Well, I am headed to “The Cowboy State” tomorrow and just like cowboys I will be up before the sun… did I mention I don’t like getting up early? I guess that means tomorrow is going to be a Venti day!  I am extremely excited because the forecast is calling for 85+ degree weather and I have a jam-packed schedule lined up with 12 clients over three days!  For all y’all that have never been to Wyoming, I’ll do my best to post a couple cool landscapes (even though they’re not my specialty)!

So… all this to say I will be out of the studio with limited access to my phone and email, so please forgive my delayed responses in advance!  I’ll try to throw a post or two up so feel free to check back soon! I’ll be back in the studio by the 2nd, see you then!

If you’re a Wyoming resident and want to get on the notification list for my photo-visits, just shoot me a quick email, I visit all the time!

And just for fun a shot of  Waylon in true form! This is exactly what he’s doin right this second and I’d be willing to bet this is what he’ll be doing 90% of the time that I’m gone.

Mmmm, breakfast!  I love breakfast!  Corey is not a huge fan of breakfast and  I am usually busy enough that I will eat toast on my way out the door. This morning, however, we slept in and woke up to a bright sunny day with no plans. I was sipping my coffee with my eyes still halfway shut, so happy to have a day with nothing on the schedule, when I decided that it would be the perfect day for a Memorial Day breakfast treat.    

I realize it seems a little traitorous to cook something with ‘French’ in the name on Memorial Day, and I contemplated changing the name of the recipe to American Puffs or Freedom Puffs, but my Aunt has been making these for as long as I can remember and they have always been, and will continue to be French Puffs. So please forgive me.

These delicious little devils are like light, fluffy muffins  dusted in cinnamon and sugar.  Pair them up with a cup of coffee and you’ll be just about as close to heaven as you can get down here on Earth.   I had a near disaster when I opened the fridge to find we have no eggs, AHHH and I was just at the stupid grocery store yesterday!  Lucky for us our neighbors raise chickens and I ran next door and begged an egg off of  ‘em. Just like that breakfast was back on.  It’s been 45 minutes since they came out of the oven and I’m already on my 4th puff (No judging allowed)! 

So… If you can get past the name, and you’re in the mood for a yummy treat… I’ve posted my Aunts top-secret recipe below! 

1/3 cup shorting or butter 

1/2 cup sugar 

1 egg 

1 1/2 cup flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup milk

Set oven to 350

Mix dry ingredients and set aside.   Mix shorting, sugar and egg. Add in dry ingredients and milk.  Grease muffin tin,  and scoop batter into tin.

Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes. 

Remove from baking tin and brush on melted butter, and dust with cinnamon and sugar.

Enjoy!

Some people are simply made for eachother, and Sam and AJ are a shining example. Their smiles came so incredibly naturally and their playfulness and genuineness made shooting their engagement session a walk in the park, literally!  I’m convinced that Sam could be a supermodel without even having work at it, and yes, if it were possible I’d steal her dimples in a heartbeat. AJ just beams when he’s next to her, walking around with the proud look of a very lucky groom who can’t wait to take her  ’off the market’  for good.

Drum roll please…..

Alright, maybe a drumroll is excessive, but it was the best way I could think of to convey my excitement about our new “Boutique Squares Collections.” We just started offering them a month ago and they’ve been such a huge hit that I figured I should tell the whole blogging world about them.  They come in 14″ x 14″ or 18″ x 18″ (14″ versions featured below), with a 1 1/2″ chic black frame and a double thick white on black mat over a 10″ x10″ or 14″ x 14″ print. It took a few iterations with my framing suppliers, but I think we finally nailed it.

Super simple, and super versatile. These puppies look great anywhere and with anything. Hang one by itself, three vertically, five horizontally, a box of nine… you get the idea.

So if you’re tired of a plain old 8×10…or want the equivalent impact of an enormous wall portrait using 10″ prints, swing by the studio to take a look or ask about ‘em after your next session.

I have known Jason for as long as I have known Corey (my hubs).  Corey and Jason have been friends since elementary school,  played on the same soccer team, hiked, vacationed, and were roommates all through college. He was the best man in our wedding, and now Corey will be in his wedding this September.

Back in our college days I would visit Corey frequently down at Oregon State. This, coincidentally, also meant I was visiting Jason (since their dorm room was  little bigger than a closet).  As their freshman year went on,  their room got grosser and grosser. Once, I made the mistake of opening their mini-fridge (for the first and last time)  and found an entire fridge of Tupperware containers filled with solid mold. I’m not talking about week old food that has a little mold on it, I’m talking about substantial volumes of green, slimy, furry, smelly mold that had made the original contents of the containers 100% unidentifiable.   They both just looked at each other, laughed and said they were keeping the 8 month old food around as a science experiment, neither wanting to admit that they were both too lazy to clean out the fridge.

A couple years later I met Megan, the object of Jason’s affection. I was again visiting Corey down at Oregon State, this time at their rental house. We were hanging out in the kitchen chatting and planning dinner, when Megan opened the fridge to get a quick inventory of our food options. She turned around with a puzzled look on her face, holding a container of 3 month old, half decomposed pizza. We confronted the boys about it, and as expected they just grinned, giggled and pretended that the disgusting old pizza was part of the same ongoing science experiment.  Megan just broke out in laughter right along with the boys, not really grossed out at all. And when she opened up the revolting container to inspect the mold formations more closely, I knew that Jason had truly found his other half.

Fast forward to the present… I’ve now been dealing with Corey’s moldy old food containers in my own fridge for almost 4 years (trust me, there is nothing scientific about them).   And, unless Jason has turned over some new leaf, I would imagine that Megan will be waging her own moldy-tupperware-battles for years to come.

I was a little nervous to shoot their engagement session yesterday, it is always weird to photograph someone you know really well.  I should have know it would be a breeze!  Megan and Jason are such a perfect fit, and they both exude 100% comfort and contentment in each other. During pictures Jason would say or do something super cheesy, and Megan’s infectious laugh would get me laughing right along with both of them.  I love it when an engagement session doesn’t need any posing at all and I can just follow the couple around and capture their natural interactions. That was the case with these two, and I can’t wait for wedding photos.

Here’s a few shots from the sesh…

Those of you who know me well won’t be surprised when I say that I am a girl who loves new sparkly things, there’s no denying it.  So when I heard of MiaDonna Diamonds for the first time, my interest was definitely piqued.

I’d like you to meet Anna-Mienke, the inspiration behind these amazing creations. This may sound like an exaggeration, but she is in the process of revolutionizing the jewerly world.

You see, MiaDonna Diamonds are not earth mined, they’re created! I know what you’re thinking, but these things aren’t cubic zirconium or mossanite like the fake rocks at the stores, they’re the real deal. They’re made by fusing real diamond crystals and let me tell you from first hand experience, they are GORGEOUS! They have all the qualities of the very best earth-mined diamonds (to the point of being indistinguishable), but they’re conflict free!

Last December I shot a very fun, but very cold session of Anna-Mienke and the rest of the MiaDonna crew for their website that they’re in the process of revamping. Last week, she came into the studio for some fun fashion-y headshots. We flipped through a few issues of Glamour magazine, set up the big hair-blowing fan, and she threw it down. Lucky for me, she’s just as gorgeous as her diamonds and she made it way too easy for me behind the camera.

Here are a few from her session.