Every parent wants to bear witness to their child's milestones. Shelly Hemig, mother of two from New Castle, Colo., was no exception on the day her son tried to roll from his stomach to his back.

While encouraging him, "I felt like I was talking to a puppy and not my precious baby boy. But he was so close to his first big movement milestone," she says.

"He rested on his belly, head up, a big smile on his face. Then he stuck his arms out, stuck his tongue out and gave me the cutest raspberry. He looked like an airplane about to take off. I ran to get the camera."

But when Hemig returned, her son was on his back. She was elated that he succeeded, but disappointed she had missed it.

"I wanted to see him roll over. He wasn't supposed to do it while I was out of the room," she says. "I rolled him onto his stomach again, put the camera in front of my face and waited. And waited. And waited."

Just as Hemig was about to give up, "He did it," she says. "I had the camera at the ready, and I captured the whole thing in a series of three photographs. The first had him on his tummy, resting on his elbows. The second showed him on his side. In the final picture he was on his back with another one of his whole-face smiles. I not only got to see it, I recorded it for posterity."