Ready for my close-up....

People always told me about second child syndrome. But I still wanted to believe it would never happen in our home. That was back when I still used the word "never" with confidence.
For example, "I will never buy my kids' clothes at Wal-mart" (read previous post!).

When Arabella was born, I had her picture made at 6 weeks, 3 months, 6 months, 9 months, you get the picture. No pun intended. In addition, I pulled out my camera for every momentous occasion. Like her sleeping in her bouncy seat. I think I have six of those pictures in her baby album. No exaggeration. I hung them on the walls, I sat them on tables, any stationary surface in our house was likely to have a framed photo of our bundle of joy on it.

Then Abbigail arrived, and even though people told me, "You won't have hardly any pictures of the second one!" I didn't believe it. So a few weeks after she was born I defiantly scheduled a photo session. A few days before it, Abby's face started breaking out with "baby acne". I thought, well, I still want her picture, she's still cute. The day before the appointment I went to get her out of bed and instead of the adorable baby I had placed there, I found a red-faced bumpy little ugly duckling. Bless her

tiny heart, I cancelled the appointment. Then life ensued. We go busy. One day I finally succumbed to the guilt and stuffed a snapshot I'd taken of her into a frame and sat it on the sofa table. Till now it was the only picture of her on display.

So I finally got in gear and made an appointment at Potrait Innovations in Johnson City for some last minute Easter pictures of my girls and my neice, Ashlyn.

It didn't start out too well. As I often still do, I misjudged how long it takes to get two little girls ready. Especially when one is running around the house yelling, "I'm naked!" while you are trying to dress her, and the other

is liable to puke at the slightest provocation. On top of that, when I got Bella's outfit out to put on her I discovered that the size 3T outfit I had purchased her was actually a 3T shirt with a pair of 24 month leggings. I put 'em on her anyway. We're petite. We got out the door, and arrived at the studio on time. We did casual pictures first, and they went surprisingly well. Abby managed to spit up on me and Aunt Rachel, without messing up her own outfit, which was nice. And Ashlyn was a little uncooperative until a second photographer came over to distract her. (I swear, the girl was using Jedi mind tricks..."You will pose the way I want you to!").

Once those shots were taken, we got the joy of changing three little girls into tights, dresses, and patent leather Sunday shoes in the midst of a photo studio. Luckily they weren't very busy because we had our wardrobe change strewn all over the waiting area. But again, I was pleasantly surprised at how well they cooperated. Even Abby breezed through her first photo shoot like a pro.

Once we were finished, the photographer asked if I would like some 'diaper shots' of Abby, since I'd never had her picture made. I said , "Sure!", and we stripped her down to her diaper. I wasn't sure she would cooperate, since we'd been wallowing her around and changing her clothes for over an hour. The photographer plopped her down on a bean bag with a blanket over it, then wrapped a pink feather boa around her. Abby kind of swatted at it, and looked up at us like, "What are you doing to me?". But then the photographer started cooing and talking to her, and then....

Magic.

The sweetest picture. And so worth waiting for.