Photo session

Not for the eyes of Wendy---only becuase I don't want her to die that we went to JCPenney for these pictures...

It was a day that will live in infamy. Last week, Shannon and I took all the kids to JCPenney in the mall to get pictures of them together like we did a couple years ago, to give to her dad. We signed up for their first appointment at 9:10am so Madison had to miss the first portion of school. What was amazing was that Shannon, with her 3 kids and 9 months pregnant, got all her kids bathed, hair done and at the "studio" before the appointment time. Meanwhile, me with my two kids struggled to race in almost 10 minutes late. So while I touched up Allison's hair with the curler (which she is deathly afriad of since I sorta burned her ear that morning with it), Madison got her individual pictures done. Then on to the sweat factory. Yes, getting 5 kids ranging from 10 months to 7 years to stay seated in place let alone smile is quite the task. Shannon and I were bribing like mad--which sadly wasn't working. I thought by bringing some mini marshmellows, I could shove them in the kids mouths and they'd be happy and sit still. Not so. Instead, Drew and Allison pretty much had their hands out the whole time begging for more marshmellows.
Finally we would get everyone set and I couldn't get Cole, the leech, to pry his hands off of me. Then, he would let go and sit right and then Drew would stand up in the middle with the custest little look, begging for more marshmellows, and finally when we got Drew and Cole seated and happy, Allison decided she didn't want to share a seat with Audrey anymore and started shoving her off of the stool. I think the other customers waiting their turn were entirely entertained. But it gets better, finally, after promising a "booty shake" and shoving a mini marshmellow in my 10 month old--yes ten month old son, I hopped up and gave my booty a shake (which brought a real big smile and laugh from this man watching the parade, and they all smiled and thank heaven the lady snapped the picture and the war was over.
But that wasn't the end of the fun day, no, we decided that while we waited 15 minutes for the pictures to be ready for viewing, we would go see Santa in the mall. We got there and the people said it was a 30 minute wait. Alright, that's tolerable, Shannon took the kids over to the tree play area...that blasted place, and after making Allison promise not to run away, off they went. 45 minutes later, halfway through the line, with my arm about to fall off from carrying my 20+ lb. child, we felt like we had already waited so long that we couldn't leave now. Thank goodness on the last half of the wait, there was a TV showing clips of Christmas movies for the kids to watch. So they comfortably sprawled out on the dirty mall floor in their brand new Christmas dresses and watched. Shannon and I were at a low caring point by then and waited impatiently for the freaking long line to slowly move-- due to the operation being led by some high school drops outs---Wendy--next year, hire a santa and take pictures because you would make BANK!!!



We were like 4 people away from the front when we were told they needed to reload their paper so Santa woul come through the line and say hello. I was snapping pictures like crazy and I was like -ok we got our pictures! They were charging 16 bucks for a 5X7 which of course we weren't going to buy and no sign said we couldn't use our own camera so when we got to the front and they tried to tell us we had to purchase something to use our own cameras- Shannon pretty much told them that we had earned our right to take our own pictures since we waited 1 1/2 hours in a "30 minute" line. Allison kept saying she was tired and wanted her binky for a nap so when we got to the front of the line and she said she didn't even want to see santa I was like whatever--Cole is going to then. So after the picture of Shannon's kids with Santa and Drew ever so excited to be taking pictures again, and Cole with Santa, which as soon as he realized there is a hairy man holding me he go the look of all times on his face, we wisked the children off after our 2.5 second visit and headed back up to JCPenney to spend even more time with our tired hungry children trying to choose poses we liked...which thank goodness some existed.





Then we went to Costco to feed the kids cheap pizza and Cole completely conked after drinking a cold bottle of formula on our way there. The kids ate pizza and watched a movie in my car and then we headed home at last. And that, my friends is the recipe to sending yourself strait to the insane assylum.