Picture Day!

Today was picture day! The morning was mostly devoted to getting ready for picture day, even though part of that consisted of M and I trying to banish some circles under our eyes by taking turns for extra napping. Robert and I got a bath, M showered and shaved, and I even put on makeup for the first time in forever. Robert had outgrown the pants I was hoping he could wear, so we had to make a last-minute substitution, but in the end, we all looked good. Luckily, Robert doesn't need a lot of primping to look adorable! The car even cooperated, today wasn't quite as hot as other days this week have been, and the air conditioning stayed on long enough for us to take the interstate to the mall with the windows rolled up, rather than driving with them down on the surface streets, in deference to my hair.

The photo session itself was very funny. We thought ahead of time to bring along Robert's monkey, because it's his current favorite awake-time toy (it's much too big for the crib, so his brown and white puppy accompanies him there). We figured that if the photographer had a hard time getting him to smile, she could use the monkey. It turned out to be a really good idea. Robert had just woken from a nap when we went to the studio, and he was feeling very somber apparently. Not crying, just giving his studious look to everyone and everything. The photographer got no smiles from him at all until she started using the monkey, and even then she had to be so outrageous that M and I spoiled a few shots by laughing ourselves! We even ended up taking a few pictures of Robert with the monkey, to commemorate his love. Once again I had a package coupon for a single pose, and once again I spent an extra ten dollars on an extra 8x10 of a different pose, but at least it was only one. It was still just 20 dollars total for our family picture sitting, three 8x10s, two 5x7s, four 3.5x5s, and sixteen wallet size. I think that's an excellent deal. With all these 8x10s though, I'm going to need to get a gigantic photo album, as I do not have near enough picture frames.

While we were out and about, we decided to celebrate August and M's paycheck and a successful photography expedition by using a few more coupons. We got BOGOF pretzels at Auntie Anne's and 50% off a small cup of Dippin' Dots that we shared. I had never had Dippin' Dots, and had always been quite curious. Now I know I never need to have them again. For dinner, we went to Cici's Buffet and had two dinners and soft drinks for 10 dollars with my coupon. Robert was so worn out by all this that he slept through most of the meal. He was feeling good at home though, and giggled and rolled all over the place, drank two bottles, and played his electric piano with great verve before succumbing to sleep.

Today's pictures, by the way, are the low-res versions of the poses we decided on. If you want to see all of them, follow this link and give my first and last name with no capital letters in the customer's name field. For some reason the site won't work with Chrome, so if that's your browser, you'll have to work around it.