutely. Being a photographer, I need professional images of myself, so for years, I've just made do with what I can get myself. I have had professional "head shots" done before, and while the photographer was crazy good and talented, I didn't like one of them (in my defense, she really didn't pose well to flatter a curvy woman).

Over the past few years though, Alyx and Kate have taken an interest to the camera I always have in their faces :). I've been teaching Alyx slowly but surely how to get a good shot. The technical side of things will come later if he's still interested. But learning to have a good eye is what is important to me, so that's where we've began. So on this particularly rainy afternoon, I took the kids out to one of our favorite local parks to play around a little.

After we took some photos, I let them play together, no mind the rain. Patty cake was apparently on their list after jumping from log to log. I've tricked my kids and all my nieces that at the end of patty cake, we get really excited and give hugs! This started about 13 years ago with my first niece when she was being stingy about hugging me, it's worked like magic ever since :). I love that photo of them above!

As we were leaving, the rain kept pouring down. We aren't afraid of rain, so a leisure walk back to the car wasn't a problem. When I turned around though, I saw Alyx had put the blanket over Kate's head to cover her, then around her as they followed me to the car laughing. I'm so glad I turned around to see them, sometimes I am blown away at what a sweet, loving brother my boy is. I hope and pray it lasts for all of time.