Stephen and Jessika

Happily Ever After

2012-01-27T14:36:00.000-08:00

We had the privilege of attending my friend's wedding on Friday, January 13. It was a beautiful wedding. The vows were great - Sara got us all by saying she had prepared a song as part of her vows and even had the piano player play along, but unfortunately it was just a joke. It did get some good laughs and was very memorable. I love weddings, you can feel the love in the air and the happiness surrounding you. It always makes me remember my wonderful wedding day and I get mushy and will admit there are always tears, especially when the groom gets choked up.

I brought my camera to the wedding but somehow ended up right in front of one of the two photographers almost the whole night. Knowing how annoying it can be to have someone in your shot or a flash interfere with yours and ruin the picture, I snapped very few pictures. This one, I had fun editing and I just love the pure bliss you can see on their faces!

I am so happy for them!

Sara posted this pic on her blog over at http://www.pendletones.com/ and I have to say, seeing any of my work online where I didn't post it, just makes my heart skip a beat! I love it!

Table Reloved

2012-01-12T22:08:00.000-08:00

I have this wonderful table that I got from my mom. It has been around since I was like 6. It followed me to my first apartment and now to my first house. It is just a good sturdy wood table full of memories and it fits great in my house. (notice this was done before the swag light fix in our dining area!)

I painted it red shortly after moving in to our house about 3 years ago. It has been good but I was growing tired of it. If I had a larger kitchen where an island would fit, I would pick a butcher block island so I thought why not get the look with the table?

For our anniversary (back in November, yikes!) Stephen said we could do whatever I wanted. Well I wanted to refinish this. He makes fun of me because when given the choice to do ANYTHING at all, I choose manual labor! It was a fun project together. We ran into a couple of bumps but it turned out exactly as I wanted.

We painted the chairs and the base all white.

For the top, I started sanding away and after a solid hour I found there were at least 6 coats of paint and I barely made a dent after the very physical **power** sanding process so I turned to a paint stripper. I had never stripped paint so I was a little nervous. The stuff ate through my latex gloves - maybe I should have read the info more closely? FYI - if you use that stuff, use real tough gloves and long sleeves to cover your skin.

After that process I sanded it down really smooth, wiped it clean and stained it. Then I went through about 3 cycles of applying polyurethane and sanding it smooth.

The surface feels amazing. When I did the first sanding job before the stain, I realized I wasn't going with the grain but more in circles and it was creating scuff lines in the wood. I found that I loved it and I love that the stain brings that out more - it adds more character to the basic colors.

I have been going back and forth trying to decide if I should chunk up and antique the white base parts and chairs. Part of me feels it is a little too sterile now and another part likes the clean look. This great inner battle is probably why it has taken me so long to post about. I still haven't decided so for now it is the way it is and I love the look of it.

Christmas Greetings from us to you!

2011-12-23T12:28:00.000-08:00

Bama Tshirt Blanket - Roll Tide

2011-12-22T11:30:00.000-08:00

If you don't already know this, Stephen is a HUGE Alabama Football fan, it is his alma mater. I wanted to make a quilt for him but the only quilts I know / feel comfortable even attempting to make are rag quilts. We have so many tshirts that I wanted to incorporate, but tshirts don't rag well. So I made up a pattern with a 3 inch boarder of black and houndstooth strips with a 14 inch tshirt in the middle, there are 9 squares like that that were sewn together and then ragged. It took about 15 hours to complete.

Stephen likes it and I actually use it more often then him.

Molly has to be the center of attention and always jumps in wherever our attention is focused. Luckily she is so cute!

Christmas Pancake Mix Gifts

2011-12-19T07:00:00.000-08:00

This year for coworker and neighbor gifts, we are giving my favorite pancakes ever! We used to only buy mixes but one day we ran out and found a recipe online that we have altered to our own personal perfection! We have never looked back, no mix compares! So why not jar it up and share it?

I made the labels on my silhouette, of course. I picked up the 16oz mason jars from Walmart.
I love the way they turned out!

Here is the recipe of the mix:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon white sugar

In a large bowl, sift together all of the ingredients, 2-3 times. This is a very important step, the sifting helps the pancakes to be much more fluffy! Sifting always reminds me of my Grandma Nan making wheat pancakes for us when we slept over, I can still remember the smell to this day! Such great memories!

Anyway, it is super easy, it makes just about 2 cups worth of mix which fits perfectly in the 16 oz jars. Be sure to clean the jars well before filling them. We just grabbed our biggest bowl and made a ton of the mix - just be careful to accurately calculate the amount you need for multiple mixes.

Yummy Bags of Candied Pecans

2011-12-15T10:01:00.000-08:00

I adapted the Kevin & Amanda recipe for candied pecans found here. I added an extra egg white and 1TBSP Vanilla to the egg & water mixture and then added a 1/4 cup of brown sugar. The original is great but I love the extra goodness that comes with these.

I made a quadrupal batch and then bagged them in treat bags. Closed up the bags with twist ties, hidden by a big festive bow and a gift tag to top it off.

These will be on their way to some of our family and friends this year!

** Of course we kept a little for Stephen and I to share!**

Homemade Tear Off Personal Notepad Tutorial

2011-12-14T07:30:00.000-08:00

One of the ladies I work with has a note pad that says "from the desk of" with her name on it. I thought about ordering a notepad like that from our print department but wanted something a little more custom and more me. I love the owl design from my gift tags so I decided to use that.

All you need for this project is:

Rubber Cement

Large Binder Clips

100 Sheets of paper (or however many pages you want)

Chip board (cut to the same size as the paper)

Print your design and name on the paper and cut to size. I used free fonts on this - the top is Raleway found here and the name is in Jenna Sue found here. I found that many copy places would print and cut for pretty inexpensive. I wanted to do it all myself so I printed the paper on grey copy paper, two to a sheet and then hand cut each the same size, straight down the middle so the final size was 5.5 x 8.5.

Put the chip board on the back and then make sure all of the pages are flush and straight on all sides. Binder clip near the top of the stack. Lay the stack flat on the table and glue the top of the pad. Let dry for 15-30 minutes and reapply until the coverage is even, it took 3 times to get it where I wanted it.

If the glue globs on to the chip board or front of the pad like this, it will rub off, so no worries!

I let the glue dry overnight to be sure it set but it seemed pretty dry after a couple of hours.

I am totally in love with this and can't wait to write my next note!

And it looks great with my new gift tags that I showed earlier so easy to make one for yourself or as a gift! The project ended up being about $2.50!

Swag Lighting

2011-12-13T09:00:00.000-08:00

The lighting in my dining area has been driving me crazy. It isn't centered over our kitchen table. I have thought about moving the lighting but that would require some electrical knowledge and to fill a hole where the current light is coming out of, which is not something I really want to do.

I had an idea to try what is called "swag lighting". I knew what I was looking for but not what it was called. The very helpful man at Lowe's explained to me how it works and what to get. This $5 kit would fix everything!

I guess swag lighting was very popular in the 70's and 80's so you could move your lighting anywhere in the room, provided you had enough chain. Part of my problem is that our chain isn't that long. I know the standard lighting distance from the table is about where it was originally but as the Lowe's guy said, it is my house and no one can tell me I am wrong - plus we hit our head on the light how it is now so it can't hurt to be higher!

You basically drill a hole in the ceiling, put this tool thing in there and tighten the screw and then hang the chain where you want it. We had to get one that could hold a substantial amount of weight since this wasn't a plant and some of the hooks only held 10 lb. I went with the 60 lb capacity to be safe.

This is the end result. The light is higher than I expected but I like it and I feel much better that it is centered over the table now!

This is what the hook and chain look like up close. I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to install and fix something that has been bothering me almost the entire time we have lived here!

Custom Gift Tags

2011-12-12T07:30:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned before, I recently got a Silhouette cutting machine. I have used it for vinyl and for stenciling but that is about it at this point. I had this idea to make custom gift tags for a few homemade gifts I am working on for Christmas. I designed the files and imported them into the Silhouette studio program, printed them out and then ran them through the machine to cut them.

I love the way they turned out and can't wait to put them on my gifts!

The owl is of course my favorite. I really cracked myself up with the "hoo. hoo. hoo." Stephen can attest to that and how excited I was when these were done cutting!

Christmas Tree & Ornament Decorated Chandelier

2011-12-09T09:00:00.000-08:00

This year I wasn't planning on putting up a tree but I got caught up in the holiday spirit and had to pull out the tree and decorate it!

I forgot how sparkly everything was and how much I love the colors!

I have seen some people decorate their chandeliers and thought I would take a few decorations from the back of the tree and stick a small wreath in the chandelier and try it out. I am still not convinced that I love it yet but I am growing to like it more than I did at first.

What do you think?

3 Tier Christmas Tissue Paper Wreath

2011-12-05T08:30:00.000-08:00

I was looking around online for some Christmas decor ideas and came across the following, found here from Martha Stewart.

I love the triple wreaths, but the spruce isn't really my style. I have wanted to make a tissue paper wreath like this one below, found here.

So I decided to combine them! I was going to do all three in green but thought the red and green would be more festive.
(I had just cleaned the door and it was so cold the cleaner left streaks, I could not get off!)

The red is a snowflake Christmas tissue paper.

The whole project was under $25 and I love it!

Lazy Sunday

2011-12-04T21:03:00.001-08:00

Today has been a great Sunday. I wanted to say we were lazy but really we did quite a bit. I cooked 5 meals for this week and got them ready so we just have to pop them in the oven, which will save time and money since sometimes (more often than it should) I come home not wanting to cook and we go out instead. I also worked on a Christmas gifts, finishing up craft projects and blogging. But in all honestly, most of the day we were laying around, like the pictures below show.

This was while Stephen was on the phone with his brother after the BCS rankings came out and it was official that Alabama and LSU will have a rematch fighting for the National Championship on January 9! You can tell he is quite happy. I can't believe how much I know about football now and how excited I really am for that game and if you really want to know why it is a big deal that those two teams (from the same conference) were selected, I can tell you all about it - well actually I can repeat what I have heard from Stephen and his conversations with his brother!

I just couldn't resist snapping this with Molly, she is just so cute!

Royce too.
Molly has the hairiest feet! We just cut her hair like a month ago and already the hair is coming out of his paws! I just love them both so much!

Silhouette Cutter - Alabama A Shirt & Kids Horse shirt

2011-11-18T11:00:00.000-08:00

I recently bought a Silhouette Cutter. Stephen was all about it, he has all of these ideas for Alabama shirts and Christmas gift ideas.

I have only played with a couple of features but so far it is pretty awesome.

The first thing I got is their tshirt starter kit. It comes with stencil vinyl and fabric ink. You design your project (or download an image), cut it out in the stencil, stick it on the fabric, then use the included sponge to dab on the fabric ink. When it dries it is a lot like silk screened shirts. I like that I can control the amount of ink so it can have more of a "vintage" feel, there is just a lot of control with this process.

I of course made some Alabama shirts for us to wear and support the team! Stephen loves his shirt.

Here is mine, just a red "A" that is worn all over!

I am going to make some Christmas presents with this thing. I have had some shirt ideas for a while and thought for my little sister I wanted to do something with horses since she loves them so much. So I made this.

Front

Back

I used the flocked heat transfer vinyl. It is iron on vinyl but the flocked material is soft and doesn't feel or look like regular heat transfer vinyl. I can't wait until Christmas to give it to her!

I am excited to see what else I can make with this thing!

$5 Cabinet Door & Wreath Project

2011-11-14T07:00:00.000-08:00

I have recently discovered a ReStore. It is run by the Habitat for Humanity and people can donate their unused construction products or old items when remodeling and they will resell it and the money goes towards Habitat for Humanity. What an awesome place and why haven't I heard of this before?
Here are the items you need:

Cabinet door (or wood board)
Wreath (Hobby Lobby)
Paint
Sponge Brush
Antiquing glaze or wood stain
Ribbon
Hot glue gun and glue
Sawtooth hanger
Sandpaper

I picked out a cabinet door for $.50 on sale! I guess if you added up all of the items at once it would be over $5 but I used left over paint and scrap ribbon, a used brush, already had a hot glue gun, etc. It is still a cheap project though!

I sanded down the cupboard to prepare it for the paint.

I painted two quick coats of paint on the cabinet. No need to be perfect, you sand it and make it look worn so projects like these are very forgiving. I painted it with yellow first and then a little white on top of that.

I ran the sandpaper along the edges and corners to give it a more antique look. The more you take off, the more worn it looks. I like to randomly take off areas along the project to make it look more naturally weathered. The harder you press, the more that comes off.

Paint on some of the antique glaze or stain and wipe it off with a paper towel. I do it in small sections because you can always add more to make it darker but it is harder to get excess off if you stain it too dark.

I originally bought a knob ($.15 at Restore) to hang the wreath but didn't end up liking it the end. So I hammered in a sawtooth hanger in the back and then tied some ribbon and glued it to the top of the cabinet.

And you are done! This made a great birthday gift for a friend, was really quick and easy - just my type of project!

New Bedroom Decor - Grey & Yellow

2011-11-10T09:15:00.000-08:00

Our bedroom is not the most relaxing place to me and I would like it to be. The wall are empty and I haven't really loved the decor. I painted the walls and got a new white bedspread that I liked for a while but then Molly got a hold of this big vitamin pill and got pink stuff all over the bedspread, completely ruining it. Since then I have been determined to make the room more me.

I didn't want to spend too much time or money on all of this so I went around my house looking for things to take from here and there or that were being stored. I found the following items and hung them in a collage and I love what it looks like! Most of what I had was sitting in a box waiting for a table to set them on or something. I am really happy with the way it turned out!

Right now I love grey and yellow - as do most people - it is so hot right now! Since I painted the walls grey (the grey looks more like he first picture in person), I wanted to find a yellow comforter. It was not as easy as I thought. I searched the Internet looking for the yellow I had in mind. Everything was too pale or too neon and just plain ugly. While at Target one day, I came across the bedspread below and I fell in love!

It wasn't exactly what I had in mind but I love the patterns and the balance of the other colors with the yellow! And we saw the same comforter on HGTV's House Hunters and somehow that made me really proud like I picked something that ended up on TV! HA.

I like the overall look of the main part of the room now.

I am thinking that some homemade painters canvas curtains painted with a chevron pattern would be fun! We have to keep the blackout curtains though as there is a warehouse behind our house with bright spotlights that shine right in our windows at night - lovely.

I just had to point this out - do you see what we keep in the corner?

That's right, a bat. Robbers beware, we mean business.

Back to the walls - I had a round art piece from Ikea that was off white with brown birds painted on it. I wanted to create something more me with that and so I made this more modern looking piece. I really hate it. I have had it on the wall for a while trying to get used to it, but it just isn't working for me - but at least I tried. One day I will get around to making it into something else!

I remember moving into our house after it was built thinking I had to have everything the way I wanted it right away but I am finding that decor is more of a collection over time that you build upon here and there. I have a long want list but I do love going to my more comfy bedroom at the end of the day! The rest of my list can wait a while!

We're back!

2011-10-29T13:04:00.000-07:00

To be more efficient I was hoping to move my blog over to JessikaReed.com. Well I have found that I am really picky about what I want to put over there so now I don't post anything personal in fear of offending a potential customer and I miss blogging. So I am back here.

What is up with us?

Well Stephen got a job working as a Community Manager, managing hoa properties. He is really liking it. It really was a good in the end that he got laid off. I was made full time at work the day after Stephen lost his job and then about a month later I was promoted. Luckily I am able to still focus on school and school is now free which is awesome!

The only problem is that I can't figure out what I am doing in school. I went back for graphic design. But I have fallen in love with photography and don't really like the teachers or direction of the design program. I am struggling on what to do. I will be receiving my second associates degree at the end of this semester, it will be in art and visual communications with an emphasis in graphic design and photography. I have an associates in general studies already. How many associates degrees equal a bachelors? Ha:) since I am struggling with this I am only taking one class this semester and hoping to figure its out soon!

I recently purchased a silhouette cameo cutter. I have been thinking about getting into vinyl and Stephen wanted something so we could make custom university of Alabama T-shirts. This option was pretty cost effective and if all we end up using it for is personal stuff then I won't feel as guilty as I would have if we bought a full cutter. I haven't had much chance to play around with it but am excited to soon. This is the cutter.

This morning we took Molly to get her hair cut. She is a Pomeranian / long haired Chihuahua and her long hair is hard to manage. It is a lot to brush it and she still gets knots, especially behind her ears. We have gone with the lion cut since the first time we got it cut and I decided to go with something different.

She looks like an entirely different dog now and she is actually smaller than Royce it was just all that deceiving hair that made her look bigger. We now see what a dark face she has in comparison to the rest of her light coat and she really huge ears that stick right up. We love the new look!

All in all life is good. We always seem to be busy but we are enjoying what we are doing. Our three year anniversary is coming up in a little over a week. Some days it seems like we have been together forever and others it seems like we are still so new! I am just really happy where we are!

JessikaReed.com-New site and blog!

2011-07-30T22:07:00.000-07:00

Update your blog list... I have been busy redesigning my website and have finally launched it. I added my blog there as well so everything is one place and that is where you will find me now! Check it out!!!

www.jessikareed.com

The Fam

2011-07-09T18:51:00.000-07:00

The other night I was playing around with my speedlight flash and got a couple of shots of the "fam". I love our dogs and Stephen is a keeper.

Camera Phone Picture Editing

2011-06-24T09:40:00.000-07:00

I have never been a big fan of camera phones. I have a pretty new phone as of January and the camera is actually pretty nice but a camera phone is still a camera phone. A few months ago, Stephen had grown out a beard and then while shaving it off, he decided to try out a couple different options and show them off to me. It was very fun and he was cracking me up, as usual!

This is one of my favorite pictures from that day.

I think it is funny and perfectly represents Stephen but the picture isn't that great. So I decided to edit it in Photoshop. I will let you in on a little secret for my photo editing. Almost all of my photos have editing based on the Pioneer Woman's Photoshop Action sets. I have tweeked them and altered the actions to fit my style and make them more my own.

I remember being so blown away by how cool her "actions" were but didn't really understand how they work. Basically they are macros, you record your steps in Photoshop and then when you edit the next time you just play the action and it makes the exact same edits but you can still edit them for each individual picture. I have since learned how to make my own and have done some but I tend to go back to my favorite mixes based on PW. You can find her actions here, she even has them for Photoshop Elements.

I played around with her vintage, seventies, fresh and colorful and sepia actions. I also lightened up the eyes as well as the background and taking out the yellowness. This is what I came up with.

Here is the side by side comparison. I am really impressed with how it turned out considering it was just a camera phone picture.

Happy 101 blog post!

Type Catalog - The League of Moveable Type

2011-06-14T21:11:00.000-07:00

For my advanced typography class we have been assigned to design a type catalog featuring 3-6 typefaces from a type foundry of our choice. I am all about free fonts. I have a new respect for the amount of time and work that goes into designing a typeface and think the designer should be compensated - but don't want it to necessarily be by me. So instead of trying to figure out a way to steal fonts I selected a foundry that offers all free typefaces, The League of Movable Type.

The catalog size has to fit in an 8.5 X 11 but we can pick any size as long as that requirement is met. Mine is designed at 5 x 5. We are currently in the Black & White Comps stage, which means we present these in black and white and receive feedback before changing colors. I usually play with color a little and then change it after the critique.

I like where this is heading. I am sure my teacher will need some convincing - he isn't very easy to please or receive consistent feedback from.

This has probably been my favorite assignment so far because I have an obsession with fonts and liked picking some for this project. I don't think I have shared much of my school work and want to document better so I can see my progress!

Figuring it out

2011-06-14T12:22:00.000-07:00

Life is a challenge sometimes. I feel like I am always trying to keep myself busy and try new things to keep myself challenged but sometimes something comes out of the blue and forces you to be challenged, even when you didn't want to.

Stephen lost his job last week. He lost the same job almost exactly a year ago but was hired back a couple of days later. The company had seemed to be doing better and had even been hiring people, including some last week. I realize that with a company, it is just business but to me it is personal. I feel angry about what happened and especially the way that it happened and how they (the company) handled it and that it happened to my husband, the person I love and respect the most in life and I can't do anything about it. I am a fixer and I can't fix this.

I know that many people, especially recently, have gone through things like this and some probably in a worse situation than we are in. I have always thought, that must suck but now I know for sure that it does. And we haven't even begun to feel it financially.

I really believe that in the end this will be for the best. Stephen deserves a job he loves and a place with a future. He has recently gone back to school to study ASL because he would like to be interpreter one day. We are hoping to both be able to continue pursuing our passions.

One of the responses that I hate most in any situation, is "we will figure it out". That doesn't mean much to me, I need a plan, I need details, I need to see how it will work out, let's face it, I am a control freak! Honestly though, in this situation I don't know any of those things and all I can think is that we will just have to figure it out.

I am hopeful he will find something soon. He is smart, talented and charming and such a loyal and hard worker, anyone would be lucky to have him. I know I am.

It will be interesting to see what changes we are able to make to adjust to this new situation. I feel like we have cut back so much in the past year or so with me going part time and going back to school and there couldn't possibly be anything left to do but again, I am sure we will figure it out. Over the weekend we ate ramen noodles, and I haven't had straight ramen noodles in years, we survived that so I am sure we will be fine. We will keep you posted.

Toasted Cinnamon French Toast

2011-06-03T08:14:00.000-07:00

Growing up, I just remember french toast as eggs, milk and bread. Sometimes my dad would add cinnamon and it was such a nice treat. It is funny how as you get older you start to realize how many ways there are to do things. Most of the time, the way I had it growing up was the "right way" but in this case, I think my adult french toast (that sounds a little dirty ;) is much more interesting than the way I used to make it. I guess that is part of growing up, taking things here and there from your childhood and making it even better to fit you better as you grow up. Who knew french toast could be so enlightening!

We make our french toast in a big batch and freeze it for quick breakfasts during the week. If you want single servings you can cut this recipe accordingly!

What you will need:

1 loaf of Bread - (18 pieces) I use Homepride brand but I have never met a bread I didn't like
9 Eggs
1 cup - Milk
3 tbsp - Cinnamon
1 tbsp - Vanilla
1 tbsp - Sugar
1/2 tsp - Nutmeg

Heat skillet or pan on medium heat and spray with non-stick cooking spray.

In a medium bowl, dump all ingredients except for bread.

Mix well.

Dip bread in the mixture one slice at a time, turning twice to evenly coat and allow bread to soak up the good stuff!

Allow the excess to drip of the bread and place on the skillet.

Repeat until the skillet is full. I stir the liquid mixture between each bread slice dipping to keep the cinnamon proportion right for each piece! I always feel bad for the last slice if there is a lack of cinnamon goodness!

Allow the toast to cook for about a minute and flip, continue doing this until both sides are golden brown.

Stack up those slices.

I feel like I have accomplished something if I can have very little waste with the liquid mixture! I usually end up with something like this.

To freeze, just put the slices into freezer ziplock bags. We have done it where we put all of the slices in one big bag and they break apart pretty easily when you go to eat them later but this time we only had the small individual bags so we bagged them 2 to a bag for easy servings. Just pop them in the toaster and heat up like you would eggos or any other freezer delight! We love the extra toastiness that these provide so we even throw our fresh french toast into the toaster before serving!

Wheeler Farm

2011-06-01T20:57:00.000-07:00

I love Wheeler Farm, it reminds me of being a kid. I went there recently to take pictures of my grandma and the animals were very distracting!

These guys were nesting. On the side you could see one of the eggs. I just love this shot!

Just going for a stroll!

This one was so unique and special!

BBQ Burger Pizza

2011-05-31T18:47:00.001-07:00

This is so delicious! Stephen is a HUGE BBQ sauce fan - in fact it is just about the only condiment that he will use so I try to bring it in to meals as much as possible. I was originally envisioning this more as a pocket / calzone type dish but it kind of created itself and the results were delicious!

Here is what you will need:

1 lb ground beef
1 packet Lipton Onion Soup Mix
1/2 cup BBQ Sauce - whatever brand you like. We prefer the sweeter stuff!
1/2 cup cheese
Favorite Pizza Dough

Serves 8

You can use Pillsbury refrigerated dough or if you are near a Winco you can try their brand bagged pizza dough in the refrigerated section near the cheese and pasta sauces - it is my new favorite thing. You can also make it yourself but I haven't mastered that yet!

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray a medium sized cookie sheet with non-stick spray.

On medium heat, mix the beef with the onion soup mix.

Then mix in the BBQ sauce.

Roll out the dough on the cookie sheet. Make sure the dough isn't too thin - unless you like a super thin crust. Our dough didn't quite fill the sheet.

When the meat is browned, drain and pour evenly over the dough.

Cover with cheese.

Bake uncovered for 20 minutes until the edges turn slightly golden brown.

Cut into squares. Serves well with a side salad or green beans!

Baby Photography - For Jaime

2011-05-25T20:35:00.000-07:00

My new year's resolution was to blog at least once a week. My last post was February 8 - in case you haven't checked a calendar recently it is May 25 - a little over do. Today I got an email that I had a new comment on my blog from Jaime saying she checks my blog waiting for me to post something new. I know that there are people that comment here (which I absolutely love!) but sometimes I think - who is reading this and why am I doing this? Then to get that comment - it just made my day. I have missed blogging but have been super busy mostly with school but this is something I enjoy so thank you Jaime for inspiring me to come back!

Since the end of January, I have been doing an internship for a photography company that takes pictures of newborn babies in the hospital after they are born. It has been a great experience. I have enjoyed seeing my progress and learning something new every time I got to shoot a new baby.

Here are some of my favorite shots:

One of my favorite parts of this experience was to see the dad of the babies - especially the first time dad. They were so proud and protective. Stephen will make a great dad one day and I can't wait for that stage in our lives!

My last day with the internship was last Sunday. I am glad I did it and am pleased with what I have learned but I am very excited to get my weekends back - working 7 days a week and taking a full class load has been taking a toll on me!

Root Beer Pulled Pork

2011-02-08T13:35:00.000-08:00

This is one of the easiest, yet crowd pleasing recipes! It works well with nachos, tacos, burgers, etc. but our most favorite way to have it is as burritos. This is a sweet pork, somewhat like Cafe Rio but I have heard they make theirs with coke or diet coke but personally I like this meat better.

What you need:
Crockpot - we use a 6 qt but you could use something a smaller one
3 lb - pork roast (I accidentally used beef with this and it was good but the pork is much better)
2 Liters - Root Beer (any brand but not diet)
1 jar - chili sauce (found near the ketchup, you can get Heinz or the store brand they taste the same to us)

Burrito stuff:
Flour tortillas
1 can - pinto or black beans
2 cups - rice (we use jasmine rice)
1 cup - shredded cheddar cheese
Aluminum foil
1 tomato - diced
sour cream
lettuce
anything else you might enjoy such as onions, black olives, etc.

Serves 8

Put your meat in the crockpot.

Pour root beer over the meat until completely covered. With our large crockpot this ends up being a whole liter and a little bit of the second liter of root beer. You will need the leftover root beer later so keep it!

See... completely covered!

Cook the roast on high 4-6 hours or on low 8-10 hours. About 20 minutes before you are ready to serve you will want to start cooking your sauce... I use a rice cooker so I start my rice first and then start on the sauce. For the sauce, you will pour the jar of chili sauce and 3 cups of rootbeer in a medium size pot. Cook the sauce on medium heat for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. It will reduce to about 2 cups.

While the sauce is cooking, I like to get the toppings prepared and start heating the beans.

A few minutes before the sauce is done you will move your roast to a clean bowl and shred the meat. To do that you take two forks and just start pulling it apart. It should shred pretty easily. At this point, I realized that we accidentally got beef instead of pork and so it didn't shred as easily. It is kind of therapeutic so shred away.

After you have shredded the pork and the sauce is finished, you will pour the sauce on the meat and mix it really well.

Now the fun part! Assembling the burritos! These things get messy so we like to wrap them in aluminum foil. Cover your plate with aluminum foil and start with a tortilla. We add rice first.

Then beans.
Then meat.

And cheese.

Keep adding toppings but be careful to not overload the burrito!

Once your burritos is done. You will wrap it up so it is easier to eat! Fold up the bottom and then both sides over the top. You will do the same thing with the aluminum foil.

Here is the bottom fold.

Then fold over one side.

And then the other. The top of the burrito should be exposed and then you rip off a small part of the foil. This will allow you to eat the burrito and then tear of fmore, eat some and tear off a little more, all while keeping the messy juices inside.

You can serve the burritos with chips or they are great on their own. You will have some root beer leftover, so you can serve it with the meal or just drink it later!

Your plate should look something like this, with all of the foil that you tore off!

Navajo Tacos

2011-02-04T12:34:00.000-08:00

These are sooo yummy and super filling!

What you will need:
1 lb - ground beef
8 frozen - Rhodes rolls
1 cup - shredded cheddar cheese
Lettuce
Tomatoes
Sour Cream
Oil for frying

Serves 4

Brown the ground beef.

While you are cooking the meat, start heating your oil in a deep pan and fill only about 1/3 and heat on medium heat. Start preparing your toppings. I love lettuce that is "shredded" and cut it very thinly.

Dice up some tomatoes.

Put the frozen rolls in a microwaveable bowl and microwave for 20 seconds. Then flip the rolls and microwave for another 20 seconds.

Combine 2 of the rolls together by pressing them together.

Slap the dough together until it is well combined.

Cook the dough in the oil for about 2 minutes and then flip.

You will continue this until both sides are golden like this. You can cook more dough in a larger pan if you like. Be sure not to heat your oil too much or the outside will cook too fast and the inside will still be a little doughy.

Move the bread to a plate covered with a paper towel. Pat down the bread to remove any excess oil.

Move the bread to a plate and cover with meat, cheese and any toppings you like! This has a lot of variety in each bite and is great on its own. Super delicious! Enjoy.

Pop Up Pizza

2011-02-01T20:04:00.000-08:00

This is an easy go to on a busy night but is fun and tastes good - which is what it is all about! I think this would be fun to make with kids so they can add their own toppings and easily be involved in cooking yet enjoy the final product.

What you need:
1 can - (10) refrigerated biscuits (you can use the grand or larger biscuits if you have more toppings but I like just the plain biscuits best!)
1 jar - pizza sauce
1.5 cup - shredded cheese
Assorted toppings - pepperoni (Mini would be really fun!), pineapple, green peppers, diced mushrooms, etc. For this we just went plain old pepperoni
Cupcake pan

Serves 5 (2 per person)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Spray the cupcake pan with cooking spray. Press the biscuits into the cupcake pan so that the dough covers the bottom and sides.

Drop a large spoonful of pizza sauce into each cup.

Add the toppings.

Cover each cup with cheese. You will want the cheese to cover the top of the dough well because it seals the cups.

Bake the cups for 12-15 minutes until the cheese is melted and the sides are starting to get a little golden.

In this picture you will see that I didn't cover completely with cheese and some of the topping popped out.

Take a spoon and gently release the sides of the pan for each cup and gently pull out the pizzas.

Place on a plate and lightly pour sauce on top of the pizzas. Serves well with small salad.

New Camera

2011-01-30T18:50:00.000-08:00

I was recently offered an internship with Bella Baby Photography. They do newborn photo sessions in the hospital. I recently completed my first day of training in the hospital. It was very interesting and I learned a lot. I am really excited about the opportunity and think that I will really enhance my skills and gain some great experience!

With this new internship, I decided to upgrade my camera. My mother had been lending me her Nikon D60 which was a great camera to begin learning on. I decided on the Canon 7D. Here are my first pictures with the camera and my new lenses! I am in love with it! I still have a lot to learn about it, which means I will only get better shots!

Stephen is growing a beard, it is a totally different look! This shot makes him look a little creepy!

corn nuggets

2011-01-23T19:24:00.000-08:00

Stephen is from the south and apparently corn nuggets are something that everyone knows down there. I had never heard of them until I met him. He has always wanted me to figure out how to make them. Without ever having them, I tried a recipe from Allrecipes.com and it was kind of a pain because they have you take the corn mixture and drop it on a cookie sheet and freeze it before frying the nuggets. The only problem was that the corn mixture flattened before it started to freeze so it was more like patties instead of nuggets and it just didn't work well at all. After some experimenting and one genius idea by Stephen we finally got it right - at least by Stephen's standards and that is all I had to go off of! These are a great side dish, appetizer, finger food for a game, whatever suits you.

What you will need:

1 (11 oz) can corn - drained

1 (11 oz) can cream corn

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup yellow corn meal

1/2 cup all purpose flour

1 egg white

3/4 cup milk

salt and pepper to taste

vegetable oil for frying

2 ice cube trays - very important

Pour both cans of corn and sugar in a bowl.

Mix well.

Spoon mixture into ice cube trays and freeze for at least 3 hours.

Keep the nuggets in the freezer. Fill a pot about 1/3 of the way with oil and heat on medium. Do not overfill the pot and don't use anything higher than medium heat. We overfilled once and the oil boiled over and got all over the oven - not fun to clean up :)

Prepare coating by mixing corn meal, flour, egg white, milk, salt and pepper.

Mix until somewhat liquefied but it should still have texture to it. Add more milk as needed but be careful not to let it get too runny. Something like this:

Now here is the best part. Take the ice cubes out of the freezer and pop those nuggets out onto some foil. Stephen's idea for the ice cube tray was genius. They hold their shape very well and are much easier to handle than the patties that I was struggling with before.

Dip the nuggets into the mixture, make sure they are really covered and then drop them into the oil.

Be sure not to overcrowd the pot. I would only put one side of an ice cube tray in at a time. We did a whole tray at a time and there were a few tragedies because some of the nuggets attached to one another, which caused a hole to rip in them and some of the corn came out in the oil.

Fry in the oil until they are golden brown. Move to a plate covered with a paper towel and pat off any excess oil.

Then they are ready to enjoy!

Since it is just the two of us we only cooked one tray of nuggets and have another tray covered an foil, waiting in the freezer for the next time we want them! I didn't really understand why Stephen loved these at first but they are a sweet little treat.

The lights were on in the sky

2011-01-19T09:13:00.000-08:00

On Monday I was working on repainting my kitchen table, since the lighting in our house isn't that great I had all of the curtains and blinds open, which is unusual. Around 5:30 p.m. I came downstairs and saw this beautiful sky and something just drew me to it. I can't think of any other way to explain it other than it looked liked the lights were on in the sky it was such an interesting thing. The clouds were even better. While I was snapping pictures, Stephen called me to ask if I had seen the sky so I knew it wasn't just me. It only lasted a few minutes before it went somewhat back to normal.

Chicken Jerusalem (Artichokes)

2011-01-08T17:36:00.001-08:00

I first had this dish at a dinner for work and it was delicious so I had to make it myself! I never thought I liked artichokes but I guess that was just a childhood misconception because I love them now. Stephen isn't the biggest fan of artichokes but the combinations of flavors in this wins his vote. I have found a lot of different recipes and have come up with my own variations so it is just the way I like it!

What you will need:

1 lb Farfalle (Bowtie) Pasta

2 cups Chicken Breasts cut in cubes

4 tbsp Butter

1/4 cup White Cooking Wine

1 cup Whipping Cream

3/4 cup Parmesan Cheese

12 oz Artichoke Hearts (I get a jar and the hearts are quartered for me)

1 cup Mushrooms sliced (I was out of these but it makes a great addition to the meal)

Salt and Pepper to taste

Serves 8

Add the noodles to a large pot of boiling water and cook according to the directions on the box. We like our noodles softer than al dente so we add a few minutes to the cooking time.

Melt the butter in a pan.

Take your cut up chicken.

Add it to the butter and cook on medium heat.

Cook until white throughout the pieces, about 7 minutes.

Add the whipping cream, white wine, artichokes and mushrooms to the chicken and butter.

Stir well then add the parmesan cheese and stir some more.

Add the salt and pepper. You will need to cook the sauce for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Meanwhile, check on that pasta.

When it is ready, drain in a strainer.

Then return the noodles to the original pan and remove from heat.

The sauce should thicken slightly.

Pour the sauce onto the noodles. You could pour a little and stir and repeat until it is all mixed. I like to just pour it all on top.

Then stir.

And stir.

Until evenly covered.

Then serve! We had this with whole edemame and potato rolls. Yummy!

Chicken Cordon Bleu with bacon??

2011-01-03T18:15:00.000-08:00

When I came home from work today, I found the lovely mess below and it was time to change dinner plans. This tomato soup worked so well when cooked in a pot but my genius idea was ruined when I tried to cook it in the crockpot instead. It was like red water and it didn't taste much better than that description. Oh well!

I like Chicken Cordon Bleu alright but Ham is not my favorite, neither is Swiss Cheese so I adapted this recipe from Kevin & Amanda to better fit our tastes. To see the original K&A recipe, click here.

Here are the ingredients that you will need for two servings:

2 skinless, boneless chicken breasts

3 pieces of bacon

2 slices of provolone cheese

4 tablespoons all purpose flour

4 tablespoons butter

1/2 cup chicken broth

1 teaspoon chicken bouillon granules

1 tablespoon cornstarch (forgot to add to the first picture, shucks!)

1 cup whipping cream

The first thing you will want to do is get your bacon cooking! I always cut bacon in half to cook it, it is much easier to cook and doesn't seem to curl as much. You will end up with 6 half pieces of bacon. I use kitchen shears and cut the bacon while it is still in the package.

Fry it on medium heat, turning frequently. ***Please excuse our pan, it was a hand-me-down from heaven knows who for Stephen and it is from his college days (at least 7 years ago) so it has seen better days but it is my favorite to use! ***

Once the bacon is done, move to a small plate that is covered with a paper towel. Pat those sizzling pieces down and remove as much grease as possible.

Wrap one of the chicken breasts in plastic wrap.

Pound the chicken with a meat tenderizer or you can use a can of veggies, whatever you have to flatten the meat just a bit.

Arrange 1 slice of cheese and 3 of the half pieces of bacon on the chicken.

Wrap up the sides of the chicken and close with tooth picks. Repeat for the other chicken breast.

Pat the flour on the chicken breasts. Melt the butter in a pan on medium heat and then add the chicken to the pan. Cook for a few minutes.

While the chicken is cooking, mix the chicken bouillon granules and the chicken broth in a small bowl. After about 3 minutes turn over the chicken. Once it has started to brown, pour the chicken broth mixture over the chicken.

Cover and cook on medium heat for about 12 minutes or until the chicken reaches 165 degrees.

Once the chicken is done, move to a plate. Mix the cornstarch and whipping cream in a bowl and add to the remaining chicken broth mixture in the pan. Continuously stir while the sauce thickens, it took about 5 minutes for this. Pour the sauce over the chicken and enjoy!

We served this with green beans. Stephen is not a saucy man so he went without sauce and very much enjoyed it. He is even less of a ham and Swiss cheese person than I am so he appreciated the bacon and provolone change! I love sauce and this was perfect! YUM!

Speaking of bacon and my husband... my mother made us tshirts for Christmas. Stephen's said "I eat bacon with my bare hands" and mine said "I shoot people" and had a picture of a camera below it. Both were very fitting for us. I will post pictures.

reed family christmas card!

2010-12-24T08:51:00.000-08:00

our super exciting life!

2010-11-24T10:35:00.000-08:00

Some days we are boring and like to lay around and just hang out... those days are the days I love best!

Happy Birthday Molly!

2010-11-22T13:08:00.000-08:00

Our little girl (puppy) is one year old today! I can't believe it. She is such a little terror and always has a look on her face like she is ready to destroy something but then she cocks her little head at me and my heart melts. She is really sweet... really deep down! The whole reason we got her was so Royce would have a companion but Molly is so mean to him. I think it really has been good for him though and they love each other! I remember going to look at her and coming around the corner to see this adorable fluff of fur being picked on by her brothers... she has turned the tables and taken all of that out on Royce!

I can't believe how different she looks! Royce looked the same as he does now just smaller!

In the car after getting her and stopping at PetSmart to pick some stuff up for her.... she climbed on my shoulder and peed! She has had bathroom issues every since but nothing that bad!

First night home!

Introductions with Royce, this is the most civil they have been in a while ;)

A little older but still smaller than she is now.

This is how they are most of the time!

Look how light her hair is! It has changed so much! We gave her the lion hair cut earlier this year and it is just so fitting for her, we have kept it. To save money, I bought a cheap little electric trimmer to do it myself...

let's just say sometimes there are spots or stripes that don't look quite right (as you can see above!) but she hasn't seemed to develop any sort of image issues from it so we will keep doing it! I really thought Molly was going to be smaller than Royce but she has outgrown him! They are about the same height but Molly has more to her and has to wear a size larger than Royce... we don't dress them up everyday, but just fun stuff like the football halloween costumes and they wear sweaters on walks to keep warm in this weather *brrr*

Happy Birthday Molly!! Ruff Ruff!

Happy Anniversary to my husband!

2010-11-08T08:05:00.000-08:00

Today marks the second anniversary of our wedding. We decided to celebrate yesterday, so we could do more and with those adult things like work and school we had other responsibilities today. We decided that we would each plan our anniversary, every other year. Last year, Stephen planned a trip to Cedar City and didn't tell me anything about where we going so it was all a surprise for me. This year I kept up that theme but since our situation has changed drastically with me going part time and going back to school we had to keep things much cheaper but I wasn't about to let that stop us from having a good time.

I really wanted to recreate our first date, but there are some restrictions on that, considering we went to a movie at the theaters, which obviously would still not be in theaters almost 4 years later. I decided the theme would be our favorite things and things from the beginning of us. We started out the morning with breakfast, featuring french toast made with Great Harvest Cinnamon Burst bread - one of our favorites - and of course bacon. We then hung out and got ready for the day.

We did a little shopping and then I took him to our first "surprise" destination. I made sure to take the freeway exit that was 2 exits early to throw him off the scent. I also drove him through a neighborhood we had never been in. He told me he thought I was going to turn into some random house when I slowed down for a dip! We ended up at Jordan Commons. I pulled into a parking spot near where we had our first kiss, then I drove him down to the next parking level to another parking spot where the "hot garbage" incident happened (not something I will share today but if you have heard the story you will understand). We clearly have been to this place many times since we met so we have lots of memories there. We went to Spaghetti Mama's @ Jordan Commons. That is one of my favorite places and it is where we had our rehearsal luncheon the day before our wedding.

We then headed to the movie theater and saw "Due Date". It was great! We love movies and haven't seen a ton in theaters lately (well compared to what we used to see!) It was a great movie and we enjoyed it.

When I was trying to deceive Stephen by taking the wrong freeway exit to get to Jordan Commons, I noticed that he made a comment that he had no idea where I was taking him when we passed the bowling alley where we went on our first date - which was our next stop after the movie. Since I felt like he already had his suspicions on where we would go next, I took the long way there to keep him guessing. We ended up at the bowling alley and he totally kicked my butt, which was no surprise. It was fun. I remember our first date well and how with every turn he took bowling he would put his hands on the table getting closer and closer to me until finally we held hands. It was very simple but very sweet! Look at his sweet moves!

We then headed back home to make dinner together. We had steaks and mashed sweet potatoes.

Molly and Royce watched us the whole time, they just have to be near us no matter what we are doing. I love it when Molly lays out like this! I couldn't get rid of the red eye so she looks super creepy but oh well!

Royce doesn't usually follow her, he lays on the couch and wait for us to come to him but for some reason he joined in! I just love them so much!

We made way too much food and have leftovers for a couple of days now :) We ate dinner at the kitchen table, which we rarely do, so it was nice. We cleaned up dinner together and then I asked Stephen to go up to the office and stay there until I came up to get him so I could set up for the grand finale.

Since I really wanted to recreate our first date, I decided that I would make our own theater. I borrowed a projector from work and set up a concessions stand, that included cake from our favorite place - Nothing Bundt Cake.

I also used the pictures we used in our wedding slideshow and added new pictures of things that had happened since our wedding and created a new slideshow as the previews to the movie. The slideshow played "our song". I would have shared it here, but the file is way to large and won't upload :( sorry.

I moved all of the furniture in our living room to the dining area so we could sit further back. We got to watch the slideshow together and relive some of our memories from our childhood and through out our time together. We then watched the most romantic movie ever, Tenacious D!

I have to say, I impressed myself, it worked out better than I imagined and now Stephen wants a projector so we can use it just for watching TV even!

All in all, it was a wonderful day. I would have enjoyed it just hanging out with him but I did enjoy the fun of the day! Stephen is a great man who makes me feel special everyday. I love him more everyday and I can't imagine my life without him. Things have been so simple since we met and we just seem to fit together yet we encourage each other to do more and be better and I just love the way we are. I feel very lucky to have a relationship like that and to have someone so great to share my life with. I can't believe it has already been two years. Sometimes it feels like we have always been together and there are other times that things still feel new! I love the memories we have made so far and am so excited for what the future holds for us. Happy Anniversary Stephen! I love you.

I found myself online!

2010-11-03T15:21:00.000-07:00

This is kind of stupid but it made me smile so I thought I would share. First stupid thing is that I wanted to look up a recipe I had posted on our blog so for some reason I went to Bing (which I don't really use ever, but it has been a weird day) and typed in the URL instead of just putting it in the address bar. Well my site came up in the search results BUT then on the third search result down I saw some weird link that had our website in it. I clicked it to check it out and right at the top was one of my pictures (practice picture at that) that I took for a school picture that I posted here and they used it in an article for their site. They credited me for the picture and linked back to my site (I don't do that all the time, I probably should take note and start!), which is why I found it. Anyway, kind of stupid because the article is about TV remotes and the cable guy not something like highlighting my crafts or things I am a little more proud of, but hey I will take it and it kind of made my day!

If you want to check it out, click here!!!

Shmappy Shmalloween

2010-10-31T18:40:00.000-07:00

My husband is hilarious. He makes me laugh every single day. I will never forget this costume! It was really fun helping him get it ready and putting all of the little touches together that make it so great! This was 100% his idea and I don't know where he comes up with this stuff! The hair shows his great commitment to being awesome! Hope you have a Happy Halloween!

Seahorse Jacket!

2010-10-30T18:20:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago we were watching one of our favorite shows, How I Met Your Mother, when one of the characters walks out in this:

I love seahorses and so naturally I automatically fell in love and had to find it. I searched and searched online and finally found it... for only $335. That is outrageous, even if I had the money to spend that amount on a cardigan, I just don't think I would.

I didn't think I could make it but then decided to at least try. I found a cute purple zip up jacket, with thumb holes in the wrist of the sleeve, and it was only $9 from Walmart. I went to my mom's and she helped me cut the design out of tshirt vinyl and we ironed it on. The tshirt vinyl would not have worked with cardigan / sweater material so I had to find a different option. Of course it is a different look than the original but honestly I will wear a jacket much more than I would be able to wear a cardigan. I am really pleased with the results!!!!

Texture Assignment

2010-10-12T09:29:00.000-07:00

In my digital imaging class we had to learn to how to apply texture to pictures. Here are a couple of pictures that I used for their assignment, along with their "before" pictures! I love them both with or without the textures!

I love that I got a sunburst in this! I usually get a bubbly lens flare but I love how this turned out!

Empty Frame Collage - under $25

2010-10-10T07:36:00.000-07:00

I have been on this decorating kick. It has been like my blank walls have been screaming at me to cover them up! Since I have gone back to school, we have to keep things cheap. I decided that I wouldn't let that stop me from doing cute things.

I started looking around online and found this adorable idea!

The colors work so well together and the ampersand adds so much to it! It made me want to paint the walls the same color so I could copy the same thing.

I hate painting walls though so that was a no go, but I decided the stairs were the place to put the frame collage. I thought about doing white frames because our trim is white but then I came across this picture and thought I would be a little more bold in my color selection.

I picked out FolkArt Acrylic Paint in Greenscape color.

I went to the DI (a local thrift store) and picked out a bunch of frames. I looked for frames that were interesting and had some good features. I also picked out a variety of sizes and shapes. I only spent $18 and got 16 frames. I took out the glass and backing in the frames. I made sure to remove all staples and I wiped off any dust and sanded the edges so the paint would stick better. I painted all of the frames the same color. Once they dried, I sprayed them with a clear gloss finish.

I found this cool diagram that gave me an idea of how to layout the frames. I didn't follow it exactly but it was a good starting point.

I traced all of the frames, including the insides of the frames and cut them out of leftover newspaper. I then taped them up on the wall to figure out how I wanted them arranged on the wall, without putting a ton of holes in the walls. It made it really easy to rearrange them when it didn't look quite right. I figured out the bigger frames first and filled in the empty spaces with the smaller frames after.

I then put the nails directly into the newspaper. I recommend having the frame you are about to hang, right by you. That way you can look at the back of the frame to see how thick the frame is so you know where to put the nail in relation to your newspaper frame outline.

Then you just pull the newspaper up and off the wall and you are left with the nail in the perfect place and you are ready to hang your frame up.

Here is the final result, I love it! What do you think?

Here is the view from the top of the stairs. The lack of natural sunlight in the second level of our townhouse, makes this picture look different. Oh well! OH! And I have the set of birds from Target that the picture at the beginning of the post had. I loved it and had to copy that as well!

royce & molly studios

2010-10-03T14:57:00.000-07:00

I am excited to announce my new website for my photography and designs! I have been doing photography sessions for a while now to build up a portfolio and have been getting a lot of requests to book sessions so I wanted to make it official. It is still a work in progress and I will keep it updated with every session I have! Check it out and let me know if you want to book a session!

www.royceandmolly.blogspot.com

Blue Lemon, Dear Lizzie Boutique and Alpine Loop!!

2010-09-25T21:15:00.000-07:00

Since my aunt is in town, I wanted to get in some time visiting with her. This week at work was crazy because I was helping put together the Miss United Nations Pageant at Utah Valley University so I was working a lot of hours. I didn't think I would get to see my aunt Sherrie very much but had the opportunity to take Tuesday off work. My mom, grandma, aunt and I spent the afternoon together.

First we went to lunch in Highland, Utah at a cute and delicious little place called Blue Lemon.

The presentation of their food, was gorgeous and it tasted as good as it looks. I had the chicken, tomato, artichoke meal.

My mom had a salad.

We all had a little hummus. It was fantastic.

After lunch, we headed across the street to a little boutique called "dear lizzie". They had very cute stuff.

My grandma found this cool hat there!

Then we headed to drive the Alpine Loop. I didn't think the colors would have changed very much this early in the year but it was really pretty. We were trying to find a good place to pull over to take some pictures but there weren't really any good spots on those narrow roads but this picture shows some of the colors in the back.

We pulled over on the way out of Provo Canyon. The colors weren't as vibrant but it was still pretty.

Then we started to take pictures of each other. My aunt was trying to test out some modeling techniques, which made for some fun shots.

My mom and aunt were trying really hard to wink in their pictures but I think they had been practicing too much because they were both forgetting how to wink. My mom was especially bad. I was laughing so hard I almost peed my pants! I think my mom would kill me if I posted the really good ones, but this one is pretty cute of the two of them, so I will share it with you!

Overall, it was a great day! Good food, pretty scenery and lots of laughs!

Happy 50th Grandma and Papa!

2010-09-17T20:46:00.000-07:00

My lovely grandparents on my mother's side just celebrated their 50th Wedding Anniversary! How many people can say that! They have started a great family and one that I am proud to be part of. To celebrate, my grandma wanted to go out to dinner and she chose Sizzler. My aunt Sherrie from California decided to surprise them and fly in. We had know about it but left our grandparents out of the loop on that one and I must say that was very hard. I almost spilled the beans a few times! It was very cute too see my grandparents light up when they saw her behind my mom in line at the restaurant.

I wrote my grandparents a letter and included my favorite memories of them, like making shadow puppets on the wall during sleep overs, making homemade pancakes with my Grandma, catching water skeeters in the ditch in their backyard, etc. I have very fond memories of them throughout my life and I just love them so much! Congratulations to them!

Here are some pictures after dinner!

Mr. & Mrs. Moyar

All of the kids!

I just love this one!

The girls!

My Aunt Sherrie and cousin Des!

Light Painting

2010-09-16T09:45:00.001-07:00

In my digital imaging class we are learning light painting. We had a demo on this in my film photography class but didn't really get to practice it. I really like it, it is fun and interesting. A little too artsy for me to do all of the time but fun to play around with!

To do this, you shoot in the dark and with a long shutter speed (all of the ones below were 15 - 20 second shutter speeds) and then you use any form of light and draw in the air. It is important to focus before you take the shot. To do this, set up your camera on a tripod or secure surface, then with the autofocus on, slightly push down on your exposure button to activate the autofocus, then switch to manual focus. Turn out the lights and shoot! You can get really creative, highlight different things, paint the sky, etc!

Here are some shots from my class!

Family Session

2010-09-09T10:55:00.000-07:00

I had my first real photo session, besides little things with my family. This was for my good friend Sarah and her whole family... that is 6 kids, some of which have kids as well! It was great though! I got some good experience, especially with the kids and the large group! I think the pictures turned out really good. Here are some of my favorites! What a beautiful family!

My handsome husband!

2010-09-05T18:37:00.000-07:00

I am taking family pictures for my friend Sarah, tomorrow. She has a pretty big family and I am a little nervous about it. I think the most nerve wracking part is that there are going to be kids there and I am not around kids very often, and I am not a pro photographer {yet} so I have been wondering how it will go. I am really close to Sarah and I have met all of the family at one time or another, so I think it will be fine. I am excited because it will give me some great practice and some nice pictures for all of them!

To ease my nerves, my wonderfully supportive husband agreed to model for me this afternoon so I could get some practice in with my camera. I was feeling like I might have forgotten all that I have been learning, but it was just fine and I think there are some great pictures of Stephen. It was short but fun! He reminds me everyday of why I am with him, he is so funny, handsome, supportive, kind, passionate, okay I will stop now but I do feel like one lucky girl to have found such a good person to spend my life with! Here are some of the pictures!

This is my favorite one!

This one was just funny. He was playing around peering out from behind the tree and I think this one turned out especially creepy!

Car Seat Canopy

2010-08-28T14:09:00.000-07:00

My cousin Kimmi is having a baby in October and for her baby shower, I wanted to make something for her. I haven't sewn much in my life but wanted to get some more practice and I have seen some *super* cute baby car seat covers that allow a mom to carry her baby in style, while protecting them from the weather, sun and unwanted touching by strangers! I thought that something like this would make a great gift. I didn't really take pictures to show step-by- step instructions but you can go here to see the tutorial I used from a blog I found! It was quite simple and I am really happy with the way it turned out!

I obviously don't have kids, therefore I don't have a car seat so... these pictures were taken at Walmart!

I heard Kimmi is a big fan of owls and I love them too, so I thought that would be a fun addition! Doing the owl like I did, with the hand stitching and frayed edges, you can't go wrong because it isn't supposed to be perfect, that is the cuteness of it! I just cut this out of a scrap of fabric and pieced it together! I love it, hopefully she does too!

Here is the inside fabric. Stephen helped me pick and decide on these and I think they coordinate quite well! This picture was a little rushed because there was an employee giving me a shifty look and I don't know if my crowning moment would be getting kicked out of Walmart for taking pictures!

Fix-It Friday #2

2010-08-20T16:22:00.001-07:00

This is my second time doing the fix-it Friday challenge with

Here is the original image:

Here is the image with my edits, feel free to let me know what you think!

Final Design Project

2010-08-07T13:47:00.000-07:00

This is the last week of classes for the summer semester, my first semester back at school. I have been taking an online graphic design application course, basically learning Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign. I had never used InDesign and my skills in the other two programs were a lot of self taught things so I feel like I learned quite a bit. My final assignment in this class was to produce two portfolio pieces that we could present at a job interview that demonstrate some of the skills we have learned through the course and the teacher recommended that we stay conservative in our choices. That was the only instruction given. Of course when someone tells me to come up with something, I can't, I get a creative block and find everything that is not related to the project to occupy my time and wait until the last minute to do the project. Granted the two projects are due tomorrow at midnight but I still have been putting even thinking about it off all week.

This is the first one I have done. All of the info is made up.

Below is the original spa picture that I found... one of my favorite things in this class was learning to use photoshop for more editing than layouts like I have done in the past. We learned how to clone things and how to make more panoramic pictures and I wanted to be able to do that in my final.

Now I need to come up with my second idea... then work on my final photography portfolio and study for a comprehensive health final exam!

i heart faces

2010-08-07T08:53:00.001-07:00

I came across this website called iheartfaces that has a weekly fix-it friday challenge where they post a picture and allow people to practice their editing skills and submit their edits to the site! How fun!
Here is the original picture this week:

Here are my edits:

Sepia

Black & White

Let me know what you think of these!

Best Chocolate Chip Cookies!

2010-08-04T17:15:00.000-07:00

I am not a big chocolate fan in any way. Stephen loves it but I just don't. But even with that in mind I think these cookies are the best chocolate chip cookies I have ever had! We got this recipe from some good friends and we have been loving them ever since!!

Here is what you will need:

1 C Shortening

3/4 C Brown Sugar

3/4 C White Sugar

1 tsp Vanilla

2 Eggs

1 tsp Baking Soda

1 tsp Salt

2 1/2 C Flour

6 - 8 oz Chocolate Chips

Nuts, if desired

Preheat oven to 375 Degrees. Cream together the shortening, brown sugar and white sugar until fluffy. Then add eggs and vanilla and beat enough to combine.

In a separate bowl combine, flour, salt and baking soda and mix with a fork. After stirring together add to first mixture and beat to combine. Then add chocolate chips and nuts.

Grease cookie sheet and then drop 1 inch balls on the sheet. Bake for 13 - 14 minutes. You will only need to grease for the first batch!

Yields 2 dozen cookies!

Freshness tip: store with a piece of bread to keep the cookies fresh and super soft!!! Yummy!

Landscapes & Portraits: Antelope Island, Utah Lake & Stephen

2010-08-01T08:53:00.000-07:00

For my last assignment before my final in my photography class, we have to do a print of a landscape or portrait. I had 2 rolls of film left and they weren't the right ISO to use them for my final portfolio next week so I decided to take a stab at both Landscapes & Portraits. We decided to go on a little 1/2 day trip to Antelope Island at the Great Salt Lake. I had never been there and Stephen hasn't ever been to the Great Salt Lake and we thought it would be fun to take the dogs.

Before we got Molly, whenever we were getting ready to go somewhere, Royce would get into his carrier and sit there to let us know he wanted to go where ever we were going. When we were getting ready to leave yesterday, I think he knew something was up because he was frantically trying to get into his carrier, which he hasn't done in a long time. We don't use the carrier anymore because they seem to get really hot, pretty quick in there but it was still so cute that he knew he wanted to go where ever we were headed!

Molly was so happy she pooped in the car! Not so fun at all, they sure are preparing us for when we have kids, all that fun gross stuff! After that little fiasco it started pouring rain as soon as we were getting close. We decided to still head over and hope for the best. We didn't get to spend as much time there because of the rain but I think I still got some good shots and the dogs seemed to enjoy it.

After we went home, I still had some pictures left to take on the roll so we grabbed some dinner and then I headed to the west side of Utah Lake that is about 25 minutes away from our house. There is only one way that I know to get over there. The road I took all the sudden was flooded. There were cement barriers on both sides of the road for some construction they were doing and the lanes were very narrow. It was quite a scary experience. Water was covering my car and I could hardly see anything! The car behind me looked like it got stuck and my car was having a hard time getting through it. I spent more time at the lake then I expected because I didn't want to go back on that road and didn't know any other way to get home. It was much better when I headed home. Stephen was shocked when he saw my car, it looked like I had been off roading or something! He is outside cleaning it as I type - I have the best husband ever!!!

These rest of these were just taken off the side of the road on the way home in Saratoga Springs.

I thought these clouds looked so amazing with the light bursting through!

This is main street in Lehi.

Later I set up a little studio in our craft/guest bedroom and got some lighting set up to take some portraits of Stephen - again a great husband who is willing to run all over the state, clean my car and model for my pictures - I am lucky! Here are some of the portraits I got of him!

He was doing all sorts of funny faces!

Stephen thinks this one makes his nose huge, like he is wearing fake glasses with a fake nose attached!

Notice the Alabama "A" is clear on this one! These wouldn't have been right if he wasn't wearing something Alabama related!

Overall, it was a great day and I felt that we were much more adventurous than we usually are! I am loving taking pictures of everything, I thought the landscapes would be kind of boring but I really enjoyed it and think they turned out great!

Low / High Key Assignment

2010-07-24T17:15:00.000-07:00

This week my assignment in my photography class is either a high or low key assignment. I think I am drawn to dark things because all of my shots have been low key so far! I am a dork and want to get my stuff right, because my class is a film class not digital so I can ruin my assignment if I am not careful. So what I do is take the picture with my digital camera and try to get what I am looking for and then I take a couple with the film camera and hope that they work out. I won't develop this roll until Monday, so I am hoping my assignment will turn out. The assignment was to shoot something that has at least 90% low key (darker tones) and 10% of the photo can be in a higher key (lighter tones).

These were what I got from my digital camera, I turned them to black and white since that is what I will get on the film!

This was supposed to be a little creepier than it turned out but I like it!

I don't know if him smiling is more or less creepy ;)

This is probably my favorite, it fits the assignment pretty well.

Our wedding rings! The metal provided a great highlight on this one.

This doesn't work for the assignment and was one of the pictures I used to know I didn't have my camera on the right settings but I just love it!!! I think it is so cool! My husband makes a great model and is so patient with me!

This one also doesn't fit the assignment but Royce is just too cute!

Baby Riya

2010-07-23T11:48:00.000-07:00

I designed some cards for my supervisor's new baby girl, Riya. Here are some of them!

Llama Fest 2010!

2010-07-18T09:03:00.000-07:00

We went to the 16th annual Llama Festival at the Krishna Temple in Spanish Fork, Utah. My photography teacher, gives "event highlights" during every class, to give us ideas of places we can go and practice photography and this was one of her suggestions. It was cheap to get in, there are lots of Llamas and people. There were craft booths and food. The palace was beautiful and it looked almost fake in the setting but it was a really cool building. We had to take off our shoes to go inside the palace. I got some pretty cool pictures. A lot of me SOOC (straight-out-of-the-camera) shots were pretty good but I wanted to pump them up and make them look even better. I have been reading Pioneer Woman's website a lot lately and used a lot of her techniques on these. She has some amazing photography and she shares so many ideas, I love it!

Anyway, I posted most all of the pictures that turned out, on Facebook earlier, but here are some "before and after" shots to show some of the editing I did!

This cool truck was on a farm across from the temple. We didn't see the "NO TRESPASSING" sign until after we left... whoops.

This has an effect called a lens flare, which causes the bubble light from the sun. I was going for this and am glad it turned out.

Just a random shoe that was hanging out on a fence pole, I thought it looked pretty cool!

I don't know who these people were at all, but I thought it would make a good shot! I love the colors on the edited one!

I love this one of the mountains and sky, the edited one really pops to me!

Here is my wonderful mother. I love this! I tried to lay off on the edits to keep it as natural as possible, I did a couple of little things and I think it looks great!

I love the eyes on this Llama, her name is Jenny. Really cool Llama - but really, what llama isn't cool?

Anyway, we had a blast at the festival, it was fun and entertaining. I also loved taking these pictures and playing with the editing! Hope you enjoyed!

Selective Depth of Field

2010-07-14T20:58:00.001-07:00

Yes, I should be doing homework... but I am not, well kind of but not really! My assignment in my photography class this week is selective depth of field. This is where one thing in the photograph is in focus and sharp and the rest of the photo starts to blur and fade out. Of course this looks really cool in wedding and engagement pictures and I have seen many examples of it, but wasn't quite sure how to achieve it. I also found out this is how my favorite bloggers (and professionals shooting for magazines and ads) make their food look so good when they post a recipe with pictures! So I thought I would play around with it. My class is a B&W film class, so I don't get the instant gratification of knowing if I have been able to pull off this skill, I have to wait and go through the developing process and waste film. So these are just stupid things that I was playing around with at home with my digital camera, that I thought I would share! I don't have this down at all but I am excited to use it. The photography blogs I have been stalking lately, use this technique quite a bit!

Real exciting stuff... Comcast remote! I still think it looks cool though!

Our dinner this evening! We had a lot more veggies than I thought, but there is a small roast in the middle! I think it helps to show the food and makes it much more appetizing than just a point and shoot capture / picture!

Another angle.

Here are some from my mom's shoot the other weekend, where I achieved selective depth of field. I was actually going for this look but didn't know what it was called or how to really do it, so they didn't work how I wanted, hence the reason I didn't include them in my last post. They do work for this type of shot though so I thought I would include them here! (They are straight from the camera w/o any photoshop touches!)

This is the same shot as above (obviously) but the background is in focus and my lovely mother is not... not what I was meaning to do, but it would work better for some other shots.

Here is another example (bad one) of the background in focus.

That is all for now! I am going to the Llama festival this weekend, so I can practice some more things and I need to work on my assignment for next week so more posts to come!!! Thanks for stopping by and stay classy!

Photography

2010-07-05T08:47:00.001-07:00

I am majoring in Graphic Design at UVU but am considering doing a double major in photography (they don't offer a minor). I am taking my first photography class since high school. My mother was kind enough to let me borrow her Nikon D60 and model for me so I could practice what I have been learning. I then wanted to practice what I have been learning in photoshop as well. I didn't want to change the pictures too much but wanted to play around with some of the effects. Here are the before and after shots that I got! These were done at Wheeler Farm! The "before" shots are straight out of the camera.

*I forgot to put the before and after on this one :)

loving life!

2010-06-14T21:23:00.000-07:00

So life is fantastic right now! It has been a while since my last post, but things have been a little crazy! At the beginning of May, I went back to school for Graphic Design. I am going to Utah Valley University and I hope to graduate in Spring 2012! I am loving school, there are some classes that I need to take that aren't related to my degree, but the one's have been taking this semester are awesome right now! I am learning so much!!! I left my job at Tanner LC last week, so I could focus on my educational goals. It was the end of a great era but I am really excited for all the stuff is going on right now! With all of these changes, I am learning how to live very cheaply! We made homemade chocolate dipped pretzels and Stephen is loving this cheaper version of our lives (and his snacks)!!

Stephen is back in kickball for his second year! He loves the game, who wouldn't? He is still the best husband and most hilarious man I know!

We gave Molly a haircut and had them shave her like a lion! She is adorable, I will have to post some pictures of her soon! Royce is doing great as well!

Anyway, there are a lot of things going on but it is all great and we are happy as can be!

Craft Fever!

2010-04-25T20:34:00.000-07:00

I am slowly becoming my mother! Lately I have been feeling the creative itch and have been working on creating some new things including wood crafts, quilts, furniture, painting my house, etc. Last weekend Stephen and I went to a cute little boutique in American Fork, called "Polka-Dot Door". There was a sign on the window that said "booth vendors wanted". I haven't really thought about doing a boutique before but for some reason I brought it up to the owner and got all the info on the process. I went to the store to get supplies and started creating some stuff that I had in my head. Yesterday I went in and met with the owner and showed her some of my stuff. I got set up in a booth right away! If you are in the American Fork area, be sure to check out this cute boutique!

I didn't want to post the pictures below, quite yet because I had planned on making the owl for my mom's birthday and didn't want her to see it. We celebrated her birthday today and she loved her owl! She commented that she is retiring from her wood crafts and thinks I should take over! If you have done craft nights with my mom in the past or want to have a fun little craft night with your friends, let me know and we will work on getting something set up!

Here are the pictures of the owls and my new booth space! I need to create some more stuff to fill up the space!

The new booth! You can see the space from the window and front door and it is directly across from the cash register!

This is the owl that I gave my mom!

Here is another verison!

This is my other design I made a little while back. I want to make a couple of adjustments to the pattern before I put any in my boutique! I have some work to do!

Here you can see the rest of the set, you change out the middle piece each month!

Easy Valentines Day project

2010-02-01T09:53:00.000-08:00

I am always competing with my neighbor for the best front door display, I don't know why but I just feel the need to beat them and be the better looking house! My mom and I were shopping at Gardner Village and saw this really cute heart at Upon the Shelf that would look great on my front door.... the only problem was it was $47 which I am not about to drop on something like this, when I can easily make it. The only difference between mine and the one at Upon the Shelf, is that they had wood on the back (which made it heavy) and then at the top of the heart instead of ribbon to hang it, it had a metal decorative piece to hang it (again that was heavy). Overall, I think they look very similar (sorry I don't have a picture of the original) and mine cost a fraction of the price and took maybe an hour!

This is the final product

You will need

1/2 yard of fabric
Assorted Ribbon or fabric scraps (I used 2 varieties - 1 was about a yard and a half long and was 5 inches wide and the other was about a yard long and 2 inches wide)
1 - stapler that opens and of course staples
1/2 yard of batting
1 foam board (I used 3/4 thick but there are thinner options that are a little cheaper
A needle and some thread
Large bread knife

Draw a heart on your foam board, make sure that it can be completely covered with batting and the fabric can wrap around to the back edge.

Cut your heart using a knife (I just used a steak knife) this doesn't need to be perfect because it will be covered with fabric but try to stay as close in the lines as possible!

Then place your cut out heart on top of the batting and either trace the heart and cut the batting or just cut the batting around the foam heart.

Look at those straight lines! HA!

Place the fabric right side up over the batting and foam board. Flip it over and start stapling the edges. I did a few staples on one side and then switch to the other, keeping the fabric pulled tight so it had a nice even look on the fabric.

I put lots of staples in, just to be sure it was really secure but it probably didn't need that many.

Then to make your fabric flowers, take your ribbon or strip of fabric and loosely stitch up one edge of the ribbon.

Once you get to the end of the ribbon, pull the thread tight and sew both ends together. It will make a nice circle that bunches up and looks great. This should be super easy. Repeat this as many times as you want but make sure that the different flowers are different widths so they show up when they are layered together.

Then sew the flowers to the fabric on the board starting with the biggest flower first and make a layering effect.

Then take some ribbon, staple it to the both sides of the top of the heart, on the back. Tie a bow at the top and voila, you are all set!

This is the new look of our front door!!

Wedding Pictures

2010-01-17T14:14:00.000-08:00

I have hated my wedding pictures since the day I got the disk in the mail. I cried for a day and a half, and I had to leave work early the next day. One of my coworkers said later that she thought someone had died or something because of how I looked that day. Now maybe that was a strong reaction but I was truly and deeply upset. My engagement pictures and bridals looked great to me and I was just shocked at how awful the wedding pictures were. Most of them were blurry and made the people's faces look awful, people in the group photos were again blurry but also cut out of the pictures, there were not very many pictures of our guests and the ones she did get were not of family, which many of them traveled here for the wedding and we will probably never have the same group of people together again. There were some that looked good but for the most part the lighting was horrid and made people look uneven if that makes sense and the pictures looked blurry. When I contacted our photographer a few months later to let her know that I didn't like them she said "lighting is really hard" and there were plenty of pictures that she was "proud to put her name to". Looking at some other pictures taken the same night with point and shoot cameras, the lighting seems fine so I just don't understand. Oh well, no point dwelling anymore there is nothing I can do about it unless we recreate the whole thing... ha!

I am self taught in photoshop, mostly to design my cards. While looking at one of my favorite sites, Kevin and Amanda, I found a link to Pioneer Woman Photography which provided me some great photoshop tips and some inspiration to play around with my pictures. Since we have been married for over a year now, I feel like I can finally bring myself to look back through the wedding pictures and see if there is anything I can do to make them look better. Here are some pictures to show the blurriness and the weird lighting (you can click on the picture to make it bigger!):

This was one of my favorite pictures from the wedding, we used it on our thank you card, however I only liked it in black and white. If you look close the faces look blurry, like my sister(flower girl) in the back and my eyes look like black dots and shadowy. Just not what I would expect even when this is one of my favorites :(

Do you see what I mean about the black dot eyes? Everyone has them, the pictures is not sharp or crisp at all. The edges of the bodies further in the pictures are again not sharp and kind of fuzzy around the edges???

Okay so this big family group small actually looks okay but when it is bigger the people on the sides are fuzzy again and we get the black dot eyes. The lighting just rubs me wrong!

Again with this one.

I put the next ones right after each other because they are very similar pictures and were taken right after one another and even between these two the lighting looks different. In the first one the black in the suits and flower girl dress looks dark and in the second one it looks dull. I just don't like either of them.

Again blurry / fuzzy

This one you can tell more up close but the people in the seats are fuzzy as well. It is an OK picture.

My dad walking Kari to her seat. Looks totally crappy!

I like this one but again with the lighting when it is bigger.

Just not good in my opinion!

Just looks amature to me.

This one is not bad but like his hands look like it would be a good picture but his face doesn't look as clear as it should just uneven. Maybe I am being too picky on this one because I like it still.

When looking at this bigger they are all fuzzy and I could see that with my mom moving to catch the bouquet but the other people standing still look fuzzy too.

I was really looking forward to a good "send off" picture but this one just doesn't cut it for me.

Here is what I have done, some of the changes are subtle but I like my version better and it was fun to learn some new things in photoshop and might as well use these as a learning experience. What do you think?

The original of this one is not bad at all, but I love the second one, it just has a classic look.

I titled this one wrong but it is Stephen's family. I think the second picture makes the skin tone look better and more even.

I love this picture of Stephen. I like the effect on the second picture but the first looks pretty good to me in comparison to everything else we got.

I just think this looks cool, I don't know why!

This picture really pissed me off when I got the disk. This is one of my old coworkers and his family and the original looks great. Why couldn't some of my family pictures look as good as this? The photographer was obviously capable of this and used the right lighting settings. Also there were like 6 pictures of this family and then she didn't catch 1/2 my family in the other crappy photos. Not that I don't like this guy but I would just rather walk away from my wedding with pictures (good ones like this) of all my guests and especially my family. Jeremy did get a copy of this picture and it was good enough for a Christmas card so at least someone won with it! I just like the effect in the second picture.

I loved this picture originally but I love the second one, this is my favorite of everything I did.

This was a little therapeutic and nice to share so I hope you enjoyed all of this! Thanks for reading!

Head Case

2009-12-13T13:46:00.000-08:00

Recently, I contacted one of Stephen's old coworkers, who now does hair, for a cut and color. Stephen has been growing out his hair and he was thinking about having it cut by someone for the first time in like 10 years. He said he would like to go to his old coworker and I thought, I need a trim and kind of want a different color so I might as well go to her as well. This was the worst hair experience I have ever had and I will spare you the unprofessional email I received from her but it was just an overall awful and an experience I am glad has finally been resolved. The cut was uneven and more than a little trim, after getting that fixed, my hair is about 1 1/2 inches shorter :( which sucks because I am growing out my hair, I guess it could have been worse though. Here are some pictures to show you what happened with the color:

The color actually looks kind of pretty on the top. I had to curl it because it was the only way to cover up how uneven the cut was!

Again, on the surface the color is okay and actually kind of pretty in some spots.

Then you start looking underneath and you see how uneven it is.

My tiger stripes! These pictures were taken 3 days after the experience, but it almost looks like my roots are growing in, but only in random spots!

My Wilma Flintstone wig! My friend Sarah said the bottom of my hair looked like fake blond doll hair, I totally agree. Oh and it felt like it too, dry but kind of plasticy. ECK! When I was getting it fixed the stylist found little bald spots where the hair had burnt off because the girl left the color and bleach on way too long because she didn't know what she was doing.

Look at my hairline as it frames my face. So gross!

AHHHH! I am saved! Look how pretty the color is. Even though this isn't what I wanted in the first place at least it is normal and even and it looks healthy!

No more tiger stripes! There were still a few issues that we couldn't get cleaned up because the damage was too much, but I think overall it looks a ton better!

I didn't think it would be nice to name names here for anyone involved, but if you want to have the contact information of the awesome stylist that fixed and saved my hair, please let me know!!!

One Year Anniversary!

2009-11-29T20:10:00.000-08:00

Stephen and I recently celebrated our one year wedding anniversary! This past year has been amazing and wonderful. I have heard people say that the first year is the hardest, if that is the case then life will be easy!! Anyway life has been great and I can't believe how fast it has gone by. We have done a lot this year, besides being awesome all the time, we have also bought a house and gotten a puppy!

For our anniversary Stephen planned a weekend away. He wouldn't tell me anything about what we were going to be doing just that I needed to take a half day off work on the Friday before. We got in the car and he drove me to my favorite Mexican restaurant in Orem. Then we got back on the freeway and I found out we were heading south but I had no idea how long I would be in the car because I had no idea where we were going. About 3 hours later, we stopped in Cedar City to get gas so I thought well if it isn't Cedar City then it is probably St. George or Las Vegas because they are the next biggest cities. We got back on the freeway and he got off on the next exit and pulled into our hotel, still in Cedar City. It was an awesome trip. We had a room with a jacuzzi in it, I got a pedicure, we had massages, we went shopping and did tons of other things (see the pictures below!). It was the perfect way to celebrate! I am excited to celebrate many more years to come!

We watched football (GO BAMA!) and Stephen used his mind grapes to come up with this awesome table so we could eat our pizza and not miss a second of the game!

Yep, he used a shelf from the TV Stand / Dresser! Hey whatever works, I guess if we lived like that all the time it might be considered WT but every once in a while it is called genius!

We dyed Stephen's hair.... Before....

AFTER!!!!

We went hiking in Kolob Canyon, which is part of Zions National Park. It was gorgeous!!!!

This is us, enjoying our "happily ever after!" Yes I am cheesy but I love it!

Halloween!

2009-10-30T08:46:00.000-07:00

This year is my work's second annual Trick-Or-Treating event. We have all of the employee's kids come in for a few hours to go trick-or-treating around the office. The admin girls at my work all dressed up last year and now again this year. There are a few more people dressed up around the office, so it is going to be a good day!

Here are some pictures so far:

Stephen was kind enough to compliment my outfit by being a "greaser"! That is a pack of cards in his sleeve... not cigarettes! I love his hair!

The great girls that I work with (or should I say "grills"?)

My new card

2009-10-27T21:36:00.000-07:00

I need to get some holiday cards designed and put on my website! I came up with this one tonight. I love the little girl on the right, she is so cute. Whenever Stephen sees her on one of my cards, he immediately starts to laugh, it is great!

liFe is gOoD!!!!

2009-10-26T17:22:00.000-07:00

Do you like our new blog look??? I love it!

We have had a couple of interesting weeks recently and I haven't posted a lot so here it goes...

This past Saturday we went to the BYU football game with our friends Sarah and Clayton. They were recently engaged, so congrats to them. It was a lot of fun, we won't talk about the actual game but the experience was fun. Sarah had most of the pictures on her camera so there is just this one!

We went to Mississippi to visit Stephen's family. It was supposed to be for his 10 year high school reunion (I know he is getting old! j/k) but that got moved to next May, so maybe an 11 year high school reunion? Anyway, we already had the trip planned and the tickets so we went. We got to meet our new sister-in-law Judy. Stephen's brother Glen got married to Judy in February of this year. We just found out they are expecting a baby so that is pretty exciting! Here are some pictures from this trip. I just love Stephen's family, they are awesome, it really was the perfect trip!

These pictures are a little out of order but oh well...

This is Stephen's grandparents old house..... well where it once stood before Katrina. Good thing they lived in Texas during the storm. It was crazy to see that things haven't all been rebuilt, but when we went for Glen's graduation 2 years ago, there was still debris in the trees so it looked better than that I guess. Still sad.

We went to Stephen's high school's football game after having dinner with some friends of his from high school. It was fun!

There are little geckos that are on the bathroom windows at night. They were really cool to see. Patti (my mother-in-law) said they sometimes end up in the house but they aren't harmful they are just tiny little things!

A lot of the houses near the coast are built up on stilts kind of, like this picture. Especially the new ones, it seems pretty smart in that area.

Here are the kids, L-R, Judy, Glen, Stephen and Me!

Mom and her boys!

Stephen and Al! Great picture!

He is hilarious, right?

I just love this one. He makes me laugh, and oh so happy!

Here is one of Stephen sleeping at the hotel after the big ALABAMA game!

At the University of Alabama! My first college football game

He is a very happy man!

It was raining like crazy. I have never seen anything like that, it just started gushing out of the sky and there was no hope for it. We had ponchos but at that point it was too wet to do anything. I felt really gross the whole game and my clothes were so wet, my pants weren't dry like a couple of days latter. It was still a blast and we will never forget that experience! Stephen, of course, did not have a voice after the game was over! They one, because they are awesome!

Stephen is growing out his hair and I have to tell you, it is quite entertaining. Here are some pictures of the styles he is trying out. I don't think they do justice to the real thing but it is pretty hilarious. It is a little longer now too and when he dries it with an actual blow dryer, it is huge he looks like wolverine! I love it!

2009-09-12T20:39:00.000-07:00

I feel like all I ever do is an "update" post but that seems to be all that I have time for now. I remember the good old days were we just sat around and watched TV all weekend and I slept half the day on Sundays and sometimes didn't get dressed in real clothes on the weekends... but we are just busy all the time and we don't even have kids yet. Although Royce is pretty close and it is amazing how much he has changed our world in the short amount of time we have had him.

Things are going well. It is recruiting season at work so it has been very busy but it is going well and I am grateful to have a job and be where I am at right now, that is more than some have so I am happy with that. Last night was the big recruiting event at our work. It is actually called "The Big Event", very fitting name. It took a lot of preparation and planning and my feet felt like they were going to fall off last night but it was successful and went well so that is good but what is even better, is that it is over! It is like planning a wedding for months beforehand, the day comes and it goes by so quickly and just like that it is all over and all of your hard work gone and left only to memories... okay maybe not the same thing but event planning is like that! Again I am very happy that it is over but it will come around next year so something to look forward to!

We had our friend's Sarah and Clayton over today for back to back football games (BYU and BAMA, of course) they both won so that is good. Sarah and I made mashed potatoes and there was a ton left, but they were good! Stephen and I made two strawberry pies before they came over and they are delicious! It was a good day!

We are going to visit Stephen's family in two weeks and we are very excited! We are going to an Alabama game while we are there so Stephen is really excited about that. We are going for Stephen's High School reunion but he hasn't even really mentioned that part in a while it is more about getting out to see his family now!

Royce is doing well and growing. He is so freaking cute and fun to be around, we really do love him! Here are some pictures of him lately.

Wouldn't you agree that his is awesome?

This is my favorite. We were at Old Navy and as we were walking out the door we saw that they had a pet section and they had almost exactly the same shirt that Stephen was wearing, for a dog so we just had to get it. Maybe this will be something we can do for Christmas cards this year???

I think this was his second bath, but he does not like them at all! Gosh I feel like a new mommy or something the way I show this off, but oh well that is our life!

Okay I haven't loaded pictures on my computer from our camera in a while and those just about covered all of the new ones! We love Royce!

Hectic Week

2009-07-18T16:45:00.000-07:00

So to recap our last week... last Friday we got a puppy. His name is Royce and he is 8 weeks old, and cute as can be. His mom is a Pomeranian / Jack Russell mix and his dad is a Chihuahua. We will see how he turns out! My husband is just great and finally let me get one! He is a lot of work so far but we are excited to have him in our family! I already feel so attached to him! I keep telling him that I am his mommy! He is fun!

Monday I had my surgery to remove my gallbladder. I don't know what I was expecting but I was out all week and just beat. I think I had it in my mind that I had to be home for 5 days but that I could still do things, but I was in bed most of the time. I just can't wait to get back to 100%, I am on my way but have some time to go for sure. I have been watching a lot of HGTV this week and have some great ideas for my house and especially my yard, I can't wait to get them started! The nurse that did my IV didn't do it right the first time on my left arm so she had to use my right arm. Now there is this huge bruise on the left arm. Then on the right arm where the adhesive part of the band aid was, there is this blister like thing. It didn't really start bothering me until yesterday when it turned red and stung and itched like crazy. It is really weird and I am sure you wanted to know all of that, but hopefully it will go away soon.

Stephen has been feeling quite sick in the mornings lately. Last Sunday we took him to the urgent care and he had an IV and they did all of these tests but couldn't find anything, so hopefully it will just pass. Since he wasn't feeling so well, especially in the mornings, and I had to be to my surgery at 5:30 am, I stayed at my mom's house and she took me to the hospital and Stephen planned to meet up with her a little later in the morning. Well on his way to the hospital, he got in a car accident. This car rear ended him in the fast lane on the freeway while they were going like 65 mph. The bumper of my car was smashed in and it looked like there was quite a bit of damage to the exhaust pipe. Luckily no one was hurt and it was the other guy's fault so everything will be covered by his insurance but it was just a bad day all around. We took the car to the repair shop and got me a rental to use when I return to work until my car is fixed. The whole situation could have been a lot worse so we are lucky but I think we can both agree we would have been just fine without all of it. BTW Stephen is starting to feel a little better but he is not 100% either but he will make it!

Today we saw Harry Potter, which was great. It was really nice to get out of the house and to get dressed in real clothes not just sweats! Hopefully we don't have anything else too exciting happening to us in the near future!

Gall-EE!!!!

2009-07-03T08:30:00.000-07:00

This has been a tough and painful couple of days for me. Monday night I woke up in the middle of the night with an awful pain that I thought might be in my chest but I had a stomach ache too and felt nauseous and bloated. It lasted for quite a few hours. It started to calm down a little by the morning so I decided to go to the Dr. instead of the ER. My doctor ordered an ultrasound to look at my gallbladder but told me if they didn't find anything and I kept having symptoms they would need to stick a scope down my throat and look at the top of my stomach to see what was wrong. Yikes! Luckily (well I guess you could say that), they found that I have gallstones. The hospital sent me home and told me that my Dr. would call me to discuss the results. Shortly after I received a call from my Dr.'s Secretary setting up an appointment with a surgeon and the secretary told me my Dr. would call me after the appointment was set up. No call from the Dr. It was quite frustrating because I don't know anything about this stuff and I am supposed to live with this until next Tuesday when I see a surgeon? Good thing for me, my dad is a nurse and was able to give me some tips on what to do to avoid another "gallstone attack". He told me no fatty foods and to drink a lot of water... he didn't mention dairy and I didn't think to ask, needless to say I had another attack Tuesday night. We were supposed to go to Kansas on Thursday morning but my loving husband told me my health was more important and that he felt it was better to stay close to home in case something serious happens. I have been watching what I eat very closely. I still feel pretty icky but I haven't had another attack in the past two nights so I am very grateful! Hopefully things stay that way!

Vitamin Deficiency

2009-06-27T12:58:00.000-07:00

I found out this week that I have a vitamin B12 deficiency. Guess what the cure is for that? Shots, my favorite thing! My doctor started me out on 5 daily shots and then we will go weekly and then monthly, she made it sound like it is a very permanent thing, which is no good for me. Luckily the shots don't hurt but it is going to get old quick. My awesome husband took me there today so I could get injected! It was truly a bonding experience for us. My doctor said that once I feel comfortable and am doing just monthly shots I can give them to myself at home. I think I can handle that but we will see. That is all the exciting news I have this moment!