The Incredible Misadventures Of Mother Cardinal: The Misadventures of a Photo Shoot

*Disclaimer* I will be mentioning others in this blog. To protect their identity I will refer to my niece and nephew as Red and Bubba and the photographers son as Mini Muffin. Her fiance I will simply call her Handsome Assistant.

On this installment of my misadventures, Little Miss and Mr. Man A.K.A. the wonder kids, get their photo taken. I should first inform you all that from time to time, my misadventures will include a shameless plug. Hey if a service or in this case a photographer is that damn good, I'm gonna open my loud mouth and tell the world about it!

For years my best friend, and Godmother to my daughter, Lou and I have been talking about getting our kids photos done together. My kids call her auntie and her kids call me auntie and they call cowboy uncle. So getting a photo of all of the "cousins" is something we have always wanted to do. Life however, as it always seems to do(damn that no good thing called life!) often pops up when you don't want it too and either she or I were not in a financial situation to afford photos or we just couldn't find the time to schedule a session. This is where my new personal photographer comes in. I shouldn't really call her my personal photographer since anyone can hire her services once she gets everything in order and officially goes into business in June. However if I didn't have to share her services and could keep her talent all to myself I surly would and I'm not just saying that because I happen to have known her since Kindergarten with our first meeting in life involving her informing me that a bee stung her on the butt. She truly is that talented and took the time to nurture her talent and perfecting it before sharing it.

Her business name and slogan reads "LIFEography by Brandie, capturing the magic of life's everyday moments" and boy does she ever! I already knew I had some good looking children but those photos she took of them make the wonder kids look nothing less than beautiful. I imagine the only other time I will see my kids look as handsome and beautiful is on each of their wedding days, though I am sure having her take their picture every year they will always look spectacular! When she says the best and favorite photos she likes to take are the unposed ones, she means it and she captures those unposed opportunities perfectly! You know a photographer is good when the sneak preview she posts on Facebook drums up a new client. When I met with her this past weekend to view the photo, we discussed her doing a photo shoot of Cowboy and I seeing as we only have one photo of us as a couple. She may not have noticed it but their was a look of ease on his face when she described how the session would simply involve her with her camera observing us in a location of our choosing(she gave the scenario of Cowboy and I sitting on a park bench talking)and capturing us just being us. Those of you reading this that know me have seen the one couple photo of us and know that Cowboy does not do well in posed photo's.

The location for the shoot was perfect. A place called The Dutch Oven, where Lou and I used to hang out in high school, had recently been rebuilt and we thought what better way to bring life full circle than to have the kids photo's done there. In true preteen manor, Little Miss and my niece Red acted as if having their photo taken would plummet their popularity stock, while Mr. Man and Bubba kept wanting to pose wielding sticks in samurai sword style. My photographers Handsome assistant was kept on his toes by their son Mini Muffin who kept trying to run towards the woods. There was lots of chaos and our photographer had to do plenty of coaxing to get some sibling photos but all in all it went great. Knowing us for so long meant she wouldn't run screaming from the location after being frightened by our wild bunch. I could go type forever about this misadventure but instead I would rather show you just how much fun we had!