12 Miracles of a Christmas Picture

This picture looks great, right? It has everything you could want in a picture: smiles, clean clothes and faces, cute backdrop, etc. Soon, this picture will adorn the traditional Bawden family Christmas card that will be mailed around the word - from Thailand, to England, to Turlock, and beyond. But capturing this image was no small task. Here are a dozen problems that precluded it's inception.

Problem 1: Brett was not home to set up the tree. Solution: Janeen set it up by herself while watching three hyper girls. Only one ornament suffered a fatal casualty. Nice job Janeen!
Problem 2: Brett bought the wrong kind of white lights (apparently white cord + white lights = ugly, but green cord + white lights = beautiful). Solution: Brett braved the return line at Walmart at 10:00 p.m. on a Saturday night.
Problem 3: Lucy was in tears because she couldn't finish watching, "Curious George: A Very Monkey Christmas" on PBS. It was turned off so she could get ready for the photo shoot. Solution: Brett recorded the rest of the show and promised she could finish watching it after church (thank you DVR)!
Problem 4: Hailey's hair is taking too long to curl. Solution: We arrive at church 20 minutes late.
Problem 5: During the curling, Lucy has been lying down waiting for Hailey to finish. Upon returning to a vertical position she is now in tears again because she doesn't like how her hair looks (who does like bed head?). Solution: Janeen fixes her hair; however, the crying really never stopped during this stage, and her wailing just created a new problem.
Problem 6: Janeen loses patience while fixing Lucy's hair and Lucy refuses to stop crying, "I can't stop mom. I'm sad!" Solution: In a desperate attempt to bring some comedy into this routine Brett tells Lucy that mom is now in timeout. Luckily it worked.
Problem 7: Hailey suddenly decides she does not want to be in picture, and begins crying (there's no reason, she's just being Hailey). Solution: In tears himself Brett tells Hailey she can come home from church early if she'll just be in the picture.
Problem 8: Lucy begins to cry for the third time because she wants to come home early from church too!  Solution: Brett tells her she can come home too, "Please everyone, just STOP crying!"
Problem 9: Janeen no longer wants to take the picture because "the girls eyes are red." Solution: Brett gets a box of tissues and hides it behind the tree. In-between each take we wipe eyes.
Problem 10: Ruby, who is the only member of the family yet to cry, won't sit down. Solution: Brett feeds her a chocolate chip after each picture. She has to "sit down" before she can get another chocolate chip (good baby).
Problem 11: Ruby won't look at the camera. Solution: Janeen is released from time out and proceeds to jump up and down behind the camera shrieking like an Amazon Banshee.
Problem 12: Janeen doesn't like any of the pictures I took. Solution: Brett says, "Too bad. We are NOT doing that again!"

On final count I took 93 pictures this morning of the girls in front of the tree. I spent hours scrutinizing each image over and over trying to find just one that might work. The ONLY image that honestly was any good was the 93rd picture. So, when you receive our Christmas card please don't judge the quality of the picture. You really have no idea!!