Beaten down!

Saturday, November 29, 2008

We spent the day today at the mall getting pictures of the kids and with Santa. I thought I was going to get to print out one picture to take with me today and get my Christmas cards going - but apparently JC Penny's is still in the ice age of waiting for 2 weeks for ALL your pics. I hadn't been there in awhile and Sears lets you take prints home with you for an additional fee and even purchase a CD to take home with you on the spot. Sears' CD costs about $119, but if you order prints over a certain amount - it's only about $9.99 (at least the last time I got pics there). Unfortunately for me - I called JC Penny to get their pricing earlier in the week, but could only get voicemail - so I decided what the heck and just kept my session there - well it turns out to be $99.99 no matter HOW MANY prints you buy. So, no CD this time - I got the smiles by wire - which aren't great quality - so I'm hoping I'll get to share them here when I eventually get them. But the payoff is that JC Penny sheets are MUCH cheaper than Sears...oh well - you can't win them all.

I went very prepared with pictures printed out from their website to show exact poses and backgrounds that I wanted - except for the fact that they no longer had several of the backgrounds I anticipated. I also had a few outfit changes and went with an order in mind of what we would do first and the order we would do them in. To start, I planned pics of Katie and Timmy together in their Big Sister/Little Brother shirts - so they arrived wearing those outfits - except for the fact that RIGHT before our session began Katie ran over to the water fountain before I could stop her and soaked her shirt. We wound up starting with the pics of diapered Timmy by himself while Chris changed Katie into her Christmas dress and we never did get a chance to get back to the original outfits.

We got tons of great shots, but unfortunately on a bunch of really good ones - they all had something wrong with them. Almost all the black backround shots of Timmy had a great big piece of white fuzz on the drape right next to his head - so every shot with that backround was out. We also had a really cute one of Chris and I holding Timmy (just our hands and arms showing) and there is long black string from the diaper cover draping over my arm. But here's the kicker - there was a semi-cute pic that I wanted to just get a sheet of 3x5's - but it was completely off-center. So I asked if they could crop it in and center it and they could and it looked great - BUT that was then considered an "enhanced" pic and would cost me $14.99 for the sheet instead of the traditional $3.99. HELLO?!?!? Isn't there obligation to take CENTERED pics...if I have to enhance it just to make it look like it should have to begin with shouldn't I not have to pay extra? Well that's my thinking anyway...but I was defeated at that point, so I just let it go. I'm also really mad at myself because I ordered a collage sheet to which I changed out one of the pics they had for another one - then after looking at the session sheet on the way home - I realized the one they had to begin with did look much better. And, as my big splurge at $24.99 for the artsy collage, I'm not about to just reorder it the original way.

It's a shame that the sessions are always so rushed and that many of the pics were ruined by little things like that because our photographer actually did a really good job compared to past experiences. She did a great job posing the kids and knew exactly how to move quickly from shot to shot. At the end of the day, I guess it's a good thing that I had to dump some of the shots from the beginning because of the problems I mentioned, cause I still got way too many and spent way too much money (as usual) - adding them to the decision mix would have just made it that much harder.

On to our Santa visit...They are doing a new thing with Santa pics this year...you can actually get the pics as an electronic file...which I did - but at the risk of ruining the suprise of my Christmas cards (if I'm not able to make them with my JC Penney pics) - I'm going to wait a week or so to share it here.

My poor fixated daughter...she was SO excited to see Santa and tell him what she wanted for Christmas this year. But, when she got to her turn she saw that he had a basket of junky little plastic cups to give to the kids after they were done. She did tell him some stuff very quietly so we're not sure if she did tell him about some toys she wants - but all that she could be heard saying (over and over again) is that she wanted a cup. She really does have a problem with always focusing on the "next" thing about to happen so that she can never enjoy the present. (For example, whenever we're at an amusement park she spends almost the entire time of her ride looking around to see what ride she's going to do next.) So, I think it went something like this. What do you want for Christmas little girl? I want a cup, I want a cup...She did get a great hug in with him though and was super excited about her cup!!

2 comments:

debi9kids November 29, 2008 at 8:06 PM  

LOL about the cup. Look at it this way... you could get away with just getting her a cheap white cup for Christmas ;)

You know, i have an awesome editing program. I could remove those flaws from the pics you like if you end up ordering them...

Mummy McTavish November 29, 2008 at 8:56 PM  

Ick, we just had our family photos done. completely by accident that they ended up at christmas, it was our 4th attempt after facial injuries cancelled the previous 3. BOYS!
15 minutes to get ones of the boys plus a whole family one... not something I want to repeat anytime soon. good on you for braving it!

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