Picture People

I realize by now that we are gluttons for punishment but there are certain things that just need to be done. Pictures, for example, need to be done. I want to have special memories of the kids throughout their childhood so I can look back in twenty years (once the crazy, day to day memories have long been forgotten) and remember how cute/sweet/loving they were.
I decided that it was time to get their pictures taken. I'd been wanting to do this since their 2nd and 3rd birthdays but we were going so crazy with the move that it wasn't possible then. I'm smart enough to realize that this is a task that definitely requires a minimum of two adults. (Granted, two adults per child would not be overdoing it.) We headed out to the mall today to accomplish this daunting task. Last year we had their pictures done and the boys actually did very well. The pictures, in my opinion, we absolutely adorable too! I got them dressed in their coordinating outfits. A bit of a hassle with Jameson but he eventually agreed. (OK, maybe I bribed him.) They were quite excited to go to the mall and get them done. It looked promising. Uh huh....shouldn't get my hopes up.
We went to Picture People and realized that there was a family session in there just getting started. The woman said she would be able to take us in an hour. OK, not so bad. We had a few things we could pick up at the mall in the meantime. We went strolling through the mall (literally, we actually remembered to bring the stroller. The boys actually wanted to ride in it at first since they hadn't seen it in so long.) and immediately heard, "I need to poo". Lovely. Then Stellan piped up, "I wanna see alligator (translation: elevator)". Well, we were able to kill two birds with one stone; the washroom (I refuse to call it a bathroom or a restroom just to fit in with Americans) was located on the second floor and we needed to take the elevator. Two happy kids, things were good!
We did the rest of our shopping and the boys were quite well behaved. There was one saleslady who was wonderful and entertained the boys while James and I did a bit of browsing. What a huge help!
We headed back to the picture place to wait our turn. And wait, and wait.... We let the boys get out of their stroller and play on the mall rides. I promised them each a ride if they did well during the photo shoot. They played nicely, climbing on all of the equipment. We headed back into the studio for our turn. They both gladly stood on the backdrop while the woman got her camera ready. Apparently, according to their attention challeneged minds, she was taking too long so they decided to run back and forth from the front doors of the store to the picture area. Lovely. I picked Jameson up, trying to calmly explain that we needed them on the backdrop in order to take pictures. He was screaming, crying and flailing at this point. What a lovely picture that would have made. I upped the ante (2 rides) if he agreed to get his pictures taken. She got some shots done and then Jameson lost it. He started crying and burying his head in my lap. We still don't know what caused that but we think the camera lady might have come up behind him and startled him. I eventually calmed him down, we switched the backdrop and we were good to go for a few more shots. We decided to go with a fall them and had silk leaves on the ground. The kids thought they were great and tried kicking them all over the place. Uh, not exactly what she had in mind. She asked if I minded if she got a ball to add to the photo. Uh, are you joking?!?! Jameson would be thrilled! Sure enough, the giant football was just what the doctor ordered. Jameson was quite pleased and we were able to get some solo shots of him. We called it good enough and waited for the pictures to come up on the screen. You've gotta love digital cameras! James took the kids for the promised rides while I waited for the pictures. They were quite busy in there so I had to wait for quite some time. James ran out of money for the rides so they all ended up back in the store. I let them play with the props but I was always worried they'd play with the flashes and cameras. Thankfully no major incidents and we were able to see the pictures. Lots of shots but only a few nice ones. There was a really cute one of Stellan on a white background. Then we realized there were none of Jameson with the white background (that was during the unexplained cryfest). I really wanted some of him with the white so they would coordinate when I hang them. She willingly took a few more shots (heck, what can she do, that's what she's paid for!) of just Jameson. I tried to get some of both of them on these adorable ride on toys but they were more interested in riding away.
It was too much work to sit there and try to pick out our favourite shots so we decided to pick them out at home and order them that way. Gotta love online shopping!
We made it home with our sanity in tact and some potentially nice shots to choose from. I declare this expedition a success!