Cranky Cupid

Last year, my older sister did a Valentine's photo shoot with Noah.  Remember how cute the pictures turned out??  He was a little cherub for the camera.

We thought maybe we could recreate the magic this year.

We should've known better.  Turns out that six-month-olds are generally much more cooperative for photo shoots than eighteen-month-olds.

When we first sat Noah down in front of the Valentine's backdrop, he was a little angry.  "Why are you making me sit here when I want to be flying this toy jet around the room?"

His anger quickly morphed into full-on rage.

I didn't realize that men started loathing Valentine's Day at such a young age.

The only way we could get Noah to calm down was to recruit his cousin Callum to come make silly faces behind us.  Finally, we seemed to be getting somewhere.

We asked Callum to sit in the chair and show Noah how to smile like a big boy.  Though not appropriately clothed for a photo shoot (well, maybe it would've worked in October), Cal cheerfully climbed into the chair and yelled, "Cheese!!" for the camera.  

Noah was not impressed.

Oh dear.  

So we took a break and let the boys play, thinking that might cheer up our Crabby Cupid.

But alas, when we went out on the front porch to try again, Noah started crying as soon as he saw the camera.  I tried my best to cheer him up...

 but despite my best efforts, he still wanted to smack me in the face.

He didn't actually hit me, but it sure looks like he was thinking about it!

We finally got him calmed down enough to snap a few sweet pictures (which were included in yesterday's post about my Little Valentine).  And this is my favorite shot of the day:  

We tried to get one for Drew, but Noah had reached his limit.  This may look like a half-smile, but his eyes were brimming with tears again, and two seconds after the photo was taken, he burst into hysterical screaming, and the photo shoot was officially over.

I love that Cranky Cupid!