Our Little Punkin' and the Big Scary Haybale

We finally got our computer set up, so I'm going to be posting some of my favorite pictures of the year over the next week or so, but I thought I'd start out with the most current. I wanted to take some pictures for Danny's birthday invitation. I decided to go with a pumpkin theme since his birthday is in October. My grandma made this adorable pumpkin costume for Justin when he was about 9 months old and he, I and my sister all wore it. I wanted to put Danny in it for the invitation pictures, but I wasn't sure how he'd like it. We put it on him, and he thought it was great. He laughed and patted it. He admired himself in the mirror. Everything was going fine until we got him outside for the picture. Then he completely fell apart! We couldn't figure out what was wrong with him, but he was getting sleepy, so we put him to bed and figured we'd try again after he had a nap. He woke up, and it was the same story. He was perfectly happy in the costume in the house. He was just fine outside until we set him down to take the picture, then he started screaming hysterically and trying to get someone, anyone, to hold him. We finally figured out that even with someone holding him, he kept looking at the big haybale behind him. We moved all of the props elsewhere, and he did better, but he never quite fully recovered. I needed to get the invitations that day, because I'd be seeing a lot of family and wanted to deliver as many as possible in person instead of having to mail them, so I took what I could get. Here are some of the results.

Daddy rescued him from the scary haybale.

This is a small improvement... He's begging to be picked up, but he's not hysterical, yet...

Uh-oh! Here it is. The third meltdown.

He LOVES Zeb, so we thought we'd call him over. That would surely get a smile, but apparently, when you've been threatened by a killer haybale, even Zeb is scary.

Sami brought out a towel and started spinning it around, which usually gets belly laughs. No real smiles, but at least he's not screaming!

Oh well. This will have to do! My little guy usually isn't afraid of anything, so I'm not sure what the deal was, but if you get an invitation and he doesn't look his usual happy self, now you know why!