Caution: You are about to experience EXTREME CUTENESS. Brace yourself.
Y’all have met Annabelle before. But this time the shoot was all about her and her two years of life. And she was ready to work it.
Annabelle’s momma, Jennifer (who makes a debut later in the post), put together a Fresh Beat Band themed birthday party for Annebelle, so she wanted her two-year-old pictures to go with that theme.
The ever-trusty Jillian Palomino, James and myself  got to the area early to scout out the perfect wall for such a theme and here it was, it all it’s musical glory.
That face kills me. Every time.
We began to hit a two-year-old wall . . . but don’t worry! She bounces back.
Don’t worry, I get you, girl. Sometimes my shoes are more interesting to me than everything else too.
Oh gosh. I can barely handle all this cuteness. Hand on hip AND scrunch face?!?!
(sidenote: It was James’ idea to put the “2” on the hydrant. Yay for quick-thinking husbands!)
And then Jennifer stepped in for some pictures with lil Annabelle too. And Annabelle didn’t mind sharing the spotlight with her beautiful momma.
I love my job.
Meet Audrey.
I should have seen it coming when Audrey first walked up to me talking about “the horses.” She had seen some horses on their walk to meet me and it was all she could talk about.
I didn’t think twice about it. She’s a two-year-old. Surely she’ll forget about the horses.
First I tried distracting her — Audrey loved playing the “let’s throw leaves at the camera” game with her mom, Nicole. Worked like a charm.
She was interested in the water for a bit, but the next thing I knew? She was talking about those horses again. Nicole and I promised her we’d go see them before we were finished and that held her for over for a bit longer.
Audrey’s little sister, Harper, was there too. Gotta love those baby spit-bubbles.
Up to this point Audrey has been talking about “the horses” with increasing fervency, so we decided to head back in the general direction of the horses.
I picked a spot where she could SEE the horses from a distance. That was my first mistake.
She made a beeline for the horses. Several beelines actually.
Mistake number two — thinking that letting her get closer to the horses for a short time would curb some of the horses’ allure. Nope. Audrey could have waved at those horses all day.
Thankfully the horse had to go take a bath so we waved good-bye and kept taking pictures.
This picture. makes me laugh. every time. Look at that determined look on her face. She WILL get to that horse.
I wish I could remember what I did to make her laugh. I’m surely going to need to use that trick again in the future.
Darling. Just darling.
Nicole. You are a great mother. I’m just going to say what everyone else is thinking.
Everything about this picture on the left says “sweet little girl” to me.
Then came: the stairs.
Audrey looooooooooooooooooooooved those stairs. Perhaps she could see the horses better from the top?
She was up the stairs. Down the stairs. Up the stairs. Hahaha, I’m sure it was quite the sight because I was just running back up and down the stairs too trying to stay in front of her.
She showed off her ballerina moves at the top of the stairs. Then it was back down the stairs to help mom up the stairs.
Look at that toe point! She has a future in ballet for sure.
You know, I made a lot of trips up and down those stairs that day. I chased after Audrey as Audrey chased after horses. I talked in all kinds of voices to keep her attention.
But at the end of the session when Audrey said she wanted me to hold her? It was all worth it.
For Audrey, it hadn’t been getting her pictures taken.
It had been one long game with her new friend.
And that’s alright by me.
This is an ode to a chair — a cute, vintage, perfect-for-a-photo-shoot chair.
A chair that, alas, was never used in Audrey’s two-year shoot yesterday.
Audrey’s grandma brought this adorable chair from her childhood to the shoot for us to use as a prop — but as far as I can tell “chair” was somehow synonymous with “torture device” in Audrey’s understanding.
I love this photo below because it looks like Audrey is planning some form of escape from or attack on the chair.
Don’t you worry, blog readers. There are still lots and lots of great smiling-happy-laughing shots to be had from the shoot — just none including “the chair.”
Oh, beloved chair, one day perhaps you, Audrey and I will be able to reunite peaceably — just not this day.
(Keep watching for the full blog post of Audrey’s two-years-old pictures soon!)
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