SPA DAY!

Last Saturday was my first weekend off in a LONG time. I've been so busy with shoots that Ian and I haven't been on a date in MONTHS. To make up for it, Ian surprised me with a Spa day :)

On our way.. don't we look thrilled?! haha

 A little happier looking here. Well.. I am anyway. In our robes waiting for our massage!

Ian's after hair massage! bahaha so funny :) The massages were so amazing. All I could keep thinking was "man, I hope this never ends" but unfortunately.. it ended. We were SO tired after. Massages totally put you in the zone.... the sleepy zone. After the massages we headed straight over for pedicures. I swear they're supposed to give you some sort of foot massage. Did we get jipped?? It will still nice having my feet scrubbed and my toe nails painted. I get sick of Ian's long toe nails so it was nice to have his trimmed professionally! hah

After the Spa we headed to costco and I ate a GIANT slice of pizza! Sooo yummy. Our plan was to go home, take a nap, and head back out to the movies. Well... our nap turned into a full day and evening of rest. I was so pooped. So we just stayed home and watched movies :)
It was a great date day! Now Ian wants to get a pedicure somewhere cheaper and compare! ha.. I'm TOTALLY down.
Love you babe! Thanks for the hot date xoxo

Peanut

If you didn't get the proof on Facebook... WE'RE PREGNANT!
I was convinced to hold off on telling anyone until.. who knows when. But once family members started randomly asking me if I was pregnant I found it pointless to try and keep it quiet.

I had a hunch I was pregnant during our last trip to California. The day we got home I took 2 pregnancy tests and both showed positive! I'm more calm about this pregnancy. Obviously because I had a feeling that something wasn't right last time. I was able to hold the news in an entire month before sharing it with the world.

I know this pregnancy is 100% more normal from the last one. My emotions are different. My body is different. Everything just feels different. Not to mention I actually had a serious case of morning sickness last week. It was so bad I had to go to the hospital for an IV! Two days after my IV was my 8 week appointment.  I was so nice to finally be able to hear a little heart beat. Ian thought it sounded like a humming bird :)
Our little peanut (since that's about it's size right now) had a heart beat of 160 bmp. The doctor said that so far it sounds very healthy. A fast heartbeat is a good sign. When he measured peanut it was actually VERY tiny. Only 1.12 cm which measured me out to only being 7 weeks and 2 days pregnant. Not as far along as I thought.. which was a bummer.
Little peanut will makes it's debut around March 29th! Who knows.. I might have a baby for my birthday.

There's our little peanut as tiny as can be. They were able to do the ultra sound on my belly. Which was nice. Usually when you're this far along it's hard to capture the heartbeat through the belly.

This is peanut's heart beat. :)

I've looked at my measurements from the last pregnancy and here's what they were...
STARTING MEASUREMENTS:
weight: 131
bust: 34'
waist: 26'
belly: 32'
hips/bum: 36'

I should have measured myself again since I lost more weight. I got down to 128 and I'm sure the rest of the measurements would have been a touch different.  But anywho.. since THOSE measurements I've already gained 4 lbs. and inch around my bust, 3 inches around my waist, an inch around my belly, and my hips are the same. Totally nuts. I could tell my waist was filling out on Sunday. I felt like I had more of a manish figure. My 12 week appointment is the 9th of next month. Can't wait to see how different the baby looks!

Can't wait to meet you peanut! Stop making mommy sick.
It's not very enjoyable.

HELP! Recipes needed.

I need to get back into the routine of cooking again.
Does anyone have any recipes for me to try out?

Actually, post your favorite recipe OR one you'd rather have someone else test out for you first! I don't mind being the tester cook! hah

random silly thought

I've realized I say a lot of stupid things at weddings to accidentally embarrass myself. For instance.. quite a few times I've asked someone "oh are you the Grandma??" and their reply is ALWAYS "no. I'm the AUNT!" One of the time's she was actually the mother. Boy did I feel stupid after that one. I need to learn to ask.. oh are you the Aunt?! Then if she is the Grandma she'll feel good about herself! ha

During shoots I tend to call people by the color of their shirt. "red.. move to your left. green.. lower your chin". last month during a mixed wedding I said "I'm just going to call you by your color....... of the shirt that is" I felt horribly stupid and racist sounding after that. I'm seriously anything but racist. I swear! Someone save me from myself! ha

How do I learn to keep my mouth shut from these horrid comments I always make?!

Garlic Toast Pizza

Last night I made something SUPER easy (only because the garlic toast was store bought).

I threw some pizza sauce, cheese and pepperonis on the garlic toast, popped it in oven for 12-15 minutes at 350* and tada! Garlic Toast Pizza :)

It was quite yummy as well :) Now that there's just Ian and I... we have SOO many left overs in the fridge! Ahh I hate left overs! haha

Mini Shepherd Pies

I've never had Shepherd Pie before.. let alone ever HEARD of it. But when I came across this recipe I decided to try it out.

Ingredients
1 pound ground beef
1 tablespoon dried minced onion
1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
1/3 cup ketchup
1 tablespoon vinegar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1-1/4 cups mashed potatoes
3 ounces cream cheese
1 batch biscuit dough
1 cup shredded cheese

Directions:
In a large skillet, cook beef and onion over medium heat til meat is browned. Add garlic and cook for 1 minute or until tender; drain. Stir in the ketchup, vinegar and salt; set aside.

Make the biscuit dough and shape into tablespoon sized blobs. I just used premade biscuit dough. Although I should have gotten the HUGE biscuit dough because you're supposed to press 1  dough ball onto the bottom and up the sides of each of 10 greased muffin cups. Mine wasn't big enough to go up the side of the muffin cup!
Next you fill with beef mixture.

 In a small saucepan, whisk together your mashed potatoes. Beat in cream cheese until smooth. Spread potato mixture over beef. Sprinkle with cheese; press down lightly.

 Bake at 375° for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.

Like I said before, I've never had this before. So I wasn't sure what to expect. It was kinda different. Good, but different. :)

Let's play catch up!

Bah! I'm getting horrible at this!

May 22nd I was in California for Kyle and Sarah's wedding.
That trip was pure business and no play for me!

I started out in Bakersfield photographing Sky and Cat's engagements on a piano :)

 You can see more pictures HERE
After their engagements Ian and I headed to LA for Kyle and Sarah's wedding!

So far this is everyone's favorite! HA.. see more photos HERE
When we got home I had the chance to photograph my cousin's engagements. He and his fiance Mandy are soooo cute and totally awesome!!

 Again go HERE for more photos
After David and Mandy's engagements and a few other shoots, I photographed Sarah's bridals. TOTALLY beautiful. You must see THESE!

This past Saturday was Kyle and Sarah's open house!

I got a LOT of compliments on all the photos I took of them as well as the cute decorations I came up with :) See more photos HERE.
So far that's been my life the past few weeks!
Next weekend I'll be in California AGAIN photographing Sky and Cats wedding at a winery in Templeton. Totally excited for the fun photos we'll be getting there!!
Maybe I'll get around to cooking again........maybe.

Happy Anniversary!

Two years ago today I went out and got myself married to Mr. Hottie Pants himself :) Here's a little reflection of our wedding photos and such.

Our engagements..

Bridals...

Wedding day...

My wedding cake... I LOVED it :)

A year later we took Trash The Dress photos to make up for our lack of amazing engagement/wedding photos...

Love you Ian xoxo

Banana Bread

Enough excuses about not making fancy dinners......
I'll admit it.. I've just been too lazy.
Although today I noticed our bananas were getting pretty nasty looking.
Nasty looking bananas make amazing banana bread.
So, that's what I made!

Combine:
1 1/2 c flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp salt
mix in 1 egg
3 mashed bananas
3/4 c sugar
1/4 c oil
add in 1/2 c walnuts to make it banana nut bread

pour in greased bread pan and bake for 45ish min at 350*

I also made bbq chicken for dinner. I made it on the stove and now my house smells of burnt oil. Fabulous. Oh well.. at least the bread was good :) That is a heck of a lot of butter on my bread btw. There wasn't enough butter to spray, so I poured it. Yeahhh.. out came a lot of butter!

Studio Update

So we started on my studio.. here are photos of our progress..
This is the empty basement.

Our HORRIBLE windows WITH carpet inside.

Got all the carpet out!

Went to pull off the baseboards and found water damage!! The water shut off valve wall was all rusted! So they had to cut off the drywall.

The hallway has two different styles of carpet seamed together. I HATE it.. so we tore it out. 

 

The ceiling was also a HUGE disaster. The basement was previously remodeled but they did a HORRID job meshing it all together. So before I could snap a before picture, they boys tore down the ceiling and the ONE door frame that was on the corner of the wall.

 

 Then we tore out the hallway carpet...yes, part of the it painted red.

 

 Then my bro in law Tyler patched up the terrible window framing and the rest of the walls!

And here's my basement thus far! (Minus primer. We primed the floors to keep moister from coming up!)

Ian starts summer school tomorrow.. so I'm not exactly sure when it'll be done. We've had so many surprises with this house that we weren't planning on! I'm just hoping it'll be done soon. But I'd rather get it done the right way than regret it later down the road! :)

Dear today...

I am SO excited this day has finally come! In about 9-10 hours Ian will wake up and start ripping out the carpet in our basement. Why you ask?? Because we're going to turn it into my very own studio!!!
We bought wood floors to put down there and I have a list of new backdrops and props I'd like to eventually get. I'm so excited that we're finally doing it instead of just talking about it! :)
I hope to become AMAZING in the studio. I'd love to photograph more newborns and maternity portraits. There is SO much competition in this category. I've seen so many amazing newborn photographers that charge $250 for 5-10 images! But they CAN charge that because they are so great at what they do. Although I've found that this is their ONLY area of expertise. I on the other hand photograph EVERYTHING.
My goal is to create a beautiful studio that will help me create even more amazing photographs, which will lead to more clients, which will eventually help us make more money. With this money.. I want to remodel my house! haha
Anyway.. I'll take pictures along the way. Ian says it'll be a lot of work. I'm hoping he's wrong. One of our walls is badly damaged and needs either a lot of patch work.. or to be ripped out and redone. We'll see how that goes!
Happy days ahead!!!!

Beef Taco Ring

I felt bad for Ian that I haven't made food for him yet this week. I guess it is only Tuesday, but 2 days without a homemade dinner to eat at work is probably no fun. So today after a bridal shoot I came home and put together this Beef Taco Ring just in time before Ian left for work at 2. Here's how you make it.. luckily I had all of these ingredients from the past couple meals :)

It was super tasty.. like a taco salad! Hope Ian enjoyed it for dinner because there's a lot of left overs now that Kyle doesn't live with us!!
Here's how you make the ring....although I haven't figured out how to make it as perfect as this picture.

Sorry, nothing clever to say about anything tonight.

White Chicken Chili & Wheat Bread

My sister Richelle is famous for her amazing wheat bread and chicken chili.. so I decided to try her recipe out!

First we'll start with the Wheat Bread
In bowl mix:
1 T yeast
1/4 c warm water
In mixer mix:
2 1/2 c warm water
1/4 c brown sugar
3 1/2 c wheat flour
1 T salt (last time I made bread I put in TOO much salt... so I was scared and maybe put in half a tablespoon. But what I forgot was that last time I put in 2 tablespoons instead of 2 teaspoons. I guess the full one would have worked out after all)
1/3 c applesauce OR vegetable oil (I didn't have applesauce for the healthy version).

Mix ingredients together. Add an additional 2-3 c wheat flour. Kneed 4-10 min. Place in greased bread pans. Raise till double. Bake 38 minutes at 350 degrees. Makes 2 loaves.

This time around everything mixed so nicely!! And rose so fantastic as well. I only have one bread pan, so the other waited around on the cutting board (bad idea. When it was time to put the 2nd loaf in it deflated when I picked it up and looked so ugly after I baked it! haha)

 See how pretty it looks this time??! Yay!

Now for the White Chicken Chili
2 large boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 small chopped yellow onion
1 - 7 oz can diced green chilies
1 - 15 oz can great northern beans
2 - 15 oz white beans
1 lb ground turkey

Boil chicken breasts in about 2-3 cups of water flavored with 2-3 chicken bouillons. Add salt and pepper to the taste. Remove chicken, shred and place back in broth.

Since I made it earlier in the day Ian was able to help me out and shred the chicken :)
Next..
Saute chopped onions in oil till tender. Add ground turkey and cook till no longer pink.

After taking this picture I realized pink ground turkey doesn't look appetizing! hah
Then add to the broth. Add diced green chilies, Drain all beans and add to broth. Mix and cook till warm. Serve topped with grated cheese and sour cream (optional).

It was SO yummy. I mixed it all in time for Ian to take to work tonight. Then I gave my brother in law some for helping us move Kyle out. THEN Kyle and I had a bowl and I still had 2 servings left over! So needless to say.. this serves 6 people!

But yes, my brother moved out of our house today. I'm seriously SO sad. With Ian at school and work all day and night I've really enjoyed my brothers company. I cooked for him, watched tv with him.. and actually had someone to talk to. I'm so sad he left :(
Guess it's time for him to be a grown up!