Despite talking with the photographer ahead of time to give them a heads up about the boys' issues and the fact that it generally takes some extra time and patience to get some decent pictures of them, it didn't go so well.
She tried, but made it kind of a chore and the boys ended up having an "off" day and weren't being particularly cooperative.
I decided to try taking some myself instead. I have friends who do their own photo sessions with their kids around town and was inspired by their pictures. I knew we probably couldn't anything so elaborate as actually go somewhere to take pictures, but we have some pretty trees out behind our house so I figured that would work with minimal time and effort (not that I mind spending the time, but I'm trying to work with the boys' attention span which is especially short for stuff like pictures).
Cuddlebug and Bearhug really don't do well with "posing" for pictures, they are constantly in motion. I typically use the "continuous shooting" mode on my camera to take several shots in a row as they are doing their thing, and hope that one of them turns out with decent focus, nice expressions and looking in the general direction of the camera (you might be surprised how often they are looking at the sky or everywhere BUT the camera!).
Narrowed down from the MANY that I actually took, here are a few of my favorites :).
Bearhug
Cuddlebug
...and some of the sillier ones, lol :). I love the pure joy in their faces, and that they have so much fun together.
In exchange for their cooperation, I agreed to take a picture of Rex too :).
Bearhug and Cuddlebug weren't up for doing pictures together with Bitty, so I did his separately. He refused to wear his white shirt (I got them all matching shirts for pictures and thought the white looked good with the colorful trees in the background) so I let him wear what he had on rather than push my luck. It was at least a nice shirt that he'd worn to school, and not one of his Thomas shirts with the chewed up neckline...
He is a little more mellow (at least when he's by himself) so I didn't need to shoot rapid-fire to get these. I did try to say funny things to get a more natural smile (his "cheese" grin is cute but intense, lol).
I have a lot to learn about photography (both taking pictures and editing them), but these guys are my motivation to keep trying :). I really like the fall colors, but the evergreen trees nearby made a nice background too, I'm thinking I might try to get some pictures of all three of them by those trees to send out for Christmas :).
