Charlie Chaplin is back.

Last week at Taylor and Blake's school, some photographers came to do the annual school pictures. They were going to do individual and also group pictures. I was excited about it for 2 weeks prior to that. The reason I'm so excited every year is because I am doing this 13 picture collage. It has a 5x7 in the middle where my kids' senior picture will go and has 12 small ovals (mini-wallet size) all the way around it for Kindergarten through Junior year. So I'm always excited to add to my collage. Well, the order forms came in and I started looking at the prices...YIKES. All I was really interested in were the mini-wallets to put in the collage. The SMALLEST package available was 4: mini wallets and 1: 3 1/2 x 5 and the price on that package was $8.50! Ridiculous! It's not the price that really bothered me, it's the amount of pictures that you get for that price. So I quickly changed my mind on school pictures, however, I did order Taylor and Blake a group picture. So I immediately made an appointment at JCPenneys, because they also offer mini-wallets. I looked online and found a coupon that gave me a free sitting fee, free 8x10 and a package deal (1: 8x10, 2: 5x7, 4:3 1/2 x5, and 16 wallets) for $7.99. Then, when I go to pick up the pictures they send a thing called a "spec sheet" which has the mini wallets. I think it is $9.99. So I will get SO many more pictures this way. And, I get to actually pick which picture I wanted, instead of just hoping that the school picture looked good from the school.
So, picture day came and we went to JCPenneys. They let us bring one extra set of clothes for a change in the middle of the session. She started out with denim jeans, a pink shirt, covered by a denim jacket. Then we changed her into some black pin-striped pants, a white blouse, covered by a black sweater. The photographer saw the outfit and ran over and got this hat and asked her to do a few things with the hat, like raise it, hold it with her hand/hands, etc. She mentioned to me that she wished she had a cane. I knew that she was meaning that she reminded her of Charlie Chaplin. I knew those pictures she was taking with the hat would be cute. We got done with the pictures and they said that they like to play around with the pictures for about 30 minutes and show us some things they can do with the pictures. Taylor had some birthday money leftover so we went into the mall and let her spend it. She decided to buy an outfit for her bear (at Build a Bear Workshop). We went back to JCPenneys and another lady (not the photographer) came up and said that she was having a lot of fun playing with the pictures and requested a few more minutes. So we waited and when she was done we looked at all the pictures. They were all SO cute! She had taken the "Charlie Chaplin" pics and made several collages with it. She even wrote on the collages,"Charlie ain't got nothin' on me!" So she thought the same thing as me and the photographer. It was SO hard to turn down those pictures, but the only reason I got her pictures taken was to put in my collage. So I had to. She asked me while we were looking at the pictures if I would sign a release form to the company, so they could use those Charlie pictures if they wanted to. That's how cute they were. It was really a fun day. I'm getting Blake's done today, they would only let me do one child per day. I enclosed the proof sheet to give you an idea of what they looked like. (The second picture is the package I chose.)