more leah

leah drew

went back east this weekend to meet leah! what a precious baby. perfect in every way, especially how you just lay her down when it's nap time and she falls asleep. amazing.

i wasn't able to finish her pajamas in time since the hours before my flight while i was trying to finish the sewing, i broke the needle! i was in too much of a rush to take a photo, but it would have been a nice addition to the blog. now it will be more difficult to have motivation to get it finished since i have all these photos of her to do. more coming, obviously.

The Results are In!!!....

for the best baby names of all my "friends" on Facebook.

I decided to do this as an activity to keep me off my farmville farm... and since I consider myself an expert in the baby name field, I thought it would be nice to give a shout out to those who, in my opinion, are winning at naming their babies.

Here are the results:

Top 5 boys:
1. McKinley (Mac)
2. Julian
3. Holden
4. Leo William (new son of Jess Datillo)
5. Mason Alexander

Top 5 girls:
1. Pascale (Paz)
2. Alena
3. Landon
4. Leah Drew
5. (t) Nora, Liza, Sasha, Juliette, and Amelia

Okay, so the five way tie is a little odd, but I seriously couldn’t pick one out of these five that is the best. They are all great in their own way.

My favorite name of both boys and girls is Pascale. I don’t really know Kelly, but she was in my sorority back in the day so that’s how we’re Facebook friends. I heard somewhere along the way that she named her daughter after her father, using his name. This is by far the best way to name a baby if you can pull it off (Carrie, we will no longer be friends if you name your daughter Bruce. Although… Bryce???). Pascale is a feminine version of the boys' name Pasquale and is used a lot in Europe. So it’s not made up and she goes by an adorable nickname, Paz. Great work, Kelly!!

The rest of the girls on the list are also pretty great. Alena is one of my all time favorite names, not just because of my sister Elena, but because it sounds beautiful, goes with most last names, isn’t made up, sounds classy, and is rarely used (maybe because of the different pronunciations? I just don’t understand it). Nora and Liza I love because they’re along that new trend of bringing back older names, but not the really common ones like Sophia, Grace, or Ella. Sasha just sounds amazing together, as does Amelia.

For boys, I chose Mac over my all time favorite human, Julian. Sorry, Lisa and Julian! But I just really like this name for a lot of reasons. I probably wouldn’t pick McKinley on my list if he didn’t go by the nickname Mac. It could be perceived as a bit feminine, but it is perfect with a masculine nickname. Also, I’m assuming this is a family name with some significance which gives it big points, but I still like it even if it’s not. I also like that his dad’s name is Matt which has the same sound as Mac, without naming them the same thing. Way to go, Lauren! Can’t wait to hear what she names #3 (2nd was a girl Anna called Annie).

Julian is especially great because I named him :) I love it like I love Elena. Just perfect in every way and I don’t understand why people don’t use it more. (although that’s what makes it special) Leo is amazing and would probably be higher on the list if I knew if it went with his last name (which I’m assuming isn’t Dattilo?) I’ve always loved the name Jason, so Mason is a nice twist to that overly-used-in-the-80s-so-no-one-uses-it-now name and with Alexander as a middle name, it’s a real winner.

A special shout out goes to Lindsay for getting both a boy and girl name on the top 5 list. I even like her third’s name, Luke, which has always been my favorite, but is becoming too popular these days to make my list.

Here are my honorable mention girls: Chloe Jade (I picked the middle name, but couldn’t choose it because Chloe is now in the top 10. Sorry Lisa!!), Avery, Bryn, Ellie, Camryn, Cecelia, Kendall, Riley, and Teagan.

And honorable mention boys: Callan, Chase, Mason, Nathan John, RJ, Thabo Sean, Tommy, and Wade.

new camera and lens

i decided to upgrade my camera to the 40D now that the 50D is around to keep the price down. i really do need two cameras for the upcoming weddings i'm photographing, so i'm keeping the 20D too. i also realized for the weddings i need a macro lens for those close up details. thanks to my amazon.com credit card, i got a good deal on the lens and it arrived yesterday. can't wait to start using it!

sunday night photo shoot

my friend jennie asked me to stop by last night to take photos of a group of her friends who have dinner together every sunday night. they've been doing it for four years now and three of them will soon be moving away from san francisco (because they're crazy?? who leaves here??)

here's my early favorite from the photo shoot. once i have time to go through them properly i'm sure i'll have others. i mean, we did a jumping one! (of course) so there are photos that are more fun than this. but there is definitely something great about a group photo where every person has their eyes open and looks great...

beautiful babies of sausilito

on sunday evening, larissa's friend helena invited us to a house she'd been staying at in sausilito. i brought my camera and couldn't help taking photos of the adorable kids who were there.

the light was amazing and all 3 kids were natural models, just staring at the camera with their big blue eyes. ryder, larissa's friends stacey and adam's son, is 5 months and the twin boys, julian and kellen, are 20 months. i've been trying to do portraits where the eyes look like this and haven't been able to really pull it off until these photos. i think it was a combination of the color of their eyes and the amazing light that was there. plus, also maybe a little photoshop :)

owen pics posted

here. password is "andreachristine" until i can go home and change it to not have a password. work blocks smugmug! so frustrating.

here are some of my faves from the rest of the photos.

homemade goat cheese ravioli with vodka sauce

last night i made this dish for dinner with my boo. deeelicious. i've made it a few times before, but never quite this good since i learned from my past mistakes.

i started with this recipe from epicurious. instead of bell peppers and brown butter, i used vodka sauce. rao's vodka sauce. sifted to remove all the tomato chunks. i also didn't include any of the herbs in the cheese mixture. mostly because larissa told me not to, but also because i didn't have any.

i used wonton wrappers purchased at whole foods wrapped like the recipe suggests. a key step in this recipe is carefully closing up the raviolis to make sure there is no air stuck in them. air inside makes them float to the top when boiling and also creates holes and water gets in them. yuck. (although not too "yuck". there's still goat cheese in there...)

another key was using one of those spoons with the holes in them. the ravioli are too delicate to just dump in a strainer after boiling, so pulling each one out individually without extra water keeps them in tact and not too watery.

anyway, this was easy AND fancy. perfect! all both of you should try this recipe sometime. sorry i forgot to take photos!

upside down unicorn

i was able to get most of the cutting finished for leah's pajamas last night and had time to sew the first 4 pieces together. it is pretty satisfying to get that done even though it was rather easy. well, easy if i hadn't sewn the first sleeve on wrong at first. luckily, i remembered to purchase a $1.95 seam ripper at britex yesterday!

i started to admire the unfinished top when i realized i hadn't paid any attention to the section of the fabric i had cut the 2 front pieces from. because of that, there was no full unicorn on either top... only 2 upside down poking through the top and 2 unicorn asses poking out the sides. whoops!!

i was going to just keep it as is, but think i need it to be as close to perfect as i can pull off. plus, i have extra fabric AND that new seam ripper. which has definitly already made that $1.95 very well spent.

here is a photo of the upside down unicorns...

new sewing project

since i work all day and only have evenings and some lunches to work on my projects i think it's okay to post progess on projects rather than just completed items. otherwise, i'd have nothing to write about and it wouldn't be a blog.

anyhoo... so i decided leah's present would be those same pajamas i made julian. this time i'm determined to learn from my mistakes, though... starting with actually washing the fabric first! a big important step, is what they say. and also this time... i'm not going to mess up the pants! (i already have a plan for that.) wish me luck!

here are some exciting photos of me cutting out the fabric. (which is as far as i've gotten on this and it's just the pants pieces so far!) it's a long, drawn out process for someone as inexperienced as me. the fabric is from the far far away line by heather ross. i chose the green unicorn pattern over the pink princess and pea one... looks like that will be used on something for gracie :) (who i'm also going to see on my trip back east at the end of the month i decided yesterday. lots of sewing to do!!)

making dinner

...counts as a thing i make, right? here's a photo of my standard chicken and rice with a delicious bottle of wine for dinner last night with my favorite roomie, allison (sorry, simon!) (he doesn't read this.) (actually, neither does allison.) we were lucky to get somewhat decent weather so we could eat on the porch. this view never gets old! although i do need to learn to photograph it better. i was well aware of the lens spots i'd get when i took this, but was too hungry to go get the lens hood.



i also threw in a photo i took this morning. since i drank a bit too much wine at dinner last night, i fell asleep forgetting to close the blinds and awoke without an alarm to this sweet view. (sweet because it wasn't foggy and i could actually see gigi)

i never want to leave this city...

happy birthday carrie!

was in LA this weekend celebrating carrie's 30th... so fun!

here's a favorite photo from the weekend:



i'm excited to start a new project for baby leah tonight. i hope i can get it finished in the next 17 days before i see her!!