Cousin Portraits & Meeting Santa

Randi and I share a lot of hobbies and interests. One of our addictions is taking pictures and/or having portraits taken of our sweet girls so it was a given that we would visit the Sears Portrait studio to have "Cousin Pictures" taken while together. And we couldn't pass up the opportunity to match them, so we headed into the Children's Place the night before to find these cute threads.
The photo shoot itself was hilarious and much like wrangling stray cats, with one girl popping up or making a face constantly. Luckily for us a few adorable shots featuring their true personalities were captured in the wake of our exhausting ordeal.
After our antiperspirant had worn off what could top the experience? Why a picture with Santa at the mall of course! Because it was an early morning in the middle of the week there was NO LINE so we herded our sweet girls over to the man in the red suit.
Savannah is just getting over her fear of Santa and was only okay going to him after I encouraged her to talk about Dora the Explorer. So she climbed up on his lap and in a quiet voice started talking about her favorite thing ever - Dora. And while she talked her picture was taken. Next Brenna sat on Santa's lap and she cautiously eyed him with no expression on her face as she was unsure about the experience. Then I encouraged Lexi to go over to sit in his lap. She wasn't having it. She turned to run away and I scooped her up and set her in his arms. Instantly the tears and cries started in and her little eyes were closed so tight as if she thought if she didn't see him he wouldn't be there. The lady working the camera was I think waiting for a smile cause she just stood there watching the ordeal as a crowd gathered as Randi giggled and I cackled. I did feel bad for the friendly Santa Claus who kept apologizing for making Lexi cry. (I think that his job definitely ranks up there as quite stressful cause he's dealing with traumatizing little ones and pushy parents who want the best picture cheap and fast.) Lastly of course we had to get a shot of the cousins all together and that is when Brenna's waterworks began too. Savannah was at this point probably still thinking of more Dora toys to ask Santa for. :-)

I promise that the tears and cries dried up in no time as I brought the kids to the mall's indoor play area whilst Randi remained waiting on the printouts of the pics. It was a great day with epic moments that were captured on film so that negates any traumatization right?! haha