As I think I mentioned earlier, we were supposed to get family pictures taken on Saturday but had to cancel because of Nicholas' bright red face. Since our
giftcard expired at the end of the month, I took him yesterday evening. Joe was on a plane to St. Louis for a conference so instead of family pictures we just got pictures of Nicholas. And we got lots and lots of pictures because I couldn't decide which one I liked best.
Nicholas did such a great job! I was so impressed by him. He really worked at following the photographer's directions . He didn't always end up posed as she intended, but you could see him working to try to do what she was instructing. None of the pictures were jackpots, but because he was working so hard to cooperate, there were also no really bad ones. Out of the 20 shots they take, I ordered at least 1 copy of each of 10. These were the best ones:
And most of the ones I didn't order were either the requisite closeups of his eyelashes (I think they actually have requirements to take those because there has been one each time) or his smile looked pained because he was working so hard to listen to and follow the directions.
It was the first time we've taken pictures where it wasn't a struggle to get through the session. In fact, when I put him to bed he asked if we could do more pictures. And then, as if to prove he was serious, he exclaimed, "cheese!" As though you have to ask me twice!
We had a little bit of a struggle while I was trying to pick pictures because he kept trying to run off into the store or other people's photo shoots. Meanwhile the person working there was going through all of the cutesy options I wasn't going to get at a snail's pace and I wanted to snap at her. Did she not see the toddler running off every 3 seconds? But once I strapped him into the stroller and positioned it in front of Finding Nemo, he did pretty well and let me make my decisions. He has never actually seen a Disney movie before, but it had lots of fish, so he was mildly interested. Although he did turn around numerous times to ask me (very sweetly) if we were going on the horses.
And, yes, we did go on the carousel. Our appointment was at 5:10 and I was smart enough to know that it was not fair to stick him back in the car at dinnertime only to sit in rush hour traffic on the beltway, so I had planned to eat at the mall. That he had been so good and deserved a reward just worked out well.
We had dinner in the food court watching the horses go round and round and then he got to ride once. And he was perfectly okay with eating his whole dinner first and then one ride and going home. He is such an agreeable child most of the time. He definitely has his moments but on days like this I am left just shaking my head in wonderment at how we got so lucky.
Here he is trying to follow her directions to cross his arms. I think she was going for a tough guy pose, but instead got this:
Another one that didn't quite work out as she intended. He did a very good job of following her instructions to lie on his belly and put his hands on his face. But instead of cute, she got Home Alone:
The best real smiles we got have some awkward hand positions. Here he was performing "Itsy Bitsy Spider":
And this one, well, I don't know what he was doing in this one:
And if you have a preference for which ones of these we send you copies of, speak now or forever hold your peace.
No comments:
Post a Comment