The New Baby is Having His Pictures Made Alone!

I've been wanting to take the boys to have their pictures made for some time now.  They had cute Christmas outfits that I thought would make a nice picture.  Time slipped away.  Then I thought we'd do pictures around Clayton's fourth birthday.  They had cute Easter outfits.  Again, time slipped away.  So now it's summer.  The last time the boys had a picture made together was March of 2009.  Eli was three months old.  I had some pictures made of just Eli that May when he was five months old, and Clayton had a school picture made in the fall, but I don't have anything halfway recently together. 

I will say that one reason this has not been a priority is because I know my children.  They have zero interest in having their picture made.  Clayton is in this really awkward fake, forced smile stage, and Eli is a crazy animal who will not sit down for anyone or anything.  I've been dreading attempting pictures, and let me tell you, my fears were certainly valid.

Wednesday morning.  We all wake up.  We don't really have anything pressing on the schedule.  I make an inpromtu phone call to Portrait Innovations.  They have a 4:30 slot.  Perfect.  Just after naps and snacks, just before dinner.  Not an hour later Eli runs into the side of the piano and ends up with a bruise on his forehead.  Oh well.  That's what he's looked like most of his life, so I don't worry about it.

We had a pretty good day with pretty good naps, and we headed over to the store for our appointment.  Things went pretty much as I had expected they would.  Eli would not sit down for anything.  Clayton listened and sat, but getting a smile, even a forced, awkward smile from him was not easy, and trying to get both of those things at the same time was nearly impossible.  Eli thought the whole thing was a big game, and he was thrilled to be playing.  I didn't want to get too firm with him because I knew it would upset him, and then there would be tears instead of smiles.  By the end the two photographers and myself were completely beat from chasing Eli all over the studio.  I thought I might just have a baby right there in the studio.  They must have taken at least 40 shots of the boys together, and of those 40, there was only one I considered buying.  One.  Period.

They were able to get a few individual shots of the boys that were cute, so that was good, and really, all I needed was one shot of them together, so mission somewhat accomplished.

The Brothers Zeitler, when there was just Clayton and Eli...

This is it folks, so enjoy it.  Nothing spectacular.  Just two little boys looking halfway well behaved and smiling.

Clayton, 4yrs, 2mo

Eli 18mo

I would have loved to have some on a white background.  Don't think we didn't try.  I would have loved to have some full body shots.  They have on really cute brown and teal plaid shorts.  Oh well, at least I got these. 

When the new baby comes I think he's going to have to have his pictures made alone.  I can't imagine attempting this again anytime soon.