Austin's Children and Family Photographer-{Cutie Pie Photography} » Personal

Introducing… {Austin’s Sheep Photographer}

Nicole Dossey — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 16:36:38 +0000

There has been lots of excitement over here on Ranch Dossey. We have been waiting for my only people-sweet sheep to have her baby. She is also pretty old so I wasn’t sure she’d make it through delivery. We aren’t really experienced sheep people so she’s been in her single pen for over a week…we woke up on Tuesday morning to twins!! Very unexpected. Since momma is so sweet and not skiddish like most of our other sheep we are able to get in the pen and pet the babies without her being stressed out. I thought it would be a good time to get my girls involved in the care of animals around here. The did paper, rocks and scissors to decide who would choose their baby first. Olivia won out and chose the little girl. She is by far the smallest and skinniest baby lamb we have had so we are watching them close.

Without further ado…the newest additions to our family, Bella and Candycane:

My girls are so excited. They told me that if they weren’t in their room in the morning when I work up it was because they were out checking on their babies. Here is how I found them in the morning:

We are having to watch the two of them pretty closely. The old lady isn’t the best momma evidently. I had to bottle feed them twice today to be sure they are getting enough. Always an adventure…

PS. Be watching for sweet Easter lamb portraits in the next 2 weeks.

love…

admin — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 05:27:16 +0000

My husband has a new obsession. Making his own espresso/lattes. If you know my husband you know he doesn’t get excited about a ton of things, in fact he is VERY laid back. He is fired up about his new espresso machine. He recently purchased a fancy espresso machine and grinder. He is now making us lattes here at the house. If you know my love of Starbucks I was a little unsure about the new machine. He is actually a very good barista (I am sure he will appreciate my calling him that for all to see) and his coffee is getting to be amazing. Now if he can just do latte art, I would be over the moon and never visit Starbucks again…okay lets not get out of hand.

Here is the yummy treat he made me yesterday afternoon in my most favorite mug. Can you see my heart smiling? <>

Mommy, Photographer, Sheep Midwife-{Austin’s Family Photographer}

Nicole Dossey — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 05:06:41 +0000

I usually try to keep my blog to photography stuff only, but I have decided to branch out and share more about my crazy life. It is funny and so many of my friends have encouraged me to blog my adventures.

My life in the past year has been, well crazy. We sold our house in the suburbs (in 2 days), moved into a rent house, and then 6 months later moved onto our new property. We have 30 acres. We also have 17 sheep, 2 donkeys and a pug named Biscuit. Did I mention we are city slickers? My husband and I don’t have a country background, we both grew up in the city. We kept the sheep and the donkey’s for the agriculture exemption and Biscuit, well, we keep him because the kids like him…okay me too.

So my husband is the shepherd (insert laughter here). We thought our boy sheep was broken, but evidently he isn’t. We have had 6 baby sheep in the past month, 5 of them very recently. We had one ewe left on Sunday that hadn’t had her lamb yet. I usually like to keep an eye out for the new babies so I went and checked on her on our way out to dinner at a friends house. What I saw was a bit crazy. It was obvious things weren’t progressing properly so I went to get the shepherd. Neither of us had a clue what to do. We had never even seen a lamb born yet never-mind knowing what to do when there was a problem. The baby lamb didn’t look like it was alive. I had a friend that raised sheep ask me about a month ago if I had to pull a baby yet? What?! Well I remembered her question at that moment. I guess we were going to have to pull it. We tried “pulling” and weren’t successful. We had NO clue. Then we though maybe she’d work it out on her own. I called the friend that had experience in raising sheep and she said to go to dinner then come back and see how things were. I think she thought at that point we were helping a sheep that didn’t really need help and was progressing normally…to be honest after we tried we thought we had tried to pull a lamb that didn’t need pulling and started feeling a little embarrassed at our feeble attempt.

We got back from dinner and checked on her again. This time we knew for sure she was in trouble. She hadn’t progressed at all. I called my poor friend and asked her advise. She said we had to pull the sheep. What?! I told her we already tried and she told me what “pulling” really entailed. She said that I needed some oil and that her mom was often times up to her elbows when she had to pull a lamb?! Huh. Up to her elbows?! I mean really. She assured me we could do this and gave me some instruction over the phone. So we put the kids to bed, brought the monitor outside and I prayed my baby wouldn’t wake up as I was spreading olive oil all over my hands and arms. So my husband holds the momma and I start putting the oil on the baby lamb–and it moved a little bit. It was ALIVE! We really were nervous then because we really knew we had to save it. Anyhow, I finally figured out the problem, we repositioned the mamma a couple times and then I pulled as hard as I could and she came out. I rubbed her a little and as soon as she started moving we got out of the pen and the momma went to work cleaning her up. It was amazing. My husband and I just stood there dumbfounded. We were shocked it was alive and were really in disbelief that we had just delivered a lamb. I mean SERIOUSLY folks–not in my wildest dreams. My husbands either. Me the sheep midwife, him the sheep doula. UNBELIEVABLE.

I have to say it was one of the coolest experiences of my life. Not as messy as I thought it was going to be. Not as gross as I thought it was going to be. Do I want to do it again? Not if I can help it. :) I kept apologizing to the momma the entire time–I have had natural birth. To top it off, my mother in law is a midwife in Houston and is here somewhat often…where was she when we needed her?

Here is a picture of the new baby lamb and her mamma.

Under Construction

Nicole Dossey — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 00:24:51 +0000

As you can see my blog is undergoing some changes. You’ll notice my brand new, ADORABLE logo! I am over the moon about it!

I am rebranding and reconstructing so bear with me over the next week or so. I think the background paper is going to change a million times between now and then…

Here is a close up of the cutie logo:

Did I mention I am SUPER excited?!!!

Halloween

Nicole Dossey — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 04:35:43 +0000

We love Halloween. My mom made this cute costume for Carter. My mom is amazing isn’t she. She is amazingly talented. Carter just kills me he is so cute. My girls are always very opinionated in what they are going to be for Halloween. I love that they know exactly what they want to be and I love helping them find the costumes to make their hearts happy. Now that I’ve eaten all the good chocolate out of their bags I can start eating healthy again

O’s birthday

Nicole Dossey — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 04:55:17 +0000

O had her 5th birthday back in December. She and Isaiah wanted to have a pajama party. It was really fun. The kids and some of the parents came dressed in their PJ’s. We served breakfast foods and helped the kids make their own pillowcases to take home. The kids all signed a pillowcase for Olivia and Isaiah.

O decided she really wanted a Tinkerbell cake. Of course I called Humble Pie desserts and they didn’t let me down. The cake was fabulous and looked so cute. Jeanna made a candy bar flavored, octagon shaped cake. O LOVED it! Here are pictures from the festive day. I blurred the faces of some of the kids as I like to be more safe then sorry about blogging other people’s kids.

Sweet Isaiah.

My friend Kelly's amazing home-made cake.

Birthday girl.

Fabulous cake. Thanks Jeanna!

the cobblers kids have some shoes…

Nicole Dossey — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 06:35:35 +0000

It is like what they say about the cobbler, his kid doesn’t have shoes, and mine didn’t have pictures…until now I mentioned the cobbler’s kids in this post. I will be posting those pictures soon, but in the mean time I wanted to show you some pictures from my little session with my kiddos.

These are my girls. They are so precious to me. I love them so much my heart hurts. I have had some time in our busy craziness to actually take some pictures of them too. My family has been nagging lovingly reminding me for some time about posting some new pictures of my own kids. Their newest picture they had was of A at 3 months old. Guess what they all got for Christmas.

My O-Loving spirit, kind-hearted, creative, smart and sweet. I love this kid.

My little bear-sassy, sweet and full of life. I just love her.

A was tired of her jacket and decided she was done with it.

This post was for you Auntie I love you, I am so thankful you are feeling better. Thanks for the reminder to post pictures of my own kids too.

Peter

Nicole Dossey — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 18:16:00 +0000

My stepfather Peter passed away 3 weeks ago. He is a wonderful man I have known since I was 4 years old. He was 48 years old. It has been a hard year for my family. Peter had been struggling with cancer for 8 months, had been in and out of the hospital almost weekly, he had lost 100 lbs and at one point had a tumor the size of a small watermelon removed from his abdomen This has been such a crazy and sad time for our family, especially my mom.

I have learned so many things through this. I have learned that life is too short to not do the things you want to do. I have learned life is too short to not enjoy each and every day. I have learned to tell the people you love by words and actions that they are loved. If you have someone you need to tell, don’t wait, tomorrow is NOT guaranteed. Enjoy life and be blessed by the people around you. Bless others.

I also learned what love is. Love is taking care of your husband’s every physical need, sitting by his bedside, hurting with him, encouraging him when you are dead tired, crying with him, laughing with him, sacrificing your needs to provide for all of his needs. This is love. Love is not just when life is great and things are going well, it is choosing to love during the hurt and heartache. In sickness AND in health has taken on new meaning for me. My mom showed me what love is. She has shown me what sickness AND in health means. I pray I can be half the woman she is someday. She is an amazing woman of God.

I feel so blessed to have had Peter in my life for the past 27 years. I may say he was my stepfather, but he was so much more then just that, so much more. He never treated me like his stepdaughter, nor referred to me as such. He treated me just as he treated my brother and sister…for better or for worse He will be very missed on earth, but as I tell Olivia (my 4 year old) we WILL see him in Heaven. He is waiting for us and is excited to see us again. We already have 2 friends in Heaven (GG and Jesus).

Thank you to the clients that have been VERY patient with me during this unexpected and sudden passing. A special thanks to Malissa and her family as this was right in the middle of her picture delivery time and they were all SO patient. Thank you for the encouraging emails and phone calls. You have really blessed me. Sorry to be so “heavy” on our photography blog, but as Chinell says “the emotions we express through words and photography are not just the happy ones”. Here are a couple of my most favorite pictures of Peter. Of course they are the ones with my kids. Thank you for sharing in my journey.