Week of July 24 - The Photo Shoot :)

Hi everyone! A little late with the posting this week, but as they say... better late then never :-)

Over the weekend, we took Emily to the Sears Childrens Photo Studio to do a professional photo shoot for her first birthday (coming up on July 28). And in preparation, Mom decided that both Emily and dad needed a hair cut. So Emily has now had her second hair cut since coming home in late April and her hair continues to thicken up nicely. Emily's grandparents were so pleased with this latest haircut as it is more of a traditional cut for baby girls in China and so they think she looks just totally cute with the short little "rice bowl" cut. Dad of course prefers the hair to be longer, but hey.... all things in time.. patience... patience... oh and a wee bit more patience. And on the subject of Dad needing an haircut because baby girl is getting a photo shoot done.... ... that is clearlty a Mom induced conspiracy of convenience to get me to the hair stylist for a good trimming! (I hate getting my hair cut, so Nancy has a whole host of little schemes she uses to get me in for a trimmin) :)

While Emily enjoyed her first haircut in May, and made little or no fuss... last weeks haircut was.....shall we say... ummm.. "an incident". Yah.. that's what it was... a full fledged baby incident with profuse crying and a couple of blood curdling screams thrown in just to make sure Emily got her point across to everyone. Nancy is resolved to begin doing the hair trimming at home now, but I remain skeptical on this idea :) In the end, I suspect it will be hair trimming at grandma's house.... but we shall see.

On the subject of the professional photo shoot, that actually went really really well after a slightly rocky start. Emily, normally a very adventurous little girl but can be whiny if put into a new situation she decides not to like, decided to err on the "not to like" side with the photo shoot and it was totally iffy for the first 5-10 minutes. Emily was not at all partial to the fake scene backround setups and Mom was not able to calm her down on the first set. So naturally Dad stepped in and did what he does best... make baby feel happy and safe in an uncertain space. So after a couple minutes of letting Emily sit in my lap and watch me touch and poke at the background scene sheets, she settled down enough for the photographer to do her magic with camera and little toys to get Emily to do the smiles you see below. We ended up with such great shots from the session that Nancy had no trouble at all with filling up a whole package deal of photos for family and friends. Sears offers great real time scene customizations, so the base photos were quickly transformed into real scene stealers that turned out fantastic.

Oh, and that whiny little baby that started the photo shoot was full of glee and laughs and giggles as she sat on our lap and saw her pictures on the selection screen as we picked and modified the effects on our selections.

Below is a collage of the actual photo proofs (without customizations) from the shoot. Needless to say, we were quite pleased with the results. :)



So, as you can see, what started off as a potential disaster of the highest order in the photo studio actually turned out some really great collectable photos of Emily @ 1 year old. Yay!!

That's all for this week, but stay tuned next week to hear about the 1 year birthday celebrations for Emily. There will actually be two over the weekend. Saturday will be a full traditional Chinese 1 year celebration with banquet and everything traditional, and it currently looks to be on the order of 50 family members scheduled to attend with many seeing Emily for the very first time. Sunday will be a classic American birthday with friends.