One Gorgeous Boy!

As is tradition, we got a few pictures made of baby Mase for his second birthday.  This was kind of a crucial photo shoot, since I like to select a photo from my kids'second year pictures and have it made into a little desk statue.  All of the other kids have such cute little statues sitting next to their name puzzles on the toy shelf.  Consequently, the pressure was on for Mason to shape up and give us a good smile.  He is normally such a cheeser, we didn't anticipate there would be any problem achieving this goal.  When we arrived at the little photo studio; however, we were unpleasantly surprised.  He would not smile for anything. He was thinking about it in a few of these photos...

But he was too stubborn to give in and show us his killer grin. Dad was beside himself, and even I, who am usually pretty patient about these things, was getting a little worn out.  Finally, as our time was running out, I pulled a last ditch mommy move.  I snatched a tissue from the desk table and puckered up into one of those fake mommy cries.  It was pretty convincing, and Mason, a boy close to his mommy's heart, was suddenly very concerned and totally distracted from the camera at hand.  He watched me so closely to see if he needed to come to my aid.  I peeked out from over the top of the tissue, and then, on a wish and a prayer, cracked a grin at my worried little man.  His eyes immediately registered my farce, and his face proclaimed a new found stubbornness.  However, when I threw the tissue on the ground in consternation, he couldn't help but stomp on it.  And then, of course, he couldn't help but smile that broad smile of his.  Caught ya!  All it takes is one second, and thankfully the photographer was awake.  There was my statue shot, tissue and all.

And then I was even lucky enough for a close up afterwards.  It was a rough half an hour, but I think we got him in the end.

Oh, and by the way, did everyone notice Mason's new big boy hair cut?  Quite the change from his long, straight mop!  I tried to keep that baby fine hair as long as I could, but it finally just had to go.