I Heart Faces

The theme this week is "Pets", and being that I have the best Irish Rock Hound (okay, okay, she is a wiener dog mix) in the world, I thought I should join in the fun.

Yay and an Oh No!

Yay - Some of my pictures were featured on a BRIDEface's blog! They featured some of the fabulous make up that the amazing Nancy Dawson can do. 

Oh No - They linked here instead of to my site! Now the fact that I haven't updated this blog is going to be exposed to the world!!!

I have shot a ton of stuff since October - lots of shows, portraits, weddings and even a few head shots. I really need to get on the ball! I will start to share all of these...tomorrow. I promise...

 All f these are from an engagement shoot I did before my friends eloped to Paris. I told them I would work for food, but they still went with out me!!!

PS - My site can be found here!

Halloween is kinda happening I guess.

As a freelancer, you take the work when it comes to you and you are grateful. This year the universe thought it would be hilarious to force me to be grateful about missing my favorite holiday. Oh well, as Tim Gunn says,"Make it work!"

So last year I became obsessed with  haunted pictures. I wanted cool ones, not those terrible ones in fake, cheap, glued on plastic frames. I was thrilled to find two at Michaels in good frames, but two frames does not a mantle make. Imagine my excitement to find these pictures at the dollar store, then follow that with the thought, "@^#% , those ugly frames again!" Luckily I had an epiphany before I left the store - cut off the frame! The dollar store pictures are a perfect 5x7. Once I noticed this, I walked over to the frame section, picked out two frames and left with a ton of creepy cloth and a bill under $10. 

Here are the finished products. For all of $4, I got two more of these cool pictures that the kids love. 

Halloween finds. Part 1.

So I went by one of my thrift stores today and found this little troupe of plastic vintage looking pumpkins to hang on the kid's Hallween tree. I also found some window clings from the 80's and a vintage candle. The piece my daughter loves the most is this skull:




It looks like one of those plastic Christmas candles, except black and with a skull in top. The best part? All of this cost under $5. Love the thrift store!




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Cakes and what not.

I am the kind of person that loves to bake a cake from scratch. Quality counts and all that. But there are times in our lives when a box cake is necessary - like when you have a bridal shower, meetings with clients, photo processing and a birthday dinner all in one weekend. With all of that said, I have found a few cheats that have made me a box cake believer. The picture above is of the cupcakes I made for my sister's bridal shower. It is the simplest alteration in the world: nutmeg. The cake is a yellow box cake that was prepared per the instructions with 4-5 heavy dashes of nutmeg added (test the batter, add until you can just taste it). I call them my doughnut cakes since nutmeg is the spice used in yeasted doughnuts. They were amazing. It spruced up the cake just enough to make it special without it getting so frou frou that a guy wouldn't eat it.

For the birthday party I altered a devil's food cake. This one is also pretty simple: instead of water I used milk, and instead of oil I used melted butter, slightly cooled. It made a denser, richer cake with very little extra work. A word of warning - the cake will not be the came color you are used to - it will be lighter in color due to the milk. The batter actually looked like my home made cake batter. Fabulous and fast.

One last tip - if you have a stand mixer, allow the batter to mix for 5-8 minutes. It gives the batter a uniform texture that makes a soft, velvety cake.

So since I can't always be like my friends from Posh Nosh below, I can fake it pretty well now.

Had to share this lovely video!

One very cool little man turns one!

Lesson number one in photo: sometimes there are happy surprises. Here is the picture I intended to take:

Cute. Look at that curl, those rosy cheeks. Adorable, really. Yet...

So much better!!! I told you he was cool. He makes the best faces.

LIzzi is Broadway bound!

This girl has no bad angles. She is a dream to work with: pleasant attitude, takes direction and willing to try anything. She has a face the light loves. Hire her!!!

Some babies come to us so easily...

...and some are hard fought for. This is one of the latter. This little girl's parents have ran a marathon for her. They had a lot of tough luck trying to have a baby on their own, so they decided to adopt. They had a birth mother back out at the last minute. After three plus years of heartbreak and sadness they get the call : a birth mom is due on Tuesday, are you ready? They were. It is amazing how mountains of pain can crumble in the face of the first moments of true love.

She is the smallest baby I have ever held - 5 lb 8 oz at birth.

Feet are my favorite - can you tell? She is terribly expressive for a 7 day old:

She is perfect. Everything a parent can ask for. I can't wait to see how she grows.

Happy 4th, everyone!

I hope you all had more fun than my girl - she thought the fireworks were loud and she looks a bit unsure of the sparklers. She got over it once she realized it was cool.

We grown ups had a great time!

So good I had to write it down before I forgot...

Meet Strawberry Lime Sorbetto. It is sweet and friendly. It is also pink, so I can get my daughter to eat it... counts as a serving of fruit, right?

Strawberry Lime Sorbetto

1 pound of strawberries (a bag of prepped frozen will work)

1 cup of sugar

1 cup of water

1/4 cup of key lime juice

Simmer the water and sugar in a saucepan until the sugar dissolves (make a simple syrup). Allow to cool. 

Once the syrup is cool, puree strawberries with the lime juice and the sugar syrup.

Add to your ice cream machine and follow the machine's instructions. 

And there you have it. Sweet but complex enough to make a foodie happy. Yummy.

Boxed Cappuccino Brownies; or sometimes quick and easy is okay.

I decided to make some tasties to take with us to the Opera last night. Since we had 5 hours to kill, I thought eating might be a good way to fill a few of those hours. In an effort to not spend my whole day in the kitchen, I used a box brownie mix (gasp). I still stand by Alton Brown's Cocoa Brownies as the best out there and well worth the effort, but sometimes a girl's just gotta get the job done.

Here is what I did to make 40 brownie minis:
Start with 1 box of dark chocolate brownie mix (family size). Make it per the instructions, but add 1 tablespoon of instant coffee and 1 teaspoon of cinnamon. Fill a mini muffin tin with papers and use a 1 tablespoon cookie scoop to fill them. Bake for 25-30 minutes. That simple.

They must have been good because I sat the plate out on the table, there was a flurry of children, then no brownies.

My boy is in an opera! Or another excuse as to why I am neglecting my blog.

We are excited that my boy gets to be on an opera this summer. We are not excited that there is a 5 hour gap between his first appearence on stage and his last. I will update about my marathon shooting this month soon and my new obsession with an ice cream maker.


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Back in the day...

I used to have piles of proof prints lying about the place. Now so many of my images only live as electrons and bytes. These images were captured by my phone! Times have really changed since the dark ages of the early 2000's.


































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Baked Doughnuts

I have been watching Jamie Oliver and reading a whole lot of food blogs over the past year, all in an effort to really feed my family well. I have decided to cut out fried foods. After you lose an entire evening to onion rings, you are more than willing to do such things.
Doughnuts are a favorite of my daughter's. She begs to get one every time we go to the grocery store.I decided this has to stop. I don't want her to have the same bad habits I do! So I looked into baking doughnuts instead.
A quick Google search has 101 Cookbooks' recipe at the top. She alway has such great stuff that I deiced this was a good place to start.

The husband melted and the kids begged for more. I am going to call them a success and highly recommend them. The next time I make them, I am going to replace half the flour with White Whole Wheat Flour to see if I can make them just a touch more healthy.

A few tips:

- The recipe calls for a pinch or two of  nutmeg. Be generous - it really gives the dough a nice flavor.
- To save on fat and calories, I only used 4 T of butter to top the doughy little circles. I dipped the tops in the butter then dropped them in the cinnamon and sugar to coat. I still have a bit of butter left using this method. It was really all the toping they needed.
- Speaking of butter, I topped them with salted instead of unsalted butter. It boosted the flavor and sweetness.
- She isn't kidding about the holes disappearing.

- Save all the extra dough. The doughnut holes were just as good as the doughnuts. They bake for the same amount of time as the doughnuts.

We got a new puppy!

We have a new addition to the family. Her name is Murphy. She is a lovely Dachshund / Golden Retriever mix. I love a mutt! We got her at the League for Animal Welfare.  I can not say enough good things about these people. For one thing - they rescued the perfect dog! Look at her - isn't she awesome?! The lady taking care of our adoption told us Murphy was a day away from being put to sleep when she came to the League. Thank goodness they took her. She is our perfect fit. The LFAW makes sure that all family members meet with the animal in question, and you answer a lot of questions. When we left, we really felt that we had a good fit. The League wouldn't have it any other way. If you are looking for a furry and are in the Cincinnati are - look here. They were amazing.

Here is her first bath: 

  

Isn't she sweet! It took about a week, but boy did her personality and puppy-ness start to show.

She barks at her reflection in the dishwasher! Cute. She loves to run with the kids, loves her tennis balls and her rope toys - I guess that is her retriever side showing through.

She has the body shape of a wiener dog with the soft fur of a retriever. She is so fun to cuddle. While she is playful, Murphy really likes long naps. Like I said - perfect for us. Playful but pretty laid back.