Pictures - Not an Easy Gig!

There hasn't been enough time lately for me to do all that I'd like to do. I've spent my "free" evenings these past few weeks scrapbooking an album for Avery of our trip to Disneyland -- so that means I haven't had time for my other hobbies -- like blogging and sewing. And it seems like once you get behind on blogging - well, it's hard to know where to start again. So I'll just start with this... I'm learning just how hard it is to get a good picture when there's more than one subject! I told Jaclyn I would help her take the girls for pictures just before Easter -- and by the end of this ordeal I remembered why I did it so seldom with my own kids.
After pinky-swearing that we would stick to the $18 special and not go crazy no matter how good the pictures turned out, we started at home by getting the dresses ironed and Avery's hair done. Then we headed off to the mall --fighting our way through the 5 o'clock traffic. By the time we got there, changed the girls into their dresses and adjusted hairbows, the baby was fussy and needed to nurse. So we found a place to sit so that Jaclyn could feed her and 20 minutes later, we were finally ready to roll -- just in time for our appointment. Oh, but now the picture place wasn't ready for us, so we had to wait. We started our wait with a very happy baby who was freely giving smiles and coos and a toddler who was excited and anxious to cooperate for the pictures so that she could receive the promised reward. But a half an hour later, we were walking and rocking the baby and promising whatever we thought would keep Avery happy for just a few minutes longer.
When our name was finally called, we had two fussy girls and what seemed to be one very inexperienced photographer. The result: One photo with neither of them pouting or crying. The plus to all of this is that with only one acceptable pose, sticking to the $18 special was really easy!