Mommy and Blake

Blake has been in this new little phase of refusing to let me take her picture. She wants to be the one taking the picture. When I ask her to smile or say cheese, she either hides or face or gets all grumpy. She will do anything but look at the camera.

It takes all sorts of jumping up and down, making silly noises, goofy faces, whatever it takes just to get her to look at me. 

Every once in a while, captured within the many pictures I find a decent one. 

And trying to get a picture with her is even more difficult. When I ask her if she will take a picture with me, she says no. Through some wrestling and intense prodding, I was finally able to convince her to take a few with me. I may or may not have been restraining her and forcing her to sit by me.

But I was only able to get her to sit by me by saying we could do monkey pictures and other goofy pictures. Even then she wasn't too keen on the idea. 

And like any time you try to get pictures that involve children, you get a decent one of one person, then a decent one of the other person, but it is impossible to have both people looking at the camera at the same time and not having a goofy face.

 Or you finally get the shot you were hoping for but it is out of focus.

 

 

Blake also likes when mommy does fishy kisses. She tries to do them but hasn't quite figured it out yet. It's fun to be goofy sometimes.

3 Year Old Photoshoot

There is a cool place not too far from my house called DIY Photography. Basically it's a photography studio that anyone can rent out to do their own photography. When you rent the studio, you can use all of their equipment including cameras, lighting, backdrops, etc. Anyways, I follow them on Facebook and about 2 weeks ago someone posted that they were wanting to experiment with some different lighting techniques and needed a model. Anyone want free pictures taken, basically. Half joking, half serious, I asked if he would be willing to shoot a 3 year old. He must not have had any other takers, because he told me yes.

His name is Ryan McClain and he has focused mostly on landscapes in the past. It can be really difficult to make a living selling landscapes, so he decided to switch his focus to people. He is more interested in doing stylized shoots, or glamour-type shoots, so I don't think this was quite what he was hoping for. But he was willing to do them anyways, and I really appreciated it, especially since I hadn't taken any good pictures of Blake around her birthday.

He quickly learned how difficult shooting little kids can be, especially someone like Blake. If she is actually holding still, then she is doing something crazy with her eyes, mouth, or hands. I was dancing, singing, jumping around, doing anything I could think of to try to get her to smile. It is both helpful and not. As I am doing things, I noticed she was copying me and doing all sorts of crazy things with her hands.

But sometimes her "smile" kills me. Often when I tell her to smile, she has her head tilted up really high and this goofy little grin, if you can even call it that.

You can tell when she really decided that she was done with the whole picture thing. Even bribes of giant bowls of ice cream didn't help.

With a lot of effort on everyone's part, he did manage to get some decent ones. I wish I would have had more time to think about her outfit or do her hair different. When he said he would take her pictures, he wanted to meet us at the studio within about an hour, so I didn't give me much planning time. Even so, I am happy with how they turned out and think they really captured her personality. 

And I saved my very favorite for last. I think I will blow this one up a bit and put it in her room.

I appreciate Ryan being willing to take her pictures. He is still trying to build his portfolio and figure out his style, so he appreciated the practice, but he definitely did us a much bigger favor than we did for him. Check out his other stuff here.

*It was during Blake's pictures that I learned more of the type of photography Ryan is looking to do. While I think he is willing to do most anything, he is really most interested in those glamorous shots. Again, not thinking he would actually agree, I volunteered to let him practice that kind of picture on me. He said yes and we scheduled a photo shoot for myself. He even hired a make-up artist to come help out. I'll do a separate post with that photo shoot. It was a lot of fun!

Still Chugging Along

Blake has had her glasses for many months now, and she has been doing really great. Besides those first few weeks where she was breaking them constantly, she hasn't had any problems. I think she is to the point where she really understands why she is wearing them and she can tell a difference.

 

One time when I put her into her carseat, I noticed her glasses were filthy so I grabbed them to clean them. I wasn't able to give them back right away because I was driving and couldn't reach her. She started crying "But I want to see! Please give me my glasses. Mom, I want to see!" I felt bad, but it made me realize how much she appreciates them. She wears them constantly, and I have to tell her to take them off when she goes to sleep. 

A couple of weeks ago, she snapped another pair of glasses while we were in the car. I'm not sure what she was doing, but suddenly she handed me her glasses in two pieces. Ignore how dirty they are. I'm clearly not very good at keeping them clean.

Luckily, they are still under warranty and I only had to pay shipping for them to get fixed. Blake didn't understand why I couldn't just fix them. Maybe it was good for her to see them broken and not able to use them for a while. Hopefully it'll prevent her from breaking them again. 

She also had another check-up with her eye doctor to see how she is doing. I thought he was going to dilate her eyes to check if her prescription had changed, but he said it would do that at our next appointment in four months. He said that she is looking good, but it's too early to tell exactly what will happen in the future. These may continue to do the trick, she may have to have bifocals eventually, or he said possibly even surgery (though that's the first I've heard anything about that.) As of now, these glasses are working great and I'm not too worried. 

She gets a lot of compliments on her glasses. I'm so used to seeing her with them, that now it is really strange to see her with them off, especially since once she takes them off her eyes start to cross. I'm glad we are past the hard part of adjusting and hopefully things will just continue to improve. 

Broken Glasses

Do you remember this picture?

This was the first time Blake broke her glasses. It took about a week for her to get them back. Since she didn't have a second pair yet, she just went a week without glasses. We got them back just in time to go to Cedar City. Two days later on our way home, Blake handed me her glasses...in pieces.

Fortunately, the following day I received a call saying that her second pair had come in. I was super excited about this pair because they seemed to be the ones she really liked when we were trying them on. Plus the ends curl around the ears, so I thought they would stay on better. Turns out they don't. They were a little big and would constantly fall down and sit on the edge of her nose. And she really didn't seem to like them.

I was debating if I should take them in and ask if we could exchange for a different pair, since she seemed to dislike them so much and they weren't fitting quite right. Then Blake brought her glasses to me like this.

Oi! At least this looked like something that could hopefully be fixed and not have to be shipped away. So for the fourth time within a week, I hauled the kids to the glasses store. I received several looks of sympathy.

I thought maybe if I had the right tools I could have fixed this one on my own. But after waiting for them to return them, I'm glad I didn't even try. The screw was somehow wedged in there some way, and it took them over 30 minutes just to figure a way to get it out. Meanwhile, I decided to ask if there was any way that I could trade this pair for a different pair. I ended up getting the same pair as her first ones, but in purple. The only downside was that they were about half the price of the metal pairs and I ended up just eating the cost. Wish I would have known at the beginning.

Getting a bit tired of such frequent trips to this eye place, I decided to go check out Walmart and see what they had to offer. I got Blake a 3rd pair of glasses for about a third of what the other store cost. Another face palm. Why didn't I go there first?!

Anyways, they were extremely helpful and very accommodating. They even told me they would order a few extra frames so if Blake broke them, they could exchange them out that same day. Talk about service!

A week or two later, all 3 pairs of glasses decided to come in within about a day of one another. So she now has a pink and purple pair, and this black pair. And of course, since we finally have a backup pair, Blake hasn't broken a pair of glasses since.

 But I guess if that's what it takes, then that's what you do.


Blake also had a follow-up eye appointment on Monday. He wanted to see her 6 weeks after she started wearing her glasses. He said that she is looking really well. When she is wearing her glasses, her eyes are straightening out. When you take them off, however, they really turn inwards. But that is normal at this point. I was told she looked great, that she needs to continue wearing them full time, and that we would re-evaluate her eyes in 4-6 months.

A Week Later

A week later, and Blake's glasses now look like this:

My friend was babysitting Will and Blake while I was at the dentist, and when I returned to pick them up, she handed me the glasses in pieces. I'm not exactly sure what happened, but Will says she grabbed both parts and just pulled in opposite directions.

Unfortunately her second pair is still on back order and we are waiting for them to come in. Meanwhile, I took this broken pair back and they are repairing them, but it could take several days. Until then, Blake is without glasses again. And maybe it's just a coincidence, maybe not, but she has sure been grumpy since they broke. I really hope they get fixed quickly.

Luckily they have a warranty on the glasses and I shouldn't have to pay anything to have them fixed. And hopefully this doesn't become too common of an occurrence.