The Adventures of Trouble & Super Nibbles: A Bunch of Hams

Like a lot of parents, we have tried to get professional photos of our kids taken at least once a year. Over the last six years, I think we have tried most of the usual photo studios: Sears, JCPenny, Target, Kiddie Kandids. Each had their issues: Sears and JCPenny required appointments and a 6 week wait on prints. Kiddie Kandids took walk-ins and printed your photos immediately. Unfortunately, their time management stunk. They underestimated the amount of time required to take pictures, so, even if you had an appointment, you were frequently stuck waiting. . . sometimes up to an hour. And, let me tell you, it is not pleasant to wait an hour with kids in dress clothes. Bribery was rampant, just to attempt to keep the kids happy long enough to get semi decent photos.

Enter Living Social. I was not paying attention to any of the "Deal of the Day" type websites. Until the day my friend, Amanda, sent me an e-mail about a deal from Living Social. For $80, you got a 1-hour photo shoot at a location of your choice plus a CD with 50 hi-res photos. Even after I print some, I would still spend less money than Kiddie Kandids (since I seemed to spend around $140 to get the CD plus all the prints). The only restriction, the location had to be within 1 hours drive of Boston.

And that is how we met Kate Femino. I paid for the deal, and scheduled a photo session at our house. That way, I can keep our kids entertained with their toys, video games, movies, etc. The only challenge would be finding ways to get cute photos in our home. Luckily, Kate being a skilled photographer, she had lots of great ideas.

As the photos clearly prove, Mikie is quite a ham. Mikie was not only happy to insert himself into EVERY photo, he was very opinionated on what would make good shots. Mikie playing air hockey. . . Mikie with his Lego Death Star. . . Mikie jumping on the trampoline. . . Mikie channeling Richard Nixon's famous "V signs". Once again, I swear this child is the male embodiment of my sister; Katie was always hamming it up in front of the camera.

To end the photo session, I bought cupcakes to stage a birthday celebration for Hannah. Thought process being, we never seem to have decent pictures of the four of us at birthday parties. Or, it might have been a decent picture if my mouth wasn't open singing. Unfortunately, these shots were filled with me almost strangling my first born, since he continued to climb across the counter and blow out the candles before Kate could get a shot of Hannah doing so. She did manage to get some cute close-ups of the princess with a mouthful of frosting.