Photo studio nightmare

A picture of my children, wearing cute clothes (and hair done!) where they are both smiling. That's all I wanted when I went to Sear's to get the kids' picture taken. I recruited Curtis to come along with me, to help make Elizabeth and Micah smile. Little did I know his true purpose was to keep me from losing my mind.

I was so optimistic as we walked into Sears. Then I heard the all too familiar scream of, "No!" from Alexis. The Findleys were trying to get pictures taken of Alexis, and had their appointment right before ours (great minds think alike). After much turmoil, they finally were able to get a good picture. It's too funny because she really does look angelic in the picture! Christi and Michael had a different view of their daughter though.

We walk into the studio for our turn, not know the impending doom that awaited us. We naively set our children down, thinking that this whole thing will be over with in about 20 minutes, after all, these are the professionals, right?

Half an hour later, I looked at our photographer, who had been unable to take one picture of the kids (though there was a great one of Micah, but Elizabeth was in the background sulking) and told her that the end had come, and that we're leaving. Maybe I was hearing things, but I think there was an audible sigh. It wasn’t that the kids were being bad, we just couldn’t get Micah to smile, and Elizabeth had better things to do that sit around and wait for said smile But the poor lady must have had a death wish that day, and suggested that we come back after getting something to eat.

We went back, tried for another half and hour, and left with nothing. Yet the nice Sears lady said, "Don't worry about it, let's just reschedule."

With much dread, Christi and I went to Sears a week later, to try again. We were in and out in 30 minutes (and that included paying for everything). Here's the glorious end result!

I would like to thank the following people for making this picture possible:

The nice Sears lady. Thanks for not killing my kids!

Christi, you're the best! I owe you big time now!!

The wonderful people who invented M&M's, along with the genius who contrived the bribe.

And lastly, the nice Sonic people, who supplied me with the Diet Coke I needed to get though the whole ordeal.