Pictures, take 2

I have always taken our babies in for pictures when they turn 3 months old. I love this age because this is when they start to really respond to people and smile. So the day after Baby K turned 3 months old I had an appointment set up at J.C. Penneys portrait studios for her pictures. I was just in the week before with Kitty to have her 3 year pictures taken and I liked the studio so I decided to take Baby K there as well. I usually take the kids to Target lately to get pictures taken, but it's about a 20 minute drive to get there. J.C. Penneys just opened about a year ago out here and they are much closer and have pretty much the same coupon deals as Target now. Kitty's photo shoot wasn't too great because she was doing a weird smile in them where her top lip was curled up under. There were a couple that turned out cute, but she's kind of at a difficult age where it's hard to get her to cooperate sometimes.

The problem with the 3 month pictures is trying to schedule them at a time when the baby will be awake and happy. So I decided to pick 11:20 for Baby K's pictures since she usually takes a good morning nap and then I feed her and she's awake for a little bit after that. So the morning of her pictures Baby K took a nap and then after she woke up I changed her into her clothes for the picture. Then I fed her and we left for the photo studio. Once we got there we took her back into the camera room for the pictures and she did not cooperate very well for us. I had her dressed in a really cute Laura Ashley dress that someone in the ward gave us (see the picture above). The problem with the dress was that it has a light, sheer layer over a cotton layer. She's at a really grabby stage and she just kept grabbing at the sheer layer of her dress and pulling it up to her face and she just wasn't in the mood to smile. We tried several different poses including some on her stomach and all she wanted to do was suck on her arm. The photographer took a bunch of pictures and said that she got some cute ones so we decided to call it a day.

While I was waiting for the photographer to upload the pictures and organize them Baby K fell asleep in my arms - so apparently she was still tired... When we looked at the pictures on the computer she wasn't smiling in a single one of them! There were a couple of cute ones but she is such a smiley baby that I didn't want to settle on one where she's not smiling. I ended up getting a free 8x10 because of a coupon I had and I bought one more sheet at $3.99 but I also set up another appointment for the following day to try again. I wasn't too excited to have to go back again because it's a pain hauling all 5 kids there and trying to concentrate on getting good pictures. Thankfully this studio has a T.V. out in the waiting area where they play kids movies so that kept the other kids entertained some.

This time I set up the appointment for early afternoon right after lunch. Baby K usually sleeps during that time but I was thinking that pictures might turn out better if we wake her up to take them - she is usually very smiley right when she wakes up. So after the family ate lunch the next day I changed Baby K into a different dress (even though I really liked the Laura Ashley dress, I didn't want to fight with her the whole time with trying to keep the dress down) and then I fed her. I loaded her up into her car seat and we left for the photo studio. Baby K feel asleep in the car and slept until we got up to the studio. When we took her back for the pictures she was all smiles! I had a burp cloth with me to wipe away her drool between pictures and whenever I rubbed the cloth under her chin she would give a huge grin and the photographer would snap a picture. The only position that didn't turn out too well with her was the tummy one again because she loves to suck on her arms & fists. We didn't have any issues with the dress this time and she did just great! I had a hard time picking pictures to buy because they were all so cute! And she fell back asleep on the way home! The pictures will be ready for pickup on Tuesday.