A little bribery never hurt anyone.

In our neighborhood there is a beautiful field with lovely trees and a pond and I've been meaning to get back there for a long time and take pictures. Tonight, I finally did. The kids and I talked about it a lot before we left and they agreed that they would cooperate and let me take as many pictures of them as I wanted. Uh, yeah right. That all changed once we got out there. As we were making our way through the field to find the perfect spot, a frog jumped in front of us and we all lost it a little. So then Caroline didn't really want to get out of the stroller and Jackson ran off trying to find the little frog. When I did finally get them on the blanket, Jackson was ready to cooperate - Caroline was not. She kept pushing Jackson down when he would sit up. That became a game. I think I ended up bribing them with gum and we did get a couple decent shots. (My favorite is now the blog header). Then some neighbors/friends met up with us and we went on a little hike. It wasn't really a hike, but pushing a double stroller through the grass and weeds felt like a hike. I'm sure I'll take them back out there again with camera in hand, and probably anyone else that wants a picture taken. It's really pretty out there!!

I actually really like this one. Catching genuine smiles on my precious kids - it doesn't get much better than that.