She gets total deer in the head lights look when a stranger is behind the camera asking her to smile. So buying the professional photos that her studio does is not an option. Last years were scary funny and just kinda awkward. I was frustrated last year, but this year expected it and planned on getting some good ones of her at home.

This year didn’t go much better…. SO funny. And she knew. She tried SO hard to relax and just have fun in front of the strange guys camera and just landed in awkward. We both laughed about it. And it was fine because we had a plan.

The above photo is the day the costumes got handed out. The girls were super excited to try them on. Kaylee was beaming!

I should have taken a before makeup photo. Poor kiddos allergy shots had left her tomato faced. I did some major stage/performance makeup on her to get her face back to it’s more “normal” look. She was SO worried when she saw her tomato face on photo day that everyone would be staring and that she would look strange.

BUT I am a huge fan of makeup for photos. People (in my family. I’m sure others too.) tend to get super washed out and look not quite like their real life self in pictures. The flash is a frienamy. Makeup is a hero when flash photography needs to happen.

And this kiddo of mine has had years of light makeup done twice a year for family photos and is on year two of stage/performance makeup. Kaylee is awesome at holding still like a statue for makeup application. She’s not a super big fan of performance makeup (who is really?), but she likes how she looks in it for performances, especially when she wakes up tomato faced and can still walk confidently into her dance studio on photos day and give the photographer her best frozen deer in headlight smile. 😉

She was giving me all sorts of awesomeness in the waiting room before getting called in.

And she even had her normal beautiful smile standing in line waiting for her turn. And then BAM! As soon as it’s her turn in front of the camera she freezes up. Because, “Mom, it’s just weird smiling for someone I don’t know.” So she clearly will not ever be a super model. I’m okay with that. 😉But at home with me or her Daddy behind the camera we get all sorts of her little personality shining through each photo we take of her. And it’s all her. She just does pose, pose, pose. We just click away.