Holiday Pictures

Professional Christmas Portraits. Click to enlarge
I didn't get Sasha's 1 year professional pictures taken. Instead I waited and took her for the holidays. I figured I'd get something for a christmas card. I got a GORGEOUS dress for her. The pictures don't do it justice, it was sparkly and a pretty deep emerald color with fluffy white trimming on the wrists and bottom.
This photo session was a bit of a disappointment. I took her to the place I always take her. The girl there that usually takes Sasha's picture must have had the day off. Instead there was some really LOUD obnoxious woman. The moment I saw the woman working with another child, I knew we would have trouble. Sasha is really shy, easily upset, and dare I say high strung? So a loud, overbearing obnoxious in-your-face sort of person is going to get Sasha crying and upset. Not the look I was going for on a christmas card.
When it was our turn, I tried to tell the woman. I said Sasha is shy and doesn't really like loud or aggressive people, she prefers to warm up to people. She acted offended. "WELL SHE WON'T LIKE ME CUZ I'M LOUD!" (duh?) and she started trying to poke Sasha in the belly, which of course annoyed Sasha and made her cling to me. The woman tried to pick Sasha up and put her on the stage and Sasha got pissed. She kept trying to get in Sasha's face, yelling BOO, tickling her, and doing other stuff but of course it just pissed off and scared Sasha even more.
We spent the next 20 minutes trying to calm Sasha down. The woman knew sign language, so the moment I mentioned that Sasha was signing to me ("all done!") she actually quieted down and started signing to Sasha. Sasha started warming up to the woman while she was in her sign language phase.
Once Sasha was moderately calmed down, I was able to get her on stage by letting her play with a prop gift box. The top of the box came off so I hid a few other props in the box and Sasha played with that. It was enough to mostly get some pictures. Sasha gave us like 3 minutes before she had another melt down so we weren't able to do any cute poses or backgrounds or anything. Just a non-crying baby was the best we could do. Sasha looks like she's thinking "Wtf?" at the photographer in most of the pics.

After the pictures were over, we were sitting at a desk to review the pictures and put together portraits and packages. Sasha was running around, happy as a clam. Figures. This apparently annoyed the woman. Whatever. She tried to pick Sasha up by her upper arms. Now I don't know about anyone else, but you pick babies up under their armpits, you don't grab them by their arms. I cringed. Sasha arched her back and threw a holy temper tantrum. The woman acted so offended and I thought she was going to throw Sasha on the ground or drop her. Fortunately she didn't, she at least set Sasha back down. But still, the nerve. This woman works with children as a job? I don't understand. She's lucky my husband wasn't there or he'd probably have kicked her ass a few times.

Although the pictures were cute (because Sasha was in them), I knew they could have been so much better. Like I said, I'm disappointed. The pics are not what I envisioned. When we got home, Sasha was so gorgeous in her pigtails, big blue eyes, and pretty dress. I tried to take some pictures with my camera but I couldn't get a good picture. She was tired and wired by the time I got her home. So I guess the picture I wanted is just not meant to be. I'll have to hold that image of my gorgeous little holiday girl in my head instead.