When I went to work on the second birthday invitation, I quickly realized that while I take a bazillion pictures of her, most are with my iPhone and so totally crappy in quality and few actually have her looking and/or smiling at the same time. I was going to use some of the professional ones from when we were in Mexico this spring, but she has already changed so much since then that they didn't even really look like her anymore! Soo, in my typical quasi-compulsive fashion, I decided that post-nap one Sunday afternoon we would put on a cute outfit and try and catch some decent pics over in the Village park where all the flowers could be pretty background. Definitely managed to eek out a few cute ones, much to my mommy delight!! I think that I took close to 150, but as Hunt says "it only takes one good one".
The invite winners..
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| Loved this one even though it was random, but you can see her real smile from laughing in her eyes |
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| If only you weren't fuzzy! |
Perhaps a pause to comment on the pearls.. This strand, which has now become a fixture in many of my recent pics, has generated a lot of buzz! While I love seeing her look girly, cute, put together, etc it's actually really not my intention to have be over the top in this area. I am completely not a fan of the overly traditional smocked look, or the recent surge in really frilly shabby chic little girl clothes either-- suffice to say I am drawn to the same toddler styles as I am for myself. Sooo, how did the two year old then find herself accessorizing like a southern sorority rushee?? For probably the last month or two, she has really taken to putting things on around her neck- a particular favorite is taking a stack of my clean panties off the bed and putting them all on one by one until she has a giant panty infinity scarf. She would wear this all day if you let her. While cleaning out my closet, I had put a bunch of these necklaces out that I don't wear anymore, and this strand was in the pile-- it seemed a nice alternative to the panties, and certainly more acceptable for wearing outside the house. And so a pearl wearer was born.. and since she doesn't protest, and I think it is the cutest thing ever, I just keep sticking them back on her!
Who said candy isn't a good bribe?? I knew that the attention span would be limited for pictures, and I figured the lollipop might generate some cute birthday themed pics. There is a very cute little candy shop in the Village that I hadn't had an excuse to check out before so once she started getting annoyed/bored with walking around staring at flowers (understandably), we popped in for a diversion. I didn't anticipate the multi color drool all over her face and hands, and did feel a little bit like a shitty parent bribing my two year old with a huge piece of candy to get some cute pictures, but nevertheless it did extend her tolerance of me for just a few more minutes, and it was probably an adequate reward for spending an hour dressed up in a park staring at random flowers while you are a toddler.
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| I mean this picture literally makes me laugh out loud every time I see it.. |
