"Don't take my picture!"

My kids hate getting their pictures taken. Hate it. I don't get why... both have had a camera in their face since the day they were born and yet, still we struggle to get our kids to both look and smile at the camera at the same time. Pearl refuses to cooperate and will either look at the camera but not smile (or do this horrible fake smile) or smile (again, most likely the fake "cheese" smile) but look at the ground, behind you, to the side, or up in the sky. I'm surprised I haven't totally given up and stopped trying to document their lives. On top of this, almost every time I try to take Pearl's picture, she starts screaming at me, "Mom, don't take my picture!" or "Not yet, Mom!" I'm usually yelling back, "Pearl, look at the camera. Look at me! No, look at the camera. This way! Smile! Please, look at the camera! And smile!" Then give up. I'll cut Cole some slack for now seeing as how he is still trying to figure out what his arms, hands, legs, and head are for. To prove my point of how impossible it is to get a cute picture of my kids, I thought I'd share a few trys. The scary thing about these is that I deleted all the really, really bad shots!

Try one. Documenting Pearl on her new playground. You'd never know it from her face, but she loves to play on it. Nor would you guess that from her constant yelling at me to not take her picture! And remember, I already deleted the really bad ones!
Try two. Documenting how cute Pearl looks in green contrary to what appears to be documenting how to eat a tart grape. Seems simple enough. I swear if it wasn't for the piece of paper proving she had passed her newborn hearing test, I'd swear she was deaf because she can sure ignore my pleadings to look at me!
Try three. Documenting how adorable Cole is. Remember, we're cutting him some slack until he's more coordinated. His pictures are usually pretty dang cute though!
It's a good thing I have a digital camera.