Birmingham Parent Magazine

Sometime last spring, I entered the kids in the Birmingham Parent Magazine cover kids contest.  I sent a picture in, filled out a form and promptly forgot about it.  In early August, we were contacted and told that we were in the top 5 finalist for the "multiples" category!  While that was exciting news ... what I wasn't too excited about was that the winners would be determined by an on-line vote.

At this point, I figured that since we were a finalist, we should at least show up to have our picture taken.  Little did I know that I would love the photographer ... Amanda Traywik.   We had done our job well ... meaning we had adequately bribed the kiddos!  They were promised two things if they behaved, obeyed us and the photographer, and looked at the camera and smiled ....

1.  their own fruit roll-up (these are 3 feet long and we usually make them share :) )
2.  a ride on the carousel at the mall

And, needless to say, it worked.  The photographer was amazed that we were in and out in under 10 minutes.  The kiddos did EVERYTHING that they were asked to do ... and they had BEAUTIFUL, natural smiles!  All-in-all, once I saw the final picture, I decided that win or not, it was all worth the picture! 

This picture is definitely in my list of top 3 favorite pics of them of all time!  And, as an added bonus, we were given a free 5X7 of the picture.  Now, we need to get in touch with Amanda and purchase some additional copies for family for Christmas.

Oh, and we were notified last week that we won our category!  So, sometime next year, we will do another photo shoot (that will again be discussed with the kids weeks ahead of time and will have special bribes rewards for good behavior).  With any luck, we will end up with another great photo of the kiddos ... and it will be on the cover of the Birmingham Parent Magazine!

Thanks to all who voted for us!

Quenta

PS ... don't you think this is an EXCELLENT picture of the kids?