If you’ve been following me for a while you might remember that October is my babies’ birthday month.  All three of them.  This year was a little intense for me because I realized that this is the last year they will all be home.  My oldest will (hopefully) be off to college next year and the shorties will both be going into kindergarten. Holy mama emotions, Batman! So like any normal person, I transferred that emotion into a creative photo shoot featuring my three babies and covered their faces with fox masks.  It’s what I do.

Yes, let’s take an already busy time of year and add to it the construction and painting of 3 fox heads, 3 furry fox tails (somehow turning brown fur reddish/orange because they are RED foxes, after all), prop scouting for a foxy outdoor living room, and wardrobe planning for 3 foxes. Then drive all over creation trying to find the perfect location for said foxy living room only to realize the best location is as close and easy as it could possibly be.  Then nervously watch the trees.  Are they bright enough yet?  Are they going to get brighter?  How long will they stay bright before the leaves fall?  Will the next storm sweep them all off the trees?  Then try to find an opening in the oldest fox’s schedule before the time change because once the time changes there will be NO TIME after school for pictures and oh he’s taking off for Chicago this weekend then leaving for a week in New York after that and his only days off from work before that are Monday and Wednesday and it’s supposed to rain both days.  OMG.

Finally the stars align and there is a day.  One. Day.  The oldest gets home from school and the clock starts.  We are racing the sun. Foxy living room is loaded into two cars. Foxy kiddos buckled up and away we go.  We arrive at the location and literally run back and forth unloading stuff.  Then the obvious happens.  You all saw it coming. The Murphy’s law of children and photo shoots.  One of them melts down. One of them (I won’t say which) refuses to wear the fox mask.

Now, I should make it clear that I’m not a Mommy Dearest. If they don’t wanna do pictures I don’t force it. I try to make pictures fun with role playing, games, fun props etc. Yes, sometimes there’s a little bribery involved, but it’s within reason – usually candy or a special treat afterwards.   I try really, really hard not to bark at my kids and threaten them. It’s just not fair to the kids and leaves them with negative memories of the shoot and if that happens, trust me, next time you ask them out for pictures you’ll get a flat out NO!

But I had much invested in this shoot and I really, really needed it to happen right then. LOL. I pulled out a big bribe. I offered a trip to Toys R Us for the coveted Stretch N Shout Leonardo Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. The fox mask went on (albeit very, very briefly) and I shot fast.

Was it all worth it?  For me – totally 🙂

Oh, and I want to say that these fox tails I made are honestly the cutest things ever!  You think your kid couldn’t get any cuter? Put a fox tail on him or her and BAM your mind is blown with cuteness overload. Seriously. Try it.