A few months ago, my roommate sent me pictures of his nephew taken at a place in the mall, criticizing each picture and what he didn’t like about the experience (I’ve taught him well, obviously). The pictures were standard mall pictures; I know since I have a boxful of them –one for each month of the first year of the Kidlet’s life, until I realized that I could do better and so that’s when I bought a big girl camera and learned. So, I offered to take some pictures of the two-year-old the next time I went to Northern California.

I was forewarned of his rambunctious energy well before the shoot. Being a mom, a portrait photographer for 4.5 years and a former classroom teacher that wrangled 34 kiddos, I am not afraid of a little energy. Plus, I know how to bribe kids with the best of them 🙂

The minute we pulled up to our desired shooting location, the skies opened up, as they had been threatening to do, and poured out buckets of rain. Undeterred, we turned around and warmed up at the public library for a bit until the rain slowed and off we went. Two year olds run pretty fast, but was no match against a determined uncle, photographer and a bag of Skittles.

A little wrangling from Uncle D. This is how you carry a kid covered in mud.