Emily Weaver Brown and her whole family were in Chicago during the entire first week of February; you can just imagine their surprise when they returned to their home in Bothell, Washington to see a parcel on their front door. It was the prize that her son, Simon, won for being BabyGanics’ number one Mess Maker for 2009.

Emily, who is a lenswoman by profession, was totally delighted that her son won the contest. “We were very excited and have already started using the cleaning products,” she says.

Simon appears often on Emily’s blog and loves the camera a lot. “I am a professional photographer and Simon is a very well-photographed baby. He is actually in this month’s Mothering Magazine too,” she shares, referring to a popular parenting journal.

Simon’s picture received the most number of votes among the more than 300 Mess Maker entries submitted by parents from all over the United States. The winning picture shows Simon demolishing his watermelon snack on the living room couch. “I let my son have watermelon for a snack. The next thing I know he was smearing it all over our leather couch. Sticky, sticky mess!” says Emily.

Simon is almost 2 years old and just like any child his age, he’s a dynamo with lots of interests and doing lots of activities. “Simon is very active. He will just mount over anything he can climb and he is always trying to scale something new. He also has a surprisingly large vocabulary and he never stops talking” shares Emily. His favorite foods include baked sweet potatoes as well as avocados, while his favorite toys include miniature diggers and dinosaur toys, specifically the T-Rex.

True to his title as the number one Mess Maker around, Emily shares that Simon can really mess things up. The biggest one he ever managed to pull off was when he dumped out a bottle of baby powder on the floor of his room. Nevertheless, Emily says that despite being BabyGanics’ messiest Mess Maker, Simon can be really sweet, able take away all the fatigue and stress she feels after a long, tough day. “It’s best when he puts his arms around mine and says ‘I wuv ooo!’” she says.

You can check out more photos of Simon at Emily’s blog. Just visit www.emilyweaverbrownphoto.com.