3 month pictures

Of course I think my little guy is the most photogenic baby around. Which is why when I wasn’t happy with the pictures that JC Penney’s portrait studio took, I requested a do-over. Actually, I wasn’t that high maintenance about it all. What happened is I had an appointment for 10:20 a.m. on Saturday. We were running a little late and I called the studio to let them know we were running 5-10 minutes late and they said they’d move me to 11:20. Ok, even better – that gave us time to stop at McDonald’s for bacon, egg and cheese bagel sandwiches. Yum. By the time we got to the mall and took the stroller out and got inside it was 11:20 on the dot. But we waited…and we waited. There was a huge family in the process of having their picture taken with maybe 5 kids and it was taking forever. When we arrived, Luke was in prime smiling baby mode. No spit-up on his cute outfit with matching hat and he was rested and super smiley. And then we waited. It was really hot in the waiting room (and even hotter in the actual studio where they take the pictures) and he started getting fussy. So I gave him some of his bottle. After 30 minutes of waiting, I asked how much longer it would be and was told it would be VERY SOON. We finally got in there and the good photographer was occupied with the supersize family and we got the teenager who must have this job because she’s on summer vacation. The extent of her engaging the baby to smile was to make some unenthusiastic clicky sounds and call him “stinky” (hey, I gave my child a bath and he does NOT stink!) and I could tell she was not capturing the extreme cuteness my baby possesses. She took about 4 quick photos and then I took his overalls off because I was a well prepared mom and his next outfit was underneath his overalls. We got a total of 2 shots in his owl onesie and then he spit up all over himself (and me) because it was so crazy hot in there and he was now not a happy boy. We did some last shots of him in his diaper and I think the entire time we were having the photos taken was about…oh maybe 7 minutes. She then pulled the pictures up on the computer while the next family was getting pictures done (by the good photographer) and we probably spent more time looking at these pictures than the time spent taking the pictures. I was surprised that the photos I take on my camera at home capture him better than she did. I begrudgingly agreed to buy the cd of the pictures and we left. But the more I thought about it, I really wasn’t happy with the time we had to wait for our session, the way we were rushed through, the inexperience of our photographer and the poor quality of the photos. So I went back to the studio and asked them if we could schedule another photo shoot. We talked to the manager (aka the good photographer) and I wasn’t mad or yelling or anything (Pete was afraid I would go in there making demands and being that kind of person.) and they were very nice and understood my frustration. The store normally opens at 11:00 on Sunday but they opened the store a half hour early to accommodate us and we were the first ones in and even though we woke up to take his picture he was cute and smiley until about the last 5 pictures and then I think he just wanted to go back to sleep and get this thing over with. But the end result of the pictures were phenomenally better and we even got a family portrait of the three of us. Definitely worth it! I’ll post those pictures once I get the cd from them. And then he can win all kinds of cute baby contests because, well, he is an exceptionally cute baby (and I am not biased at all.) He also has good cute baby genes since his daddy’s baby picture stayed on the wall of the photographer’s studio for several years and his grandfather (my dad) won the Cutest Baby in Plymoth, PA award. So of course Luke is going to be a cutesie.