Say Cheese!

Eli & Georgia - a perfect pose!

On Sunday, I made an appointment at Portrait Innovations for the kids to get their pictures taken. When Eli was a baby, I had his pictures done every three months his first year of life, then at 18 months, and then just yearly. Basically, the photo appointments coincide with doctor’s appointments. It works out great!

I have been trying to be fair with Georgia. I hear of so many people who don’t take as many pictures of their second child, so I want to make sure we have just as many pictures of her as a baby as we have of Eli. This leads to me spending waaaay too much money at the portrait studio. If Eli came with me when I did Georgia’s photos, I felt guilty that he wasn’t getting his picture taken and ended up throwing him in the mix, too.

At Portrait Innovations, they just snap away with their camera like they’re on crack. Last time, I had to choose from 100 poses. And the more you spend, the more “free” stuff you get. When I took Georgia in for her 9-month pictures, I got free Easter cards, a CD with all the pictures, a calendar with her photo on it, and four 11x13 specialty poses. Of course, I use the word “free” where Eric prefers to say “included in the $200 they suckered me into spending.”

This time around, it was time for Georgia’s 1-year pictures and Eli’s 4-year pictures. Eric was determined I make the appointment on a weekend so he could go with me because “we don’t need that many damn pictures.” I think it’s difficult for any mother to look at pictures of her babies and say, “No, trash it!”

Sunday morning, we were rushing around like crazy getting the kids ready. I was downing coffee and Ibuprofen like a madwoman, attempting to choose clothes for the kids to wear. They each got two outfits, and I had to make sure they correlated with each other – not a super easy task.

Georgia - on the way out!

Then I had to get Georgia ready. Picture me in the bathroom with my 13-month-old sitting on the vanity while I’m putting gel in her hair. Eric just came in and looked at us, shook his head and walked out. Then I attempted to get Eli’s hair to lie down which is a near impossibility, but at least we got him to take off his pink nail polish and skull and crossbones tattoos for the pictures.

We got to Portrait Innovations and the kids were raring to go. They wanted to play with the toys and the Lego table, not take pictures. We brought them into the room and tried to position them, but every time I would put Georgia down, she would make a beeline for the waiting area with the toys. That is why most of the photos of her have her walking (they caught her on the way out) or Eli holding her down. On the ones up-close of her face, I’m behind her holding her down.

Eli - a perfect smile!

All in all, the kids did fabulous. Eli’s eyes tend to disappear when he smiles, because for some reason, he thinks if he smiles big, he also needs to close his eyes. But we got great pictures of both kids in no time. But then came the hard part, time to choose.

We sat down at the computer with Tiffany our photographer, and attempted to start choosing. I thought I was doing well when after a few minutes I narrowed it down to 15 poses. That’s when Eric stepped in. “Okay, we need to cut this in half. Let’s get rid of pose 3, 8, 12, 15 . . .”

“Wait!” I screamed. “Shouldn’t we discuss this?” He said, “No. We don’t need that many pictures.” Tiffany reminded us that if we start cutting out poses we will lose some of our “free” specialty sheets. Eric just said, “That’s okay. I don’t like the specialty sheets anyway.”

At that point, we heard Eli’s voice shout, “Georgia, NO!” and we turned to see Georgia standing on top of the Lego table doing what looked to be a victory dance. Eric went to retrieve her, and I had Tiffany add back in the pictures he wanted to remove.

It went on like this for about 45 minutes until we cut it down to 9 poses. I think we made Tiffany uncomfortable. Especially when Eric said things like, “If you cut that picture, I will let you keep this one.”

“I’m sorry, what did you say? You’ll LET me? It doesn’t work that way, farm boy.” Eric just thinks I’m funny, but Tiffany was hunkering down in her seat. I think she was very glad to see the Forssbergs walk out the door when we finally wrapped up.

They had our pictures ready in 30 minutes! We took the kids to McDonald’s and the photos were ready. I think they look great! Eric still thinks we have “too many damn pictures.” Oh yeah? Wait until Christmas!