NO, Momma I don't want to smile! :p

I have such a little flirt/ham of a toddler. Really he smiles at everyone (except walmart cashiers??) and plays shy baby and flirts and puts his hands out. He is sooooo cute, not that I am biased or anything. Just today he walked right up to two lady's working at a jewelry store and pretty much demanded that they notice him and he just broke out the biggest cutest cheeeeeeese smile he had. We were walking around the mall today which is how he walked up to them. We were following behind him holding onto the other end of his toddler leash. Yeah, yeah, I am one of those mom's who believes in toddler leashes. If you don't well.... bite me, or get your butt down here and come to the mall with me and it can be your job to chase after Nicholas when he doesn't want to ride in his stroller. :P Anyway back to the story. We were at the mall to see the Easter Bunny and hopefully get a photo with him. It took us a while with all the detours and what not that Nicholas wanted to make but finally we located his bunny-ness and yay there was no line at all to take pictures. Poor Easter bun bun was sitting there looking quite bored in fact lol. We selected the package we wanted, just the one photo and then let the lady talk us into buying a photo frame for a dollar more and the photo would be free. *Shrugs* what's a photo without a frame right? Anyway I walked up and showed Nicholas the big bunny and then plopped in down in said bunny's lap and step out of the camera's shot. Now the rule here is you are supposed to SMILE for the camera, right. Hahaha, NOT Nicholas. As soon as I plopped him down the smile vanished and a very serious look came over his face. This is normal. It is amazing difficult to photograph Nicholas. He just seems to know when you are about to snap the picture and stops smiling and/or turns his head away. Nice. I was just happy he was directing his serious look towards the camera. The ladies taking the photo though weren't busy and didn't have a line of people waiting so they were not going to accept a non smiling photo. They jingled keys, waved toys, played peek-a-boo, flashed the flash on the camera, sang, called his name.... the works. LoL. Nope, not gonna happen lady. I am not going to smile at YOU. Never mind that I was smiling 10 seconds ago. He even decided he had had enough of looking at the camera and turned to look at and smack the Easter Bunny. :/ great I have a kid who has violent tendencies towards mascots lol. We got a couple of shots of a less serious look, almost a smile but no real smile. Even I couldn't get him to smile by making funny noises or talking to him. At that point I called in the big guns, AKA Daddy who without fail can usually get a smile out of little Nicholas. Poor daddy... today was not his day lol. He played peek-a-boo, made all sorts of crazy sounds, jumped around, danced... haha he seriously worked up a sweat and probably got a good start on a workout in before FINALLY we got a brief smile. *snap and flash* YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS we got it! Whooo hooo. Nicholas took that opportunity to take another swipe at the Easter Bunny's nose and as I swooped in to pick him up. Thankfully the photo is nice and clear and he's looking directly at the camera and has a BIG grin on his face :) YAY! I don't think we have gotten as nice as photo as this one. Certainly not with Santa, but then there was a huge line of people waiting and that one was free so they weren't inclined to be as patient I suppose. From the photographer's standpoint all of Daddy's hoping and yelling and crazy noises attracted the attention of several other parents who brought THEIR kids over to meet and have photos with the Easter Bunny as well. Hummm, they should have given us a commission or something lol.

So we are officially ready for Easter now, we have seen the bunny, and we have plans to dye eggs and make a little baby Easter basket and preserve the memory on film :) Maybe on Easter morning I can get a couple more photos of Nicholas smiling lol, we'll see. Sure wish somebody would tell Nicholas that smiling for the camera is a good thing!!! I guess he'll get better at that with time.... at least I hope he will !!!  

Of course I will share our Easter picture with you all :) Come on, all together now, Awwwww :) This is a snap shot of the photo that I took with my blackberry which is why it is a bit dark and not perfect quality. You can still see the smile though!