tonight we went to pasadena with austin's parents and on our way back to the car the girls saw santa in front of a big tree in his sleigh. there was a tiny cute little girl in her little beanie sitting on santa's lap, smiling and laughing, her parents cheering. adeline said, "oh that's fun, can we sit on santa's lap?" adeline has never been interested in santa, much less sitting on his lap, so we agreed. once they got on his lap their laughter turned to screaming, they drew a large crowd & scared a few of the children waiting in line. when i reached for ella, she turned to santa and between her sobs said, "thank you. bye-bye". once the girls got off santa's lap and stopped shaking with fear and caught their breath, the photographer reviewed the photos and realized his flash had overexposed the photos, he said he would be willing to take them again, but there was no way those little ladies of ours would be getting back on santa's lap. all that to say, this is the best he got. my favorite is the sheer terror on adeline's face & the fact that ella is crying too hard to open her eyes. this was a first and i can say with some certainty that it was also most likely the last.
