cousin photo shoot

My mom is very into capturing the moments that we spend together as a family. (I wonder where I got it from?) Since we are all pretty spread out.....meaning that I live in North Carolina and everyone else in my family lives in California we don't get many moments where all of us are together. I think the last time was Christmas when I was pregnant with Charlotte and even then my sister in law was missing from the festivities. Over Charlotte's birthday weekend we were far from having the whole fam here, but we did have all of my parent's grand kids.....until December anyway! :) So we decided to make the most of it and try and get some cousin shots. I have to say that it wasn't an easy task. I have a hard enough time with just my 2 girls and generally nothing good comes from trying to get them in a shot together both looking pretty and smiling, not nose picking or whining, so imagine 4 of them!! I think that what we got is pretty good. I dont think I had one single shot where everyone looks perfect, but overall they turned out beautifully and I think they will be great memories. I didn't actually shoot for very long, the whole thing probably took about 30 minutes, but it was pretty early, some of the kiddos hadn't eaten breakfast yet and the weather had changed overnight and it was far too chilly for sundresses. But the girls were real troopers and we got them back inside as quickly as possible. It is quite comical to watch the deterioration from the beginning of a shoot to the end and how quickly kids become done. Thats why I have always preferred candids.....follow a kid around, play with them and grab magical shots while we never stop moving. Artistic shots are always my favorite and they are the easiest on everyone to capture. Maybe next time we'll take the cousins out to a flower field or to the woods and let them run around with fairy wings on and I'll shoot them on the move. Anyway.....here are some of the shots I got. I am not 100% sure of my editing, but they were a little underexposed so they all needed tweaking. I may still play a little more with them.

Let me know what you think?