One-Year-Olds Can Smile

My kid can smile, I promise. But he is the most solemn, somber-looking thing you've ever seen when we do a photo shoot. I took pictures of him today in our kitchen because he looked so cute on his little scooter, but the pictures were seriously horrible. I'm including the ONE where he smiled. I took ten pictures and got a smile. If that were the formula, all would be well...

But tonight, we did a Valentine's Day photo shoot--Doug, Isaac, and I got dressed up and our friends acted as photographers while we tried to look good. Isaac never cracked a smile for the camera. Ever. Sure, he smiled after several of the pictures were snapped, but there is no proof that my child experiences happiness.

I'm hoping that family members who receive our Valentine's Card will look on our blog and feel reassured that Isaac lives up to his name (which means, according to the Bible Dictionary, "he laugheth").

Here's one of the photos we aren't considering for our Valentine because Isaac isn't smiling:

But with all these failures comes a small triumph. I, Tara Bowen, won the cornbread cook-off. There was a lot of tough competition; there were at least three other cornbread options on the table. And I wasn't named the winner right away.



My friend got that honor and I asked which cornbread was hers so I would know what the winning cornbread tasted like--someone pointed to my dish and the confusion was quickly cleared up. MY cornbread was the winner! Our cornbread specimen were both in pyrex and her spatula was in my dish! That somehow meant I won! People kept pointing to my cornbread and I felt so proud!



I interrupted our announcer to give my acceptance speech and was awarded with applause and several bags of microwave popcorn. Who could ask for more? Not only is my family color-coordinated, but I talked my way into winning a bake-off with something I made from scratch.



The gratitude moment for the day: I was so grateful to everyone who helped us take family pictures. And I'm grateful for my fun ward. Doug's grateful that he was able to speak with Brazilians today in Portuguese. Isaac's sleeping, so he can't say what he's grateful for, but that just increases our gratitude for him.