Stickies and Tire Stains

As you will soon come to know, we absolutely LOVE taking pictures of kids! Especially just kids being kids. The other weekend, we had the privilege of doing a special shoot for Mothers Day of 20 kids and their mothers! Twenty? Yes-twenty! Now you may be wondering-how do you get twenty children to sit still for pictures? The answer of course is incredibly simple-you don't. :) That brings us to one of the theories that we have been hypothesizing and will be proposing to you here today. Hopefully it is correct- you'll have to stay tuned to future posts to see! This involves a bit of a game also, of "I-Spy".

The "Snap Pea Observing Kids in Action Theorem" (or "SPOKAT") is that whenever you're snapping pictures of a big group of children, you will end up with one kid in each of the following categories:

1. The "Houdini". (Or the escape artist, often seen wriggling out of an armlock.)

2. The "Hungry Hippo". This tike always seems to have something in their mouth-whether edible or not.

3. The "Etiquette School Drop-out". This often causes the most embarassment and head-shaking for parents, but as we are hypothesizing, it will almost always occur once in a group. For example- the skirt dance, finger up the nose, hair pulling, poking another kid in the face or eye, hand down the pants, etc.

4. The "Waldo". As in, where ARE they? Their face always seems to be hidden.

5. The "Broken compass". The kid who is always facing the wrong direction. 

6. The "Tear-er". The kid who ends up crying or moping 

7. The "Mother Hen". The older child who feels she needs to comfort and console the younger ones...or tell them what they are doing wrong

Note: with smaller groups, you will be able to get at least one of the categories, and if its a really good day, you'll be able to get one of each! :)

Now let's put the theory to the test, shall we? Join us in a game of "I Spy":

 

I think we did it! These rules actually also apply to other settings, such as kids concerts, standing in front of church, etc. Can anyone else relate? 

Check out some of the results! What a cute little bunch!! 

We split up and took a few of the various groups of kiddos. These kids were so energetic and fun (and shall we add GOOD LOOKING!) Between avoiding the stickies that were EVERYWHERE and doing our very best to keep the white skirts white....we had a blast using the old tires we brought in as props. It was fun for the kids too!

And then we let the kids run around so we could snap some of their beautiful mommas!

These women are beautiful inside and out! It was fun to snap some pictures of them and get to know their personalities a bit more as well! Shall we just say that we could also play I SPY with these group of ladies as well if we posted all the numerous pictures of Mel making funny faces throughout the shoot..but we'll save those for another day!