Don and Pat's family session - Nancy Riley Photography

Nothing says autumn like a good apple, right?

Pat planned ahead and scheduled her family session in late September, but we got rained out. Then the schedules didn’t align again until late October, and then we were faced with the same uncertainty about drizzly weather. This time, we decided to be bold and go for it.

Well, not so bold. We changed the venue to my yard so I could keep an eye on how muddy it was getting and so we would have an easy place to stay dry if it rained during the session. The rain started 15 minutes before the family arrived and didn’t clear up until an hour after the session was over.

While making our last minute adjustments for the weather, I prepared a basket so the baby wouldn’t have to sit on wet grass. But then I called Pat to see if by any chance she had an old apple bushel basket, because it just seemed she was the type of person who might have one. She was somewhat unsure when I called her, but she searched her house and came up with one in her garage, I think. She even brought apples!

We used a little hat I made for my son’s Halloween costume. They are about eight years apart, but the baby was extraordinarily understanding about having an oversized hat perched on her sweet little head. But she mostly regarded our efforts to amuse her with polite indifference. Which was much better than screaming her head off about the indignity about being put into a basket from Grandma’s garage.

The other grandkids were also really well-behaved, all things considered. It had already been a long day for them with multiple soccer tournaments. But they did everything they could to cooperate, even though I know they would have much preferred to be recuperating at home with warm apple cider than being corralled and photographed.

Can you tell I’m just a little in love with this sweet baby? She is at that perfect picture taking age when she can sit independently, but not crawl away. I longed for my babies to be at that stage, but the first born would instantly flop onto his back and wail helplessly until someone came to pick him up, even though he was fully capable of supporting himself. The second one was crawling within a week of learning to sit up. So I have many years of pent up baby photographing urges.

Then there was this little cutie.

This little boy was pretty much done for the day. Too many hours on the soccer field. The only thing that made him smile was a love for all things round–pumpkins, balloons, balls. And he thought it was kind of funny when he stepped on his big brother’s hand and made him howl in pain. Way to take one for the team, Big Brother.

One more shot of precious baby girl and her mom. I’ve seen pictures of the mom as a baby, and she was a remarkably pretty baby, too, with that red gold hair.