Never Again

Last weekend our sweet photographer friend came down with the stomach flu and was unable to travel to take photos. So I mistakenly thought it would be a good idea to just set up an appointment at the mall and get a couple of photos for a our Christmas card. I remember thinking to myself---"It can't be that bad". Boy was I WRONG!. We will do without pictures before we ever attempt to go to the mall for photos again---especially with a wild toddler.

First of all, our appointment was at 4:20 and they didn't start talking to us until around 5 or so. You can imagine how much Cason loved sitting in his stroller for that amount of time. The place was SO crowded, you could barely find somewhere to sit.

Then, we got the most ridiculous photographer I have ever seen in my life. He had some of his friends sitting off to the side the entire time waiting for him to get off---He kept talking to them the whole time he was working with us. In addition, he kept calling Cason, Casey (even after we corrected him many times).

Another wonderful part of our session was that these people thought it would be a good idea to put us in the only place that wasn't a room. It was right in front of the store and visible to all the people walking around in the mall. I can't even count how many times Cason ran out into the mall with us frantically running after him.

Cason was in a horrible mood and did not want to take any pictures AT ALL. He was way more interested in all the things going on in the mall---especially the toy store right across from the photo place. I tried to tell the guy that perhaps a room might be better, but clearly he didn't care. We basically had to take turns wrestling Cason to get him to sit still for any pictures and not run out the front door. One of us would hold on to him for dear life and the other one of us would tickle him so he would laugh. Cason had taken both of his shoes off in the first 5 minutes so his shoes are off in most of the photos.

The photographer wanted us to get in the most ridiculous positions and it just wasn't going to happen. All 3 of us were dripping in sweat by the end of the session! People watching us were dying laughing at the scene we were making and I just wanted to cry. I almost stopped the guy mid-session to ask how much it would cost for us to just get to leave!

Then after the 30 minutes of misery, they made us wait about another 30 minutes for them to upload the photos. Thankfully Scott went to get Cason some Chic-fil-a during this time so that he could eat dinner while he was sitting in the stroller. After the photos are uploaded, the photographer sits down with you and you have to look at your photos right then on their computer and decide right then exactly what you want.

Usually, I have a hard time deciding which photos to order because there are so many good ones. This time I had a hard time deciding because there were hardly any good ones. There were a couple of cute ones of Cason and zero good ones of all three of us (just one okay one). I just wanted to get out of there and he kept trying to talk us into different packages and memberships.

Finally, we picked out some photos to order. By this time Cason is finished eating and ready to go. Do we get to leave---NO. You have to sit there and wait for them to print the photos out for you right then. This is a good idea in theory but not when you have a fit throwing toddler with you. We finally got out of there several hours later and we definitely won't be doing that EVER again. It was not one of my better decisions---but you live and you learn. And the lesson is most definitely learned.

The good news is that there were some cute ones of Cason and I always love new pictures of my little cutie! I like the one of him holding the ball---he looks like a real, little football player :) He may seem happy in that picture but don't be fooled, when we had to take the football and the stool away there was quite a scene!

Here are some photos from our session...