A Semi Finalist!

I am bursting at the seams to tell everyone the BIG news!! 

A few months ago I entered Lily in the American Baby Magazine cover contest, along with 34,863 other people!  One of her photos was chosen as a "readers choice" weekly finalist.  Many, many, people voted for her on facebook but she did not make it into the top ten...so we basically forgot about the whole thing. 

Until today! I received the following email: 

Dear April:

Congratulations on being selected as a semi-finalist in the American Baby Cover Contest!

You must respond to this email TODAY with your name, telephone number, and home address.

You must also confirm:

1)      You comply to the contest rules (http://www.parents.com/parents/file.jsp?item=/photoContest/abcc_rules)

2)      Your entry photo is taken by entrant, non-professional, unpublished and may not have won any prize or award (http://www.parents.com/photos/photo-contests-1/abcc/2423900013/?photoId=2419500043)

3)      Your availability to travel to New York on or about February 15-17, 2011

4)      Your child’s date of birth

5)      You are a legal resident of the 50 United States, and the District of Columbia, 18 years of age or older, who is the parent or legal guardian of the child depicted in the entry

6)      Your ability to provide five more non-professional photos to the judges via email by TODAY, January 31. Supplementary photos must be taken between January 9 and January 31, 2011. Make sure in two of the shots your child is smiling and looking at the camera.

If you are chosen as a finalist, you will be notified on or about February 1, 2011. We wish to thank you for your interest and participation in our contest.

Best,

Viki

Viki (we're on a first name basis) also called the house to confirm that we did get her email and apologized for the last minute notice.  I was so nervous and excited on the phone I said my name was April Flynn, whoops! You can click on the second link that appears above to see the original photos that I submitted. 

Lily was down for her afternoon nap when we got the call that we would need to submit FIVE addition photos taken in the last three weeks, haha.  First of all we took a million pictures at Christmas (which can't be used). Second, my kiddo has been sick for a week, is still sick, and has one if not two teeth coming in!!! Some days Lil sleeps until 4 in the afternoon, which would have given us 1 hr to throw together a photo spread worthy of a contest.  I paced around downstairs laying out clothes with the baby monitor pressed to my ear.  At the first peep (luckily 3:30) I raced upstairs to get the show on the road. In short, it was sort of a disaster. Lily was so unimpressed by Matt's antics, it was actually sad.  We had to take frequent breaks to wipe tears and pop snot bubbles. Three costume and four location changes later we had taken 300 pictures. 

Here are the five we submitted.

If Lily is chosen as a finalist we get an expenses paid trip to NYC to have her pictures taken by a professional photographer at the magazine and $1000. It is all very exciting.  I recently read this blog post at finslippy  http://www.finslippy.com/blog/dont-get-too-excited.html that I thought really applied to this situation. The writer makes a really great point about "getting too excited" and how we all tell ourselves not to do so, which is stupid.  I am going to be disappointed if she isn't chosen as a finalist whether or not I allow myself to get too excited...so here I am, super excited!!