Elliott's 3 year portraits

I had an appointment already set up for Spencer's three year old portrait session when Michael elbowed him in the eye (it was a perfectly and freakishly timed couch incident) and gave him a black eye.  We had to cancel the session and wait a good month for the black eye to heal.  We finally went in for the pictures on October 2nd, 2010 when Spencer was 4 days shy of 3 years 1 month old.  Side note: All I had to do to find that date was to look in the folder where I keep all the receipts and print-outs from all of our portrait sessions. Sometimes my OCD tendencies DO pay off!

  The pictures were darling, although you could still see a wee bit of yellowish black eye in them.

Moving on.

One of the first things I thought of after Elliott split his forehead open and needed staples 3 days before his 3rd birthday was......"damn!  This is just like when Spencer turned 3 and we had to wait for his pictures. Now we're going to have to wait for Elliott's 3 year pictures too".  OK, maybe it was like the 4th thing I thought.

We had originally planned on getting his pictures done on December 22nd before we went to Tucson for Christmas, but that was only 3 days after the staples came out and his forehead still looked pretty bad.  Then we got wrapped up in the holidays and then we got busy with being back to our regular schedules of school, work, etc, etc.  This past Sunday I was looking at the calendar and realized that we could do his pictures the next day, on Monday, January 12th, and if we didn't we wouldn't have another chance until Monday the 26th.  That was when, just out of curiosity, I checked on the date of Spencer's pictures.  Once I realized that Elliott would be 4 days shy of 3 years 1 month old I immediately booked the appointment.  A coincidence like that is just too good.  

I spent all day preparing him for the shoot.  I was nervous, based on his performance at his 2 year old session where we left and had to go back again because he was so awful.

Right before we left I let him eat some sugary snacks so he would be all peppy and in a good mood.  I also brought mini M & M's to bribe him during the session and promised him a treat if he did a good job.  I think it worked.

This sweatshirt was a very last minute addition.  I bought it at Target for $4 that day.

I bought it because I had this last minute super cute idea to take pictures with all his favorite characters at the moment and his other clothes just didn't fit in with the overall feel of that picture in my head.

Yep, that's a keeper.  We're going to frame this and put it in his room.

I bought this bomber jacket at a used clothing store for $5 in December.  I saw it and knew immediately we would use it for his pictures.  The sunglasses are mine.

The photographer is going to enter this one into a contest.  We signed a release for it.

I have talked before about how I use this wall in our hallway to display 5 x 7 pictures of the kids at 6 months, 1 year, 18 months, 2 years, etc.  When we get the prints back next week Elliott's will go right there in that first set, bottom row, next to Spencer.

Right where the flash is bouncing back. 

I always try to coordinate their clothes for the same age picture in terms of a similar style, not necessarily the same colors.  I had one heck of a time finding a short sleeved striped polo shirt in the winter, even though this is Arizona.  Thank goodness for preppy Gap. I feel like I should already start hunting for a solid colored, long sleeved polo shirt for next year.

My handsome boys at 4 days shy of 3 years 1 month.