Christmas card photo fail

Here's the deal. I promised we wouldn't spend more money on professional pictures until 18 months. So that means DIY for the Christmas card. I got some props and such and gave it a go yesterday. I had all kinds of issues with my photos pictures being too dark and with blurriness. But that was only part of the problem.

Babies are so much easier to photograph than toddlers.

My first strategy was to try to get her to be near this little Christmas tree thing. I used Elmo to entice her. He's Christmas-y red, right? For some reason, she just stuck her tongue out at him.

Then, I tried to get her to put a little ornament on the tree.

But she just wanted to throw it. So I tried a new location and used a green blanket as a back drop. I put a Santa hat on her. She took it off. Then, she just wanted to climb on top of the coffee table that was holding up my backdrop. Hmph. I tried a new idea: First location, snow props. Note the location of the hat.
Back to the green backdrop. I used chairs to hold it up this time, and then I gave her strand of red bead garland to play with, but she got wrapped up in it.
Then she started dragging her toys out. I thought I might go with it -- you know Santa/toys/elves and all that, but I couldn't get her to look up.
Then, I remembered the giant sucker. I stole this idea from somewhere. At first, I thought it was going to work.


But then she broke it.

Well, after all that, I changed my strategy again. But you'll just have to watch your mail for that.