It is time to get our paperwork in order so that if an opportunity does come up, we can jump on it. We don't have passports for the babies yet. We had started down that path once with James so that we could visit Toronto, the closest largest city near Rochester, NY, but Grandma and Grandpa ended up baby sitting for a night instead.
At that time, I attempted to take James' picture on my own. We have plain white walls in our apartment and I sat him up in a bumbo seat. I could not get the photo to regulation standards. If I could get him facing forward, there was a shadow or a bump on the wall, or he would lean toward me... The State Department also suggested putting a white sheet on the car seat, that was a disaster and full of wrinkles and shadows. So, I decided to pay for some professional help. When I called around, it turned out that very few places will do toddler and baby photos.
This morning, I brought Caterina in for her "newborn" portraits at JC Penney. They will do adult passport photos, but not little ones, as is the case for many passport photo services. When calling around, no one said they did baby photos. However, I walked into my local CVS and they did his by laying him down on tagboard. I was impressed by the woman's knowledge of regulations. I plan to take my kids back there this week so we can apply for passports this weekend.
I will try again to look for suggestions online so we can do our own, but if I fail, the following are local options according to phone calls I've made today. I would imagine it's similar nationwide, as these places are all chains:
-Walmart
-CVS
-Walgreens
-FedEx
-UPS
-http://www.epassportphoto.com/ (free online service, but not terribly different than just doing it yourself.)
Here is the passport requirements page from the US Department of state: http://travel.state.gov/passport/pptphotoreq/pptphotoreq_5333.html.
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