A Special Photo Shoot

Andra and I had a special mommy & me date a few weeks ago, but I wanted to wait to blog about it until I could include the pictures!

It had been over a year-and-a-half since we'd had any professional photos taken of her, so I decided to have her "three year" photos taken a little early...since her actual birthday in mid-September is also her little brother's due date. I was afraid if we didn't do them now, we'd never get around to it.

So Andra and I spent the morning at the JC Penney photo studio and had a lot of fun. She was in a great mood, so she gave us lots of smiles. Here's a few of my favorites... (this is her Easter dress that, so far, she's only worn on Easter Sunday. I LOVE this dress and was tickled to pull it back out of her closet!)

The photographer told us to bring something that she loves to have some photos taken with. Well, duh. Her blankie. She hardly goes anywhere without it, and NEVER sleeps without it. Her Great Aunt Carolyn made it for her before she was even born, and it has become THE blankie.

I also wanted to have a few maternity photos taken with Andra for posterity's sake. I love the one of Andra checking out her belly! Earlier in my pregnancy, she used to always tell me SHE had a baby in her belly too. (If you click on the photos, you can see a much larger image of them)

We had a great morning together, and she was so well behaved, I wanted to treat us to a special lunch (ok, ok...I really just wanted to treat MYSELF to a nice lunch!). So we headed to Cheesecake Factory for a "fancy lunch" just the two of us and had a blast. She amazes me...I really feel like she's a dining companion now...we can sit there and have a conversation. I love it. I hope she'll always want to go to lunch with her Mom. And it took every ounce of willpower I had to get our cheesecake to go so I could share it with Dad that night. :)