Guest post - Dress up Photo shoots

Ever since I was a little girl I dreamed of being a mom. From the moment I turned five I automatically knew I wanted a boy and a girl. Nothings seemed more perfect than having one of each and to enjoy the best of both worlds. So here I am twenty-five years later and that is just what I have, Caleb and Anna.

Caleb is courageous and combative in his aggressive play, always looking for a good opportunity to wrestle you to the ground. Anna is as petite and feminine as a girl could get, with her four pretend-children of her own and spectacular ability to color on everything in sight. One thing they both have in common is neither of them is shy.

In fact, at times it can get a bit ridiculous. They love to get their picture taken, but they love to perform for mom and dad while getting their picture taken even more. Truthfully we get just as much a kick out of watching them as they do posing and performing for us. Needless to say, one of our favorite things to do is to take pictures of the kids all around the city. Our kids love to play in the water, and we thought; "what better way to communicate their personalities than through photography?"

We found a great park that had a water feature and a pond that the kids could play in. We painted Anna's face, and found a great fish costume to dress her up in as if to appear to be swimming in the pond. We then found a fabulous bear costume to perfectly fit Caleb’s personality. So the story unfolded in the pictures where Caleb the big bad bear was chasing Anna the innocent fish swimming in the water. Lets just say that the costumes and the facepaint didn’t last very long, but it sure was fun for all of us to enjoy the moment while it were there.

Downtown was another creative place we took pictures of the kids. This time we thought it would be fun to dress them up in similar outfits, but with a twist. They both had on adorable black top hats we found at a thrift store. Anna had a black skirt and white shirt while Caleb was sporting some old fashioned black trousers and a white button up shirt. We couldn’t resist finishing off their perfect ensembles with mom and dad matching the look.

I was wearing a gorgeous pink dress from the 40s and dad was in a pretty dapper looking suit complete with a bow tie. In fact, father and son both had matching pinkbow ties! With some pink roses and a pink cane, it made for some incredible pictures that we will always have on our living room wall.
One of our all-time-favorite photo shoots was one we did at Christmas time. For many families, sitting on Santa’s lap is an annual tradition. This setting usually includes Santa sitting in a big gold chair with a colourful collage of props all around him. For this one, there was a giant Christmas tree and monster size packages that were in a winter wonderland.

We, like all the other parents, also took our kids to see Santa but we put a twist on it. We dressed up Anna like a cute blonde headed ginger bread cookie. Caleb proudly wore a full chef attire with a white coat and a tall white hat. All of Santa’s helpers had just as much fun as we did, the pictures came out just as great as we had hoped. ThisChristmas, Caleb the chef brought Santa a cookie. You guessed it – Anna was the cookie!

We know that quality time like this is short-lived and we want to make the most of our time that we have with our kids. These fun photo shoots have been full of laughs and great bonding times and we have some great photos to remember the occasion to boot! The post was written by Becky.

Here is our little man dressed as Christmas Elf more than a year ago

This post was contributed by Becky W.