I’ve been so busy lately that I haven’t had a chance to blog any of my recent sessions or anything else for that matter! I did want to put this special up on here though, just incase you would like to book a session with me! Thanks and I hope to be back blogging more often real soon!
I took some photos over in Blanco, at Chase’s parents house. He is such an adorable little boy, I can’t wait to see him grow up and start playing with my boys. Here are a few photos to take a look at, but what I really love doing are these slideshows, where you can view his whole gallery of portraits I took.
So excited for a leap year, take this extra day to do something different, unexpected and enjoy it! Or you could just sleep in, like I did today (doesn’t help when you go to bed after midnight!) So I’m feeling in a really giving mood and want to offer a special for my photography services. A deal this good is bound to only come once every four years, so act fast and don’t let this one getaway!
So what is it, you ask? I’m offering a session AND a disc of edited images (15 for all portrait sessions, 25 for newborns) for just $200. Payment is due upon booking and this deal is only good through midnight tonight, so call me, email me, whatever it takes to take advantage of this special. (Oh and travel in and around Austin and San Antonio is included, if it’s much farther than that, I will have to charge a travel fee, sorry.) I’m more than happy to fill up my calendar for the rest of this year, so feel free to book anytime in 2012! HAPPY LEAP YEAR!
I took some really fun photos with this little baby girl, Maci. Who already has a nickname, cupcake! And what a cute one she is! I’m posting a few here on my blog, but I’ve got more photos in a slideshow of the session for you to take a look at. Enjoy!
I took some portraits of a soon to be two year old little girl at a ranch in the Dripping Springs area. I was fortunate enough to know a friend that is helping out on the ranch and was willing to help me out with this photo shoot. I think this little girl is going to grow up to be a cowgirl and it looks like she is already a natural with the horses! These miniature horses are just perfect for little kids too, they even do birthday parties with them! I shot this whole session in what they typically call a lifestyle session. No posed photos, no coaxing to smile or even look at the camera (even though it was in her face a lot!). And the horses were trying their best to to pose either! It’s probably the best way to approach this age anyway and it was perfect giving her some awesome new opportunity to photograph as well. I decided to do a slideshow of all the photos this time. I hope you enjoy the show!
So I’m staying up late again, getting some work done and waiting for my 14 month old to wake up because he has unfortunately gotten in a bad habit of waking up at night and nursing. He typically wakes up around now it’s 12:30 as I’m typing this, but he hasn’t yet. Probably has something to do with being a little extra tired since he didn’t get a second nap in today. Anyway, I thought I would just write out what went on today, well, yesterday now…I’m not sure why I feel like doing this, but anyway, here goes nothing!
So I got up today, a little later than usual, I believe it was around 8:30. I say that it was a little later than usual because lately Colton (my 4 year old) has been waking up pretty early 7-7:30 and I pretty much wake up whenever he does. Of course, that usually wakes up Brady (my 1 year old) and then I really don’t have any choice of trying to sleep in. Of course I’m always super tired at that time of the day still because I always stay up so late, waiting on Brady to wake up! I don’t know why, but lately I just feel like it isn’t worth it to go to bed and sleep for an hour or two before I am woken up and have to go to the other side of the house to get him (he stays in bed with us for the rest of the night). Anyway, so I got some breakfast for the boys (frozen french toast sticks, gluten free, of course!) and made myself a smoothie. I knew I had to get everything done in a fairly short amount of time, we needed to be out of the house by about 9:30 to be in Blanco by 10. I needed to get some work finished that I hadn’t had a chance to finish the night before, since Brady woke up before I was done with my work. So I tried to get that done quickly and then pack some food for a picnic lunch at the park, get everyone dressed (Colton dresses himself now, I just have to pick out his clothes) and rush everyone out the door, because we of course, were running late. So we get to the park, they have a little lesson for them, this time it was on worms. They got to touch the worm and watch it move around, then they went on a walk and had a ton of fun playing in leaves. Then they got to paint with mud and a fake worm. We had our picnic lunch with some friends of ours. Of course, Colton was too busy playing to eat. After we were finally done, we ran a few errands in town and headed back to the house. I finally got Colton to eat something once we got home and then I was back to trying to get some work done since Brady had fallen asleep in the truck and Colton was playing outside. So I managed to get a little bit done, but then Brady woke up and we had to head into Dripping Springs. I’ve started ebaying some of my random items around the house, so I had to ship something out that had sold. So since were in town, I stopped by a place on the way home that I was checking out for a client. I’m going to be taking some photos there next week and just wanted to see the place and get some ideas before I get there next week. So we finished that and headed back home. I fixed some veggies real quick for dinner and I had some chicken in the crock-pot. We ate dinner pretty quick and were back out the door, headed to Johnson City to take photos with a photography group from Drippin at PEC. They have a crazy amount of lights wrapped around these huge oak trees. It’s a really great site to see. We have stopped by a couple of years before, but I think this was the first year where the boys were out in the perfect weather, enjoying all the lights and running around. I got some great photos of the lights and tried to take some photos of the boys as well. It was a fun time and we will have to go back next year, for sure! (I’ll try and post some of those photos sometime soon!) Then we headed back home, read some books and got ready for bed. Then I finally was able to work without having to worry about being interrupted. I got quite a bit done, I still have a few things left to do on my list, but I’m pretty sure the day will be a lot less running around and going places, so I should be able to get it done while the boys are playing. Well, that’s it. I hope Brady wakes up soon because I’m getting tired…of course, I do always still hold out hope that he will just randomly decide to sleep through the night all of the sudden, but it hasn’t happened yet!
I’ve made these a couple times now and they have turned out great. I’m very excited to share this recipe, it is going to be one of the mini-pies I’m making this year for Thanksgiving. I love the idea of mini-pies and I think it’s the perfect portion, especially after a big meal, like Thanksgiving! So anyway, here is what I did. I found a great recipe for pie crust on a phone app I have: Cook it allergy free app
I of course had to tweak the pie crust recipe a tad. Then I found the recipe I tweaked for the filling here: Little Bit Funky Blog
And here is the recipe, I’ll post a photo as soon as I make them again!
Mini-Apple Pies
Crust:
1 1/4 Cups: brown rice flour
1/2 Cup: arrowroot starch
1/4 Cup: amaranth flour
1/4 tsp: xanthan gum
1/4 tsp: salt
1 Tbsp: ice water, or more if needed
1: egg, lightly beaten (I substituted 3 Tbsp applesauce + 1 tsp baking power for the egg)
12 Tbsp: butter, chilled and cut into cubes
Directions:
1. Sift together all of the flours, xanthan gum, and salt in a bowl and then place into the bowl of a food processor.
2. Add the cold butter cubes to the flour mix in the food processor and pulse until the butter cubes are reduced to the size of peas and the mixture looks like coarse, dry crumbs.
3. Add the lightly beaten egg or substitute and then pulse until just incorporated, then add the ice water and pulse 2 -3 times.
4. If dough feels dry and crumbly still, add another ¼ teaspoons of ice water. Pulse again then see if you can form a ball with the dough. If so, then ready for next step. If not, repeat step 4 again, being careful not to add too much water.
5. When dough is right consistency, place dough on piece of wax paper, flatten into a disc and wrap in wax paper and refrigerate for 1 hour before rolling out dough.
6. After dough is thoroughly chilled, place between two sheets of wax paper and roll out once dough has softened after a few minutes.
7. Start from outside and roll gently until you have about a 10 inch circle (about 1/8-1/4 inch thick). If dough starts to become too soft and sticky, place in freezer for 8-10 minutes until firms up slightly again and then finish rolling.
8. Peel wax paper off top of dough, then cut out round circles (I used a wide mouth jar ring), gently peel dough off of wax paper.
9. Gently press dough into greased muffin tins. Pierce bottom with fork several times to prevent bubbling.
Filling:
2 large apples (I used Jonagold)
2 teaspoons cinnamon
pinch of nutmeg
1. Peel apples, core them and dice them into 1/4-1/2 inch pieces.
2. Mix apples, cinnamon and nutmeg together.
3. Place apple mixture into prepared mini-pie crusts. Fill till mixture is heaping over, the apples will cook down.
4. Optional: Place leftover pie crust on top of apple pie mixture.
5. Bake in preheated oven to 400 degrees. Bake for about 18-25 minutes until golden.
Makes approx. 12 mini-apple pies
Crust recipe can also be used to make one pie crust. For baking partially, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Pierce bottom with fork several times to prevent bubbling and then bake for about 15 minutes until golden.
I am testing out posting from my phone. We were at the grocery store again today because I decided at the last minute I would try to make some tamales for Thanksgiving. So my older son, Colton and I were admiring all the flowers for sale and thought we should buy some for bringing to all our dinner places we will be going on Thursday. So someone just happened to walk by with a beatiful flower arrangement the store had put together and it reminded me of the great idea of putting cramberries in the vase with the flowers. So we picked out some beatiful and lovely smelling roses out, grabbed a couple bags of cranberries and went home to put it all together. I snapped a quick photo of the finished arrangement with my phone.
I had a lot of fun taking photos of this family last weekend. They came out to my home, right outside of Dripping Springs to take some photos out in the country. They had a fun time too checking everything out and finding fun places to take photos at. I had a hard time picking my favorites for this one, I loved them all and I think I might just have to come back and add a slideshow later with all the photos from this one. Mini-sessions typically come with 10 proofs, this one had 20!
So I’ve decided to create a new blog! One where I can blog about anything and everything going on in my life, no specific topic to stay on, just randomness, really! Feel free to read more about me and what will more than likely be posted on this blog in the about me section of this blog. I’m excited to start blogging again and can’t wait to have some fun with where this blog will take me. The possibilities are endless and I just love coming up with new ideas and things to do!