Photo with Santa

Finally found time today to wrangle the 3 kiddos, in nice clothes over to the Baybrook Mall to get our annual photo with Santa. After typical grumbling from Zhivanna as Merlova not wanting to hold her hand and Akorren yelling at the little one for not being a good girl, we make into the mall. I walking in my focused mommy mode speed, leaving Zhivanna in the dust. As we come to the Santa display and normally 1 hour line ( like having to wait at Disneyland) I hear the lady blocking the entrance say to the young mother holding her 4 month old baby boy that Santa will be taking a break and no one else can get in line at this time. I lean in and ask her how long will Santa be taking a break for, she says..." oh, 1 hour." I say, We'll kids this is a bummer we are so screwed...I just called before we came down to see when he was taking a break, I knew this would happen." She saw my frustration and said now just wait a second here and I will see what I can do. So she let the gal in front of us go in and then waved me and the kids through the ropes. I quickly removed the coats, combed hair shot a few pre-santa-pics and then in less then 5 minutes it was our turn. And for trying to get 3 children to look nice in one photo at the same time I would have to say we did pretty good. As a treat we ate in the mall and then made our way back home via a detour to Target (or pronounced Tar-jay, the French store) to get a book for Akorren's 2 nd grade class book exchange. The exciting part of that trip was Merlova peeing in the book isle and getting to go "natural" without tights and undies for the ride home, yay mommy moment. Love it. Thanks lady at the mall, you were a real sweetheart! The kids waiting in no line, my freebie shot with my camera, the paid for one.