Favorite Things...

One of my FAVORITE THINGS is pictures! I'm sure you already know that. But I Love, Love, Love going to get professional pictures taken of my kiddos! Love it! It's that tine of year... time to get the perfect Holiday picture for your Christmas cards!

This is my Christmas picture from last year.... awww! So cute! They did such a great job!

This year I had a 50% off coupon for JCPenney's, so off we went! Christmas time at the photography studio is always CHAOTIC! It's crowded, the wait is long, it's just plain crazy! Cory walked around with the kids to keep them happy while we waited for our turn.

We were called into the studio and Bryce walks over like a pro to sit on the nice chocolate background. Jenna.... she was clinging to me like you wouldn't believe! She wanted NOTHING to do with taking pictures! She cried and screamed everytime I put her down. (And if you know Jenna, you know her scream is NOT a quiet one!!!) She did her little "I-Am-Not-Happy-Dance". You know the one.... it looks as though she's doing a footspeed drill during High School basketball practice - Throw in some flailing arms and you get the picture!! :) We got out pretty chairs for her to sit in, sparkly ornaments to hold, nice teddy bears to cuddle... you name it, we tried to get her to sit there! Oh - and I should mention we were in an ALL GLASS room, so the whole studio AND all of the people shopping in the store could stare at us through the windows! Grrrrreat! There was also no door, so they could hear what was going on as well!

I felt anger & frustration rushing through my blood as I fought with Jenna to get her to sit down in front of the camera. I was ready to throw a tantrum myself!! Like I said.... this is my favorite thing! I wasn't going to let it go easily! I could see Cory giving me "the look", telling me not to act like a 2 year old. I took a couple deep breaths.

The photographer was horrible and everytime she looked at Jenna, Jenna would get more scared and hide her head against me. Granted... Jenna was NOT cooperating, but you would think the lady could have gotten out some squeaky toys or started doing funny things to make Jenna laugh. Nope. She sat there with the camera and just waited. Rooooaaaarrrrr!!

Eventually, we got this.....

You can just SEE the excitement on Jenna's face! It's an expression of annoyance, worry and horror all at the same time! Can you see the out-of-place, non-matching brown throw weirdly positioned in the background? Well, that's me. In order to get Jenna to sit ANYWHERE near the vicinity of where the camera would point, I had to hide under that blanket so she could sit on me. I'm sure you can sense how thrilled I was about that! The weird, non-matching, lumpy background just doesn't do it for me. BUT - at least we got a picture with both of them in there. ha!

Here's a close up of her face....

Next she had them lay down. Great concept and some amazing pictures are shot this way.... but Jenna took the opportunity to push her brother's face away! Now THAT would be a great Christmas card - right?

After about 20 minutes of this non-sense, I decided, with sweat dripping down my face, that it just wasn't going to happen this year!! The photographer seemed shocked that I wanted to stop b/c we hadn't really gotten very many shots. I had decided to give in. Cory's "look" got to me and I realized no matter how hard I tried, it just wasn't happening. I decided I would just have to take some pictures at home for my card this year. Or at least try!

I ordered a couple poses just to remember "the moment"! haha! Looking back, it's already humorous and these kind of pictures make for great memories!

By the way... I did get some really cute shots at home and my Christmas cards are ordered! Yay!