I just thought I would throw in a few pics of the big surprise birthday for Miss Nancy a couple weeks ago.  Not much get's past this gal, so it was pretty hard planning, even with her son and husband helping to manage it all.  At any rate, we actually pulled it off.  It was one of the coolest things to see someone who gives so much of themselves standing in a room full of people who want to celebrate her being her one more year.  How anyone will ever top that, well, Dave- get planning now. 

I hope everyone will indulge me a little bit here-but I am about to climb the walls if I don't get it out.  Sometimes just starting out on a whole new "thing" is a bit scary.  I have done it a few times in life and it has always turned out to be the best thing I ever did, but it was never, never easy.  There are many moments along the road that, upon reflection, make me wince.  But I always end up on the other side much wiser and many times, surprised at myself that I got through it.   

Having said that, it is less than a year that Nancy and I started in this business.  The competition is fierce and VERY talented.  There is a lot to learn and a lot expected from day one.  As you guys know, we keep trying to improve our process and product so that we are providing the best experience we can.  It is endless reading and experimenting with light and my poor children who are completely "over it", then read some more and try again, wash-rinse-repeat.  Its overwhelming sometimes.  Soooooooooo, it was very, very nice to be selected out of the tens of thousands of photos that the Pioneer Woman goes through for each photo assignment.  I submitted an non-commissioned shot of Rocco and Lily's swimteam teammate.  Sometimes I just take photos out there for the parents who don't have a camera or can't make the meet.  I ended up with some great shots this year.  (Thanks Sarah for letting me use your photo.)  It was a catagory on my absolute favorite thing, water.  I encourage you to check out her website.  She has taught me a lot and the photographers that submit on her website have inspired me to get a different kind of shot and strive for that kind of perfection. 

  I am slightly bummed we didn't make it to the finalist round, but we got headline billing on a huge website for the last week...plus, it will make me try that much harder to get to that next level.  In the meantime, I am celebrating the little gold star I got this week. 

The title of the post might give a wrong impression of this precious little man.  He is incredibly sweet.  I have featured him this Spring and he still looks like he is straight out of a Gap ad.  He just turned 1 and his mom wanted a session with his cake.  She is crafty, so of course everything was super cute.  Once she and I got everything in place we looked at Sam, who looked back at us.  This lasted for a while.  Now while he looked incredibly adorable, we were sweating and waiting for...something.  I even pulled out the big guns, Rocco.  Rocco came out and blew about a whole bottle of bubbles on me without me saying a word.  Still there was no cake to be eaten and no smile to be seen.  Then, as the temperatures rose and my remaining shutters evaporated, boom.   TSmiles and cake eating, cake walking, cake painting, etc...  You get the picture.  I did too for that matter.  ;-) 

I did notice that when I went back out to discard the cake and clean up, there was a whole lot more of it gone.  The guilty person was quickly identified with his red hair, blue mouth and fingers. 

I can hear the sweet sounds of Donny Osmond now- man that takes me back to another era...that's another story, on with the post. 

Nancy is the pet person around here.  I mean she will take in and rescue just about any critter around.  I have seen her run across a busy road to chase a wounded dog and make sure he got back to his rightful owner.  I have seen her love up on a dog that outweighed her by a hundred pounds and not even flinch at the amount of goo he left on her jacket.  So I am not sure why I didn't make sure she was at this quick shoot with a new puppy Sam.  I just sat down and expected this dog to listen and just sit and lay down etc... Um, Sam wasn't really feelin' it.  The puppy just wanted to explore and conquer and eat his leash.  Unfortunately it doesn't usually make for good photos.  Somehow we got through it and got some super shots of Sam and his sibling Gucci.  Gucci owes me some paper, but that's another story.  So Thanks Shay and T for bringing them by the studio, all three subjects were adorable. 

Wishing all of our Amewsme friends and family a happy, safe and dry 4th of July!