My baby is growing up...

Vinny.... My handsome young man, is growing up. He's starting kindergarten next month. I can hardly believe it. He's always been such a ham, when it comes to taking portraits. He's really a natural in front of the camera. I just had to take some fun portraits of him with his "awesome dude hair cut" as he calls it. I thought the chain link fence with the over grown grass in our backyard made a fun background. He's already got his tough guy looks down. But don't let him fool you, is just a little sweetheart, as you can see. My big boy... They grow up much too fast. Hershey our big chocolate lab is soooo difficult to take portraits of, he'll hardly ever stay still long enough, and he's always fixated on the ball, but I think this is a pretty decent shot of him and Vinny. The sepia fits it pretty well.

A special moment

I was at a birthday party for a friends boys this weekend, and just photographing randomly, people enjoying the party, when I saw this beautiful moment.

This new dad was comforting his 1 week old baby girl and I couldn't resist taking his picture. He had no idea that I was photographing him. I don't think I could have posed him myself any better.

Just thought I'd share.

Does it remind you a little of the Lion King?

Just CLOWNING Around

One of the things that I think I enjoy the most about living in this area is all of the fun, family friendly events that happen all summer long. It seems that just about any night of the week, you can find entertainment in the outdoors. Weather it's music in the park, art walks, or movies in the park there is always something to do. I just think it's wonderful that the communities are so involved in creating a fun, safe environment for people to get together.

At one of these recent events, I discovered "Cosmo the Clown". Cosmo is a terrific clown. During his performance, I couldn't tell who was having more fun, him or the kids. He had the children so involved in his performance and they were absolutely mesmerized by him. He received a well deserved round of applause and encore request.

I asked Pat Cooper "Cosmo" to send me some information about himself as a clown to post on this blog. This is what I found out.

He picked the name Cosmo because it means order in latin. Ironic being that clowns are agents of chaos.

Cosmos been clowning for more than 20 years. He started out helping a out a friend named Apple Blossum the clown at an event, and has been hooked ever since.

Cosmo's training originally came from first hand experience, although he has attended many training workshops since to learn new clowning skills. His formal background is Fine Art studies at WSU. "If you ask me he's a natural."

He says " The most enjoyable part of clowning are the surprises the kids bring to every show, sometimes the best moments are when children say something that totally throws the show into a different direction."

I can tell you, Pat sat down next to me after the show and he was absolutely giddy from the reaction of the kids. This is a man who truly loves to make people smile, and it shows. His day job is working with people with disabilities. I can tell this is a man with a BIG heart.

Happy Independence Day

Covered in mud...

Wolf Pack Howl.... That's his team...

Hope everyone had a wonderful 4th of July weekend. My family decided last minute to go camping at the Straddleline off road vehicle park. What was going to be a one night camping and quad riding trip, turned into a 4 day quad riding and racing trip. My son Vinny raced against 2 other kids in his class and came in 3rd. ;0 We're very proud of him though. He had a lot of fun riding in the mud. We went to Olympia to watch fireworks, only to find out that they don't have a fireworks show on the 4th there. HAHA. So we just went to the Capitol park, and watched them off in the distance. I got a few beautiful shots of the Capitol building at dusk and just after. Here are a few pictures from the weekend.

I actually caught a couple of fire works going off behind the State Capital Building.

June Contest Winner

Congratulations to Stephanie Guptill for winning the monthly contest at the Garden Baby Boutique in Port Orchard. Every month I draw a name from the entries at the Garden Baby Boutique for a lucky winner to receive a FREE 11x14 and portrait session. Stephanie decided to include some of her family for her outdoor Gig Harbor portrait session. What fun we had. The beach made a great backdrop for the fun outdoor portraits. Her adorable nieces and nephew were a blast to photograph. Here are a few of my favorites from the session. Can't wait to show off the rest.

That's a lot of STINKIN feet