SANTA 2008

So every Christmas season we have taken our kids to get their picture taken with Santa. This year we debated on it, as Brooklyn, for some reason was quite afraid of him. At least one kid every year is crying in it, which just makes me laugh everytime I bring out the pictures. I realized that I would want a picture of them, crying or not, as it is kind of pur yearly growth chart, as well as a great laugh.

Yesterday morning, I told Brynn that we would go and see Santa and she was all excited. She then told Brooklyn that we would go and see Santa and she back up into her room saying, "No. No Santa" with a scared look. Brynn then spent a good part of the day telling Brooks that Santa is nice and brings you toys, etc. Brooks didn't care. She was not having any part of it. So we just dropped it until we got to the mall.

We are standing in the line and Brooklyn sees who we are waiting for. She starts to cry and wants up. I told the photographer that she was going to cry and that I didn't mind if she was crying in the picture. I am not sure Santa was too thrilled about it, but that's what you get for being Santa at the South Hill Mall. So Steve (the photographer) is trying to make up to Brooks and she was not having any part of it. Finally he told the Brev and Brynn to go sit on his lap and once Brooklyn gets on there just smile and only look at him.

So I scraped Brooklyn's limbs off of me and Santa did his grip to keep her on his lap. She was obviously hacked off that I did this and was screaming for mom. So he took a few pictures and then Steve was talking to her to try and calm her down. Then Santa started singing Rock-a-bye baby to her. It was quite cute at how hard they were trying to get a semi-decent picture of the kids. They pulled out a book and had Brooklyn point to a toy that she would like. They took a few more pictures of her fussing. BUT even through the fussing, she could say "Cheese" for the pictures. They took at least 15-20 minutes with my kids, which was way more than I expected. We ended up saying goodbye to Santa and went to look at the pictures.

They were quite hilarious, but it doesn't end there. Brynn was just watching Steve and Santa on the outside of the fence while he took 3 more families pictures with Santa. Then somehow Brynn got to go back to Steve and he sat her on his photographer stool and let her hold his camera and take a picture of Santa by herself. Ask me how she finagled that one...I don't know. Then she stayed sitting on the stool while he took a couple more kids' pictures with Santa. (Yes it took a while to decide on these pictures)

The next thing I know...Brynn is sitting in the red "toy" bag/container and Steve is taking her picture. Santa is over by the fan cooling off, as he is hot especially after fighting to keep a few kids on their lap and mine being one of them. He ended up taking at least 6 other pictures of just Brynn and then told Brynn to go pick her favorite picture. She ended up doing it and they made her a button out of the picture.

Talk about going above and beyond. Yes, I will definitely be going back there. Not to mention I got not just one pose....we got 19 pictures of the kids with Santa. Santa was playing hide-n-seek with some of the kids to try and make them laugh and they just had a good time with each kid. So after Brynn got her button, she went to say goodbye and thank Steve for the button. He was so excited she said thanks and told her and Brev that if they came back to the South Hill Mall, they needed to stop by and say HI to him and Santa. It was adorable how they were SO extremely nice to my kids, okay really Brynn. She got another person to LOVE her. Shocker. I know this is a long, long story just for some Santa pictures...but it was quite a fun evening. So here are the ever-loved Santa pictures. There are some of her at first on his lap and then some with her fussing and saying cheese at the same time....Oh the things we do to our kids.