Valentine's Day Pictures

So, these were not supposed to happen, let alone work out as well as they did, but such is my luck.  Daddy has been traveling quite a bit lately, and will be leaving us again the week of Valentine's Day.  To be clear, I HATE Valentine's Day, but being the mother of two girls on a holiday that features pink/purple girly-ness, it is my lot in life to do it up right.  I got a very last minute idea in my head last Friday to take the girls to JCPenney's for Valentine's Day pictures.  It was literally as we were getting ready on Friday morning that this idea popped into my head.  I threw their newly purchased novelty character Valentine's Day t-shirts and a couple of combs into a bag and away we went.  I didn't even have an appointment for pictures until just before lunch, but everything fell into place quite nicely. 

I had the afternoon off of work - Hannah had a doctor's appointment already scheduled to have the stitch removed from her forehead (oh, did I not tell you about that?  what?  would you not normally schedule pictures until facial lacerations have healed?  lame!).  So at 1:45 my baby was having a stitch plucked out of her head and by 2:30 we were at the mall having a quick snack before our photo shoot.  I am just trying to frame the context here to give you some idea of how low my expectations for success were.  The bar was set at approximately zero for taking away anything salvageable, but at $4 per portait sheet, I really had nothing to lose.

So the photo shoot begins, and Hannah immediately starts screaming when the photographer touches her.  I am not the slightest bit concerned about this, as I mentioned previously that I had zero expectations for this working out anyway.  But then something miraculous happens - Hannah becomes cooperative!  For perhaps the first time in her life, she behaves on cue!!  There was truly some higher power involved here.  Anywho, I ended up with like 5 billion photos that I don't need, but it was a very successful shoot and will hopefully make for a nice surprise for Daddy (and probably the Grandma's as well - they tend to covet cute pics of the girls together).  See below for a small sample of the pictures.