Sketch Game

We recently took all three boys to Chuck E Cheese ... if you've never been there, may I suggest you never attempt it. This is a place for younger children to run wild, ignore rules and throw things at the teenagers who work there wearing referee striped shirts and pretending like they have control over the situation.

My children, for the most part, were the exception to this rule. They ate their pizza nicely and even used napkins. They said 'now ... please' before running off like wild animals to spend tokens on games they had no idea how to play. And they even whined in a quiet voice when they were told it was time to stop doing something. For several hours, all seemed to be going as smoothly as possible. Then, I found the 'game' of my dreams .....

As a photographer, I am always shoving a camera in the faces of my boys. I am always searching for that perfect spot to get just 'one more shot' and I am always driving my family crazy in the process. Being at Chuck E Cheese was no different. There is this wonderful ' sketch game' that when you sit on the little bench, it gives you 30 seconds to adjust yourself and then takes your picture and prints it out looking like a sketch - all for the price of a single token! I start wrangling boys into the seat, even though it says 1-2 people. Dylan is small, one extra won't hurt, right?

Our first attempted resulted in a sketch of Ryan's hair. That's all.

Our second attempt resulted in my face looking upwards - good thing my nose was clean!

Our third attempt resulted in a sideways sketch of Dylan looking goofy.

And finally, after the threat of death, our fourth attempt resulted in what is now my most prized possession! All three of my children looking at the camera, sitting close together, without making bunny ears over each other and smiling!

In the end it was well worth the line of angry parents waiting to try the sketch game and my own exhaustion of wrangling my rambunctious children in front of yet another camera!