Hi Everyone!

I don’t know about you, but I love taking professional pictures with my family. The very first time I did this was for our maternity shoot when I was pregnant with baby Henry. I had never done a photo shoot before and I decided to go with JCPenney Portrait Studio because I found a coupon in a magazine.

The photographer was super nice and we felt she really did a fabulous job with our pictures. At the time, we didn’t purchase the $99 CD with all the images because we couldn’t afford it, we only bought a select images. Then when I went to pick up those prints, they sold us more prints! In reality, we probably should’ve just bought the CD and be done with it!

On the left is one of the images we saved. We have about 5-6 others around the house.

Baby Henry was born a week later!

We enjoyed this shoot so much that a few months after baby Henry was born, we decided to do another photo shoot! Again with JCPenney and this time I bought a coupon from Amazon Local (obsolete now). Amazon Local was similar to Groupon and Living Social and they had such great offers, but alas it is no more. With this coupon I got a free mage on a CD and we bought a few images as well. Since we had free sitting fees, we invited my parents, brother, sister-in-law, nieces and my nephew to join us. Baby Henry was a few months old in this picture and he’s wearing his going home outfit from the hospital. Remember it barely fit him? Well, it fit him for this shoot! He was asleep for most of the shoot, but awake for our part. We actually arrived late to this shoot and had to wait and see if they could still take us. They did, but it was a relatively short shoot. The photographer took a few pix of my whole family, then wanted to wrap it up. I asked her if she could take just a few of us, after all we did pay for the shoot, it wasn’t free. She obliged. We bought several images which adorn our apartment, but again, we didn’t buy the CD.

The birthday boy!

The following year, 2015, we did another photo shoot. This time I got a coupon from Groupon since Amazon Local went kaput. It was for free prints. This session was only for baby Henry. He was turning 1!! I wanted to capture a few special moments on camera so again we went to JCPenney in April and baby Henry was the star of his shoot.

They provided the letter and the bench turned on its side since my son could stand at that point, but wasn’t walking yet, only crawling.

We loved the way these pictures came out. We still didn’t buy that darn CD though! We couldn’t justify the $99 price tag.

Holding his ultrasound pictures

A couple of months later, we were back at JCP again! Obsessed perhaps? Yes! I love taking pictures of my family! This time, I decided I wanted to give this session to my dad as a Father’s Day gift. So, I rounded up all my brothers (the older one was visiting from Florida) and we all wore red since it is my father’s favorite color, and we went to JCPenney for a fun shoot.This photographer was amazing! We must’ve been in there taking pictures for over an hour! He was so patient and had some really good ideas.

We did group pictures with everyone, then we did single family pictures. Then we did all girls/ all boys. Then just my parents, and finally just my parents with my two brother and I (The youngest!).

Overall, I really loved the way these photos came out. THIS time, you can bet we bought the CD since we were able to divide the cost by the three siblings. My parents didn’t pay ‘cuz it was for them. And I let my dad choose which three prints he wanted to order. They are now framed and hanging in their living room in Ecuador.

Mom, Dad, and little sweet pea. This would later turn out to be our image for our Holiday cards which we got free from Minted!

About to go to our shoot!

Fast forward to 2016 and the birth of my little precious. In keeping with years prior, you know I just HADDDDD to have a photo shoot. Groupon. Oh, Groupon where are you?? Although I was still upset with them for the disastrous Fourth of July we had with them, I decided I would give them another shot. After all, how could they mess up a JCP shoot? They couldn’t! So, I bought the promotion. And we got ready.

Daddy and baby Henry would wear matching outfits. Evangeline would wear a floral dress and Mommy would wear a loose-fitting stretchy dress ‘cuz I was still breastfeeding and I couldn’t wear anything tight over my chest or… plugged ducts. So painful.

Originally, baby and daddy were going to wear something more formal, but it was just too hot! So Daddy picked out their outfits. We were in a hurry (when are we ever NOT in a hurry) and so I really didn’t have time to comb or grab a headband for Evangeline, which I really regret now. Also, her hair was sticking up because one day prior I had slathered oil on her head to get rid of her cradle cap. But that usually takes another good wash to rinse away, so… she had spiky hair, which the photographer thought was so cute.

I, in turn, had tried to curl my hair, but it did not hold in the heat. It took us 15 minutes to get from our house to JCP and in those 15 those curls died! Ugh! I really hated the way my hair turned out. Everyone else looked great though!

Then There Was Trouble!

Guess who thought photo shoots are really areas where they can run around in?

… waiting our turn.

With Daddy…

Yep, you guessed it. The little dude named Henry, Jr. He thought having everyone chase after him was the funniest thing. I about near had a heart attack. The photographer tried to get as many good pictures as possible, some were kind of funny I must admit.

Little princess was an angel like always. She just laid there, quiet as usual. In some pictures I just had to laugh because she had this look on as if to say, “Seriously, Henry? Seriously?!” I love her so much!

After this shoot was done, we decided we wanted to buy the CD again, except now all the images don’t come on a CD anymore, only the altered ones. Now, you can get all images digitally by signing into your JCPenny Portrait studio account and downloading the images to your computer/ phone/ tablet. This is pretty cool. You don’t have to wait a week anymore to pick up your images. With our promotion we were able to get one free print which we got of the three of us and which we will give to Henry’s parents who live in Ecuador.