christmas breakfast

on fake christmas morning i really wanted to make my dad's favorite recipe of swedish pancakes. we normally have crepes with strawberry's back home, but i don't have a crepe maker and actually prefer the swedish pancakes to crepes anyway.

since it was christmas we obviously used some food coloring to make red and green pancakes (or really we used a ton to get it to be more red than pink). and perhaps one of us set theirs up to alternate red pancakes with green pancakes (with a layer of butter/powdered sugar or homemade ollaliaberry jelly/powdered sugar on each pancake).

here is the recipe for swedish pancakes (which i am currently getting via gchat from my sister who's had it memorized since we were little):

1.5 cups milk
3/4 cups flour
3 eggs
2 TBL sugar
1 tsp salt

beat milk and eggs together until they are a lemon yellow color (not with an electic beater or it will get foamy and you'll have to wait an hour to cook them) (yep, this happened to me)
sift the flour, sugar and salt and then mix into the milk and eggs until just combined.
pour one ladle of batter onto a buttered skillet.
flip when they look cooked to cook both sides.
keep them warm while cooking all of them.
serve with butter, powdered sugar, and jelly. or syrup if you're like my annoying little brother who never did it right...
also goes really well with apple juice as your drink.
preferably out of a plastic cup.

merry christmas!!

christmas socks

these and another pair of this sock pattern ended up being the only knitted presents i finished on time for christmas. i always end up having too much on my plate. oh well. just glad to at least have gotten these finished for the boo!

i did end up running out of green yarn since i had to change colors so much... i was probably leaving too much extra when i cut it. luckily i still had some red left to finish the last sock with! just not happy it's not perfect, of course.

i still love these socks and hopefully will get some time to wear them myself... ha.

handpainted wrapping paper

every year at christmas or for birthdays i try to make my own wrapping paper. it's pretty easy with some plain white or brown bag wrapping paper and markers. my favorite markers being crayola bolds. it's fast and easy and i usually just use the same designs from the year before... although one year when i was studying for an actuarial test i used all the formulas i memorized to design wrapping paper. turns out those formulas are more useful as wrapping paper designs than in real life! maybe i need to bring them back.

anyhoo... this year i couldn't find my markers. and since it'd been a year since i took a painting course and thus had painted, i thought i could pull off an easy hand-painted wrapping paper job this year. here are the results for some birthday and christmas wrapping paper. the painting course i took was on color theory, so i learned how to make pretty much any color only using red, blue, yellow, and white paints. mixing is really the best part and i had a lot of fun with this project.

a partridge and a pear tree

for the elf party this year i decided to dress up as a partridge to complement my boo's costume of a pear tree. there is a chance a few days before the party i left another christmas party early to go home and glue feathers on swimsuit fabric sewn to a cotton shirt for this costume (which turned out to be gluing feathers in candlelight since our power went off). i'm not sure if it was worth it, since it makes me a pretty huge loser leaving a party to glue feathers in the dark, but i'm pretty pleased with how both costumes turned out. and the elf party was a lot of fun!

rest of sunday dinner photoshoot

i have been feeling completely overwhelmed by all the photography projects i have on my plate, so came up with a plan. a plan to cross things off my list! so instead of tackling the never-ending time-consuming weddings, i took a break to finish a few things on my list that were doable so that i wouldn't feel too overwhelmed to tackle the weddings.

here's the rest of the photoshoot i took (back in august! i'm the worst...) for my friend jennie and her friends who have a sunday dinner every sunday. a few of them have since moved, so they wanted some photos to remember all their good times. it was a really fun shoot! so glad i finally was able to send them something. and cross it off my list!!

the millers

while i was in denver, lisa's friends (who are now my friends) came over and we were able to squeeze in a photoshoot before the big birthday party for julian.

these kids are so sweet. and it didn't take long at all to have the perfect shots. a family of great models!!

maui sunset

okay, so also part of my problem is i have really cool photos like this to work on too... (from our trip to maui for josh and melissa's wedding)

more courtney & ray

i'm really having a difficult time getting through these photos. somewhat because of my 4 weddings in 5 weekends making me need a break from weddings, but mostly because i haven't gotten a good workflow down with my new software. i could do it all quickly in lightroom and i know courtney would still love the photos, but since i know photoshop makes them even better, i can't resist.

here are a few more i put together. i'm really loving this sassy group shot...

if you get caught between the moon and san francisco...

here are some photos i took yesterday morning of gigi. the first one was taken from my bed!

so glad i got out of my warm sheets at 545am to check through the curtains to investigate that bright shining light...

courtney & ray

here are some photos from courtney & ray's wedding a few weeks ago. lots to go through, so more to come!

logo

more more

i know i should wait until i'm finished to show all these, but i'll feel more accomplished if i post these for at least one person to see (thanks for stopping by, lees!!)

wedding time!

on saturday i drove up to calistoga in napa valley to photograph katy and ryan's wedding. my first of 4 weddings in the next 5 weekends. (only two of which i was only invited to as the photographer) it was a beautiful day... a bit hot, but gorgeous. katy was relaxed and just extremely happy all day... and it definitely showed in the photos (well, maybe not that middle one. but that one just shows how fun she is)

i'm hoping to get to all of these this week before i fly to philly this weekend to photograph courtney and ray's wedding. my real goal is to have a slideshow by friday, but that's aggressive.

more to come!

leah's pajamas

okay, so i'm trying to be positive about these. because they're cute, right? i mean... in a picture, they are cute to look at. and maybe the top is even cute because it can actually be worn. but the pants!! i did it AGAIN!! how terrible are they? i followed the pattern exactly, even looked up online for errata or for other people making them complaining about how they come out, and nothing... all i found was a bunch of photos of people making these pajamas perfectly. i'm so upset because i'm pretty sure leah won't wear the top without the pants (since i know julian doesn't LISA) (also, i know it looks like a girl's top, lees) but oh well... guess i just need to learn how to sew.

anyway... here are the photos. i'm trying to be positive by posting the better photos first. at least the wrapping was pretty!! it will arrive in 6 days, kate!!