Christmas Photos and Visit to Santa

We had Tommy's first birthday photos done at Picture People back in September. I got suckered in and spent a little too much, but hey, it was his first birthday, and the pictures were all claimed! I wasn't going to do formal Christmas pictures, but then got a coupon emailed to me to get 6 sheets of photos for only $18. DEAL! John and I were both off from work on Monday, so I made an appointment for late afternoon so I could get some shopping done before hand and we didn't mess Tommy's daily schedule up like we do when the weekends get here (he eats and naps much better during the week at school than when he's home). We also figured we'd try to visit Santa while we were at the mall if the line wasn't too long. Here's what came out of the first part of our trip:

Picture People was mobbed, even for a Monday, and we weren't that happy with the photographer, even though I recognized her as the same one we had in September for Tommy's birthday photos. I think she had a cold and wasn't feeling great, so she was not as "into" it like I remembered her being. She wasn't grabbing props from around the room and she missed a lot of potential good shots when she was busy looking away.

The POSITIVE thing that came out of this, however, was that when we looked at the pictures, it made our decision that much easier for which one to go with. I'm not even that crazy about the photos - they definitely don't match the birthday photos.

Our Santa visit went very well. I sent John and Tommy to wait on line while I waited the 5 minutes for the photos to be ready. They ended up letting 10 people in front of them as there was no line for Santa! And here's what the end result produced:

Yes, that's a smiling soon to be 15 month old! Okay, he's sort of fighting to get off Santa's lap, but we consider this a success! We did point Santa out to Tommy while he waited as the next in line, and when it was his turn, I kept him facing me, backed him onto Santa's lap, and while he stuggled at first, I sat below the camera making a fool of myself and between that and the photographer's tricks above me, this is what we got! We'll take it! And how great does Santa look? I realized afterwards that I did not give Tommy a chance to give Santa his wish list! But I did make sure he knew that Tommy should be on the "nice" list!