Here's a recipe for you...

Ingredients:

1 - vehicle in the shop, leaving one (annoying) vehicle to transport a family of 5 all day.

1 - appointment at 4:10 pm to have family/holiday/5-year-old portraits taken at a portrait studio that you've never been to before.

2 - children who are wound up, not listening to repeated requests to 'settle down!', 'stand still!' or 'stop doing *blank* to your sister!'

1 - hungry, tired toddler who wants to have nothing to do with standing/sitting still or smiling.

1 - husband with little to no patience for portrait taking to begin with and even less when added to previous ingredients.

Cooking instructions:

Mix first and second ingredients with a child needing to be picked up at school at 3:38 pm, an auto repair shop that closes at 5pm, a child needing to be picked up at daycare, and stir thoroughly.

Add in the last 3 ingredients along with a dash of runny nose, , a smidge of chapped lips, and a pinch of static-laden hair.

Optional ingredient for a special treat - mix in a 20-minute wait while 3 photographers attempt to fix the camera which broke halfway through the portrait session. And increase the amount of ingredients #3-#5 by 100%.

Another optional ingredient for a really extra special treat - attempt this recipe on one of your children's birthdays so that you feel incredibly guilty for yelling at them to be still, smile and stop fooling around. Feel even worse when they end up in tears.

Simmer all of the above for almost 2 hours.

Recipe makes a hungry, tired, frustrated family.  And somehow, by some strange miracle - this recipe also makes 13 amazingly good holiday portraits (to be posted when we get them back).  However, it is recommended to try this recipe only at your own risk as it could potentially lead to parental and marital problems of enormous magnitude.