Pictures Do the Talking

1.  Kinley has decided that she's ready for a "ride-a-cycle", and surprisingly, she can reach the pedals!
2.  Loving my baby girl!
3.  With her Uncle Paul after his bike rice.
4.  Checking out a fire truck.  We saw the firemen out washing it and asked if she could check it out.  They were more than happy to let her sit in it and put on a helmet!
5.  Sitting on daddy's shoulders--she was saying, "mommy, I a monkey!"
6.  She loves her Trunki.  She looks like a homeless person singing for a dollar.
7.  I love when she lets me do her hair.
8.  Got her all situated for breakfast yesterday morning.  And her Monsters, Inc dolls came in.  They don't leave her side.
9.  Monsters, Inc in the car.
10.  I feel like the odd man out having a car and not a minivan.  I'm so not ready for a minivan.
11.  Mikey on the train at the farm.
12.  In the pioneer cabin at the farm, Mikey again.
14.  Mikey on the carousel.
15.  My husband melts my heart.
16.  She's thinking that she's something else.  A phone in each pocket!
17.   Her first fat lip.  "Slide do it!"

Merry Belated

Christmas has come and gone, and I do believe that I neglected to share our attempted Christmas family photos.

I went so far to hire a photographer to come on location at a place where Kinley had plenty of space to run and play and scream and shout...thinking of course that it would only help the whole photo shoot idea.

Haha 

Joke was on me.  Take a look:

This is her saying, "I am so not interested in these pictures."

Luckily, the photographer is also a mom, and fully understood and sympathised, and kept on keeping on and we were able to get some decent shots.

And then we let her get comfortable and attempted some two year pictures.

Yeah..
That wasn't happening.

Here we are begging her to please, for the love of God, just pose with us.

And here she is loving every minute of having three adults chase after her...

I think that I was promising her a pony or something....if she would just sit still.

On our way to the car, we tried one.more.time. 

Merry Belated, from ours to yours.

Bad pictures and cheap wine

Last night we had our family photo appointment at Church ABC for their church directory.  So I guess we're members now.  Officially.  They got our picture to prove it.

Let me tell you, I will not be surprised if one day that photo turns up on Ellen or Leno as a "bad paid for photo."  It was TERRIBLE!

The photographer left much to be desired, but I guess that's what you get.  He took several shots and all of them were terrible.  He couldn't get Kinley's attention for nothing....I'm sorry, Mr. Photographer, but saying "hey baby, hey kiddo, kiddo, hey, baby" in a monotone, almost whisper, doesn't cut it.  And then, he kept saying, "mom, hold her hands down" and in turn, all of the pictures portray me having these monstrous hands covering my baby as if he was paparazzi.  No joke.  I wish I could access them online to show you how pathetic they actually are...but I guess that because they are in the church group order, they aren't online.

Then the worst part was after they snapped the pictures, we then were ushered to the next room where we had to choose which of his shots would be listed in the directory and then we also got a free 8x10--and they proceeded to try and sell us their "world famous" prints on canvas.  Ummmm, no.  You couldn't *pay me* to take these on paper, stone, toilet paper, or your *world famous* oval canvas.  Mmmm, k?

The package that she wanted to sell us was like $300 and there was no way in heck that I was even the least bit interested, so I tuned her out.  Her and her sales pitch.  My husband said I was rude.  But I think it was rude of her to try and sell such ick pictures for so much money!  The free 8x10 will be shoved away in a box somewhere, in that storage unit, that stores stuff that we know we don't need but can't part with so we'll deal with it in another year.

So we chose the best of the worst for the directory and will hide in shame every Sunday when people are putting faces to pictures.  Ahhhh well.  What can you do?

When we got home, we got Kinley to bed and decided to enjoy a glass of wine.  I have a new favorite, Moscato.  I'm not sure if it's new to the wine world (as I'm so not a wino-o, remember?) but I know that I've never heard of it before.  But my beloved Reisling is no more.  Move over for the Moscato. 

And because we're trying to not spend more than we need, I only splurged on the el cheap-o $5 bottle of Moscato.  Note to self.  It tastes like a $5 bottle of Moscato and needs tossed.  Ick.  I drank a few sips and said "I'm done, time for bed." So next time, I'm splurging on my tried and true $13 bottle, cause it's divine and makes me want to over-indulge.

And here we are so unaware of how bad our $5 wine is going to taste:

So we learned, while sometimes you can get away with a super cheap wine and it be okay....the Moscato is one not to go (too) cheap.

Picture People Give-Away

Last weekend we took Kinley for her one year portraits (I am aware that I was about three and a half weeks late). We used Picture People in a mall near our house.  I was super hesitant because the last time that we did studio pictures, she was about two months old.  And it was rough.  She cried the whole time.  I know that she was newborn and all....but it was tough.

They were so nice and so accommodating with us!  The photographer knew exactly how to get Kinley to cooperate, and that in itself made our visit ideal.

And then we saw the results:

And these are just a sampling of what she took.  I'm tellin' ya...it was a success!  Kinley had a blast...she thought she was just playing with the photographer.  We bought the CD and copyright because we just could not choose.

So.....now I want to pass on this great experience to you.

Together with Picture People, I am giving away a $75 gift certificate to be used at your local Picture People.  They don't charge a sitting fee, so your gift certificate can be used for all of your awesome prints (or towards the CD!).  Pretty awesome deal!

You can locate a studio near you here.  And you can see their package prices here.

Don't have a baby?  They do couples photography too!  Or, go and strut yourself and do your own photo shoot.  Work it, girl!  (sorry, I had to do it.)

So you want to win?  Here's how:
Leave a comment saying who you would have photographed.  Is it a first birthday session?  Maternity?  Newborn?  Engagement?  Tell me about it.

Extra entries:
(Please complete a comment for every extra entry.)

1. Blog about this give-away.  (and put the link to the entry on your comment)
2. Become a fan (there on the right--if you already are, leave a comment saying so)
3. Follow me on Facebook  (if you already do, let me know!)
4. Follow me on Twitter (if you already do, tell me)
5. Tweet this give-away.
6. Link to this give-away on Facebook.

There you have it.  Each of you can enter up to SEVEN times.  That is SEVEN comments per person. Wow.  Odds are good, my friends.  As always, please, please, please make sure that I have your email in your entry (or be sure that it's linked in your profile) so that I can contact you if you win. 

The contest is open to those in the US and Canada.  The contest will end on Saturday, January 15.

Picture People did not pay me to do this review and they did not do our portraits as compensation for this review.  We visited the studio on our own and paid for our own portraits.  Because of my satisfaction in their product, I invited Picture People into the Living On Trees family to host a give-away to my awesome readers and they agreed.  Yeah!