One Year Old Portraits!

It's that time again! Eliza turns one on this Wednesday, but last Tuesday, my mom and I went ahead and got these portraits done while we had the chance! We seem to get portraits done about every four months thus far. That wasn't our original plan, but it's what has ended up working out! (thanks for all your help, mom! I could NOT have done it w/o you!)

Here's Eliza getting sleepy while we wait for hours for our turn at the portrait studio (like usual- why do they always overbook so bad?):
JC Penny's is actually very affordable and does a fairly decent job. Their individual sheets are priced at $4 as opposed to the $20 charge at Sears or most other portrait studios. Crazy, right? So there's my little add for JC Penny's...

But here are most of the shots they took. We only bought like a copy of half of them, though, in various sizes.

(First tongue shot, many more to come. Like I said in a previous post, Eliza was doing some major teething on that molar!)

(I call this Eliza's monkey shot!)

(This is the one we got wallets of that you'll probably be receiving in the mail if you're a relative who we know likes Eliza or if you let me know you want one in comments here!)

I really loved this outfit that I found for Eliza at Gymboree using my
Gymboree bucks $25 coupon! Yay for coupons!

(Eliza kept ripping the one off before they could catch a shot of her with it on... silly girl! They had Velcro on it so they could put on other #'s and that was not strong enough to stop Eliza!)

(total teething picture... notice the drool on her blouse and wet tongue!
I think she was actually blowing a raspberry in this pic, though.)

I hadn't decided to take pictures with me in them before I got to the studio, so I hadn't thought about it when getting ready that morning. And any mom knows how hard it is to just get their kid ready for the day or for portraits, let alone getting themselves even decent before heading out the door!! or maybe that's just me....?

On a normal day, I have to get dressed in stages... change Eliza's diaper in the morning, feed her breakfast, then get her dressed. Then I get to wash my face and put my eyes (contacts) in, get out of jammies and rush around looking for my outfit while Eliza chases after the cat or something. Once I'm relatively dressed or Eliza's attention span runs out, which ever comes first, then I do her hair and shoes and pack her diaper bag up with all the essentials (sippy cup, crackers, diapers, wipes, paci- DONE!), and then see whether she will be entertained for another minute by her wheely caterpillar toy while I try to do SOMETHING with my hair and then grab my keys, bag, and baby and run out the door before I realize that I forgot to do my makeup... yeah.

Thus, I didn't really like how I looked in the pictures; however, I want Eliza to have pictures of me someday, and I remember how much I've liked seeing my mom in the portraits of us when we were growing up, so I relented. Steve says he likes them, though... and that's when we got the happiest shots of Eliza, so it was worth it!

I LOVE the three generation shots we got!
I was so glad Mom agreed to be in them with us!
How fun are these:

The photographer told us to do this one:

We're hoping to get a four generation shot with MY Oma when we're out in San Diego in June for her birthday!! It'll be such a fun trip-- especially for Eliza she'll get to meet my mom's mom, Oma or Rosalie, and my dad's dad, Grandpa Bob, for the first time! So I'm trying to get Eliza to learn the sign for grandma and grandpa before that time! We'll see how she does! We can't wait for our Cali trip!!

Oh, and if you're a grandparent or someone else who would like to know the access code to order some of your own prints, just let us know and we'll give it to you!