Sugar Shop

It'll all be gone after today

... his hair. We tried to let it grow out and honestly I think we just got through the really bad in between stage but he just doesn't have the right kinda hair. It's super straight. I actually love it in these pictures but it only looks like this straight out of the shower. As soon as he leans against anything it sticks straight up. Sooo it's getting chopped.

We did a little back yard shoot to document the hair before it's gone.

Have I mentioned that this kid is the hardest kid on the planet to photograph? First he is at the "fake smile" stage, so it's really goofy. Here, see for your self....

This is what happens when I say smile please

okay... you have to smile and look at the camera at the same time....

you do realize the camera is this thing in front of my face right? Hello?

and then....  

Look Mom, a fly is on me

Okay dude, you do realize that when I said I would make you a deal and clean your room for you if you would take lots of really good pictures with me ... that these wouldn't be action shots??

and then...

Mom, look, now there's one on my face!

I really should pay someone else to take his pictures and see what happens.

ahhh well, for now I will settle for a little not looking at me, non smiling-ness. It's him. And he's mine so I love it.

want to see some awesome-ness?

Hey Jumpy, give me a look for the layyyyydees

that was some cool.ness!!!

Bye long-ish hair!

Egg White Muffins - ewww these need a better name

How about calling them Mini Souffles , but they are technically not a souffle. How about egg cupcakes ewww. Hmmm let me know if you have something better to call these, maybe they actually already have a name? Anyway I have started running and I'm trying to lose the baby weight. What? all right fine... my baby is 7 yrs now and I shouldn't be calling it "the baby weight" any longer but technically it's true. When I was prego is when I gained the extra weight and I still haven't lost it. But that is all going to change. Just throwing this out there. 

One of my challenges is breakfast! I'm not hungry when I make Jumpy kid breakfast in the morning and by the time I am I don't want to cook again. So I started making these and they work perfect for me! 

Here's what goes in to them

3 Cup Egg Whites ( I buy the egg whites in the carton, easy peasy and they are 100% egg whites not the fake junk)

1 1/2 Cups Extra Lean Ham - diced (this is in the bacon, sausage section at the store)

1/3 Cup Onion - diced

1/3 Cup Salsa

Lawrey's Season Salt

Non stick cooking spray (I like the butter flavored one for things like this)

See this guy? This is Fat Man.He sits on the counter in my kitchen. Steve and Jumpy kid hate him. I don't know why. They just don't get Fat Man. He has no function and they don't understand this. Often Fat Man disappears. I usually find him shoved in a cabinet somewhere. I think the next time he goes missing I will hold their dinner as ransom. 

You need JUMBO muffin tins. Since I'm the only one who eats these I just make six at a time so that's what this recipe yields.

Great! now Poker Face is  stuck in my head I think it was the word muffin that did it....

... I won't tell you that I love you

Kiss or hug you

Cause I'm bluffin' with my Muffin

I'm not lying I'm just stunnin' with my love-glue-gunning

always good to add a touch of inappropriateness to a recipe.

Pre heat your oven to 400°

and spray your muffin cups.

huhuh muffin

Dice your ham and onion

Poor about half a cup of egg whites in to

each cup. These will be pretty full. It's amazing how fast the egg mixture cooks when you spill it on your oven door.

Add about 1/4 Cup of Ham to each Cup

note: the plopping of the ham from the measuring cup sends egg whites flying. Better to use your hand to gently drop it in.

Add about 1 TBLSP of onion to each cup.

Add a TBSLP of salsa to each cup.

Add a dash of season salt to each cup.

Stir each cup!

Bake them for about 40 min at 400°. When they first come out they look like these above.

After they cool they look like this:

Then I wrap them individually and each morning I can just pop them in the micro.

I add hot sauce, but that's up to you.

Then I enjoy with a little Perrier Lime. Okay, I thought I would enjoy with a little Perrier Lime. Turns out Perrier Lime tastes a little furniture polish-y to me. But the bottle looks pretty. 

Each of my muffins (hehe) 

 Have 138 calories,4 Carbs, 2 Fat, 23g protein (awesome!!) and 1 fiber

and if you care they are 3 WW points.

Any tips on easy quick recipes that worked for you when you were trying to lose your baby weight (what eva, I'm still claiming it) would be totally appreciated. 

XOXO

Baby Blanket

Oops I didn't mean to be gone so long. I think I start a post with this sentence every year at this time. This time of year is crazy busy for me. Not only is it the end of school for Jumpy kid which means lots of school events and projects but it's the end of baseball (coaches gifts, games and team party's) and on top of all that work is crazy too. Since we do school contract photography there's a lot to wrap up with that. But it's all finished now, yay! Now I'm preparing for the upcoming seniors and school year for work, working on some new projects for The Peanut Shell and trying to keep jumpy kid from getting bored this summer. Oh, and we are trying to get a house built on our property in the country. We've just started the ball rolling on that so I won't say too much until it is actually underway. There's so many permits and hoops to jump through that I just don't want to jinx it but once it's actually underway I will definitely blog the process! 

In the meant time Steve calls me from work the other day and said there was a baby shower at work for a co-worker/buddy of his and could I whip something up for him that night. Oh sure, 'cause I have nothing else on my plate right now. :) actually I like when he asks me to make stuff for co workers, I like the fact that it makes him feel proud to take something his wife made to work as a gift. So leave it to beaver, I love it.

Once I agreed to make something and asked what are they into Steve said that his friend was really, really, really into Turbo 6 cars. Not sure but I think it's a Porche but don't quote me on that. Steve asked if I Googled "Turbo 6 Logo" I'd find the logo and could I do anything with that? At first when I saw the logo I thought Yikes yellow, orange and black are the colors I have to work with for a baby blanket?uggg. But it worked out. I went in to my halloween fabric stash and found the orange/polka dot fabric and then I pulled the checker board from a stack of Disney's Cars fabric and I had some yellow flannel for the backing and I was good to go.

I also had a package of onesies on hand so I ironed on a couple of logos to those and we had a little gift set! 

Baby Contest

 

Here she is! Alicia's beautiful baby! 

This was a super quick little shoot so there'll be more pix to come when we do the whole family. 

she was soooo stinken cute! I brought a bunch of super soft fabrics and miss O loved them. She kept rubbing her little face on them.

The photo at the top with the pink tutu is entered in the Bay Area's PYT (Pretty Young Thing) baby contenst. If you have a sec hop over to here and vote for her!! Thanks,

Happy Saturday!

Hey friends!

Hi peeps! It's friday and thought I'd jump on and say hello! This time of year is crazy for me. My photography company is busy taking prom and little league pictures, I've got Jumpy Kid in baseball, Steve has been busy after work building a gate for my dad at The Ranch  (it's very cool, I'll post picks when it's all done) and I'm designing some new stuff in my spare time.  

I just got this bit of fun news from Alicia at the Peanut Shell, the swaddler is in Pregnancy Magazine, yay! Oh by the way, I'd like to clarify, I did not invent the swaddler. In fact if you search google images for swaddler you will see there are a ton of them which a lot of them look extremely similar to each other. I was given the task of doing it a little differently. Here are my originals that I turned in.

Why do I tell you all this? Cause I have a CRAZY blog stalker right now. It's the same person but they keep cutting and pasting the same comment over and over and they link random websites and use fake emails but they are all left at the same time. Then every once in a while she resorts to leaving some words that make her sound like a twelve year old bully. Not to mention it's obvious that they are from a certain camp (which I won't bother to mention) since she is sooooo unprofessional. Hellooo it's like an episode of Americas dumbest criminals. This crazy person really wants to make sure to tell me I did not invent the swaddler. Ummm yes. never claimed to.

Ok, I just needed to get that off my chest. I know I shouldn't even give it any energy at all. It's so lame. My homegirl Alicia said it's time to grow thick skin. She's so right. There will always be one unprofessional cookadoo with nothing better to do I suppose.

Have I mentioned how much my husband rocks? Love him. Thanks big daddy for being so amazing!

Oh and just for the sake of clarity ... I didn't invent the purse either. ;) 

hope you all have an awesome weekend! 

xoxo

Dena

Wicked Party Favors

No not wicked as in cool, Wicked as in the Play! A couple of weeks ago the girls in my family along with by 13 year old cousin (a boy) went to go see it. OH-EM-G! if you have not seen the play you must!!

Wizard of Oz has always been my absolute favorite movie. When I was little girl circa 1979-1980 we hadn't yet gotten our first VCR nor did we have The movie channels like HBO yet, no videos lying around to watch at will. But.... but... Once a year, on a very special Sunday evening they would play the Wizard of Oz on the television. 

I remember waiting and waiting for that Sunday to come and my mom would make sure that my bath was already taken and she'd put pot pies in the oven a total treat for us ( I also waited and waited the eternity it took for pot pies to cook prior to the microwave oven) wow I'm just in my (late) thirties and my early childhood was in the techno stone ages, I mean we did have Atari, holla! but still. Anyway, I would put on my night gown and grab my Dukes of Hazzard sleeping bag and strawberry shortcake pillow and wait... and oh was it worth it. Then it would be over and I'd realize I'd have to wait a whole 'nother year. *sigh* 

When the Wizard of Oz fabric collection was released I bought, I bought it all people there have been FOUR lines of it so far. And then we decided to go see Wicked and I wanted to make something for my mom, sister, cousin and neice and couldn't wait to dig in.

So I made these little zipper bags! And when I found out my cousin Tammy was bringing Shane I made him this one.

Skateboards are a bit more Man'ly don't you think? He said he was going to put his PS2 games in it, cool.

Have you seen Wicked? If so, did you not love it? I loooooved it and would go see it again. For Xmas two years ago my mom bought me the special edition double DVD set of Wizard of Oz. It is still unopened because I haven't seen it in years and wanted to wait 'til Jumpy Kid was old enough to watch it with. He's seven now and I think we're ready, I mean the kid loved Pirates of the Caribbean and that was scarry although the Oz monkeys could give Pirates a run for the money!

I'm just say'in :)

Google Reader and the NEXT button

Let me say it again GOOGLE READER. The other day I read this post on Heather Bailey's site about Google reader. Now, I have been using Bloglines forever. I'm sure most of you all know about these services but in case you haven't they are simply free services where you can put all your fave blogs in one spot . Saves you from clicking on a blog everyday. Well I have like a hundred and fifty something blogs listed in Bloglines. If you are familiar with bloglines you know that you can click on the blog name in your list of blogs and it will show the contents of that latest post in a white screen without actually opening the blog. I always thought it wasn't really necessary to go to the site since you are reading their latest and greatest news.

But, I decided to sign up for Google Reader (it's free so why not I figured) and then  I went in to the preferences on G.R. and clicked the button too install the "Next" button in to my bookmarks bar. Super easy. Now I just click on the Next button and it opens the actual blog from my list in all it's intended glory. I still thought this not a big deal to open the actual blog but holy cow, I was wrong! Over the last few days when I have a moment (usually as my boys are watching an episode of MythBusters for the 900th time) I have been "hitting" my next button. OMG! It's such a better experience to visit the blogs. It's.... so much more personal. Some may have some really cool info in the sidebars that I have been missing out on... or their "about me" photo! I have added so many blogs directly into Bloglines that I never knew what some of you looked like. Hello Gorgeous! And the blogs we design have so much personality, I find my self commenting more. So people sign up if you haven't already you'll be so happy you did or if you already are make sure you install the "Next" button. 

Oh, because there is just no possible way for me to do a post without a pic or two: Here are a couple I took at our Easter Bash

This is my dad... the most amazing, inspiring, hilarious and cool man I know and he's turning 70 this Saturday. He's wearing the ear thingys because we should skeet at our ranch on Easter (yes I said we) but I looked at this photo and thought if this is was 70 looks like, I'm in!

Happy Tuesday Love monkeys!

Andrea Senior Session

Just a quick monday post, I usually do a slideshow of the photo sessions that I do for our clients. Thought it might me fun for you to see. Let me know if you like seeing these and maybe I'll post them more often. It's supposed to get up to 95 degrees here in Livermore, California.... Yikes! It's not supposed to get hot like this yet, I'm soooo not ready for the heat, jumpy kid wanted to go swimming yesterday but I told him that if we were part of Shrek's  family it might be fun ...daddy needs to put a few chemicals in the pool :)

Hope you guys have a happy Monday!

Alicia's Maternity Shoot

Yesterday this baby decided she would rather be in her mamas arms rather than in her belly. So in honor of this new little one and to this amazing mama and her family here are the portraits.

Yes she is still wearing her tiny 7 jeans a few weeks before delivering this baby. :)

All of the above photos were shot at the Rooney ranch

We did the following studio shots first, then headed downtown for some yummy frozen yogurt and then on to the ranch. I have to say my first love is to shoot outdoors not so much the studio but I do love these studio shots alot!

Alicia, I'm so glad your baby girl is finally here! Hmmmm how long before she wraps her daddy and brother around her little tiny fingers? :)

Swaddler Design for The Peanut Shell

Hi I took a little longer than planned for the announcement but here it is... my latest design for The Peanut Shell The Swaddler.

Working with Alicia (Peanut Shell owner) has been seriously fun. We became friends fast and our meetings are always fun, they usually take place over pedicures and we even did foot reflexology one time. Alicia is due very soon to have her baby and I just did a maternity shoot with her that I will post soon.

I was given the task to design a swaddler. I wanted to make it completely different than what is already out there and one of the main features was the colar. I thought it made it like a little jacket and also put the Minky against the baby's face instead of the cotton. 

Not only do I get to design but I'm also hired to do all the photography for The Peanut Shell website and packaging. Super fun and all the P.S. girls rock! Hi Steph, Meg, Tiff and Frankie!! 

So if you need a baby gift you can order any of the P.S. products their site  (check out the super chic hospital gowns...seriously) Or you can order a swaddler here or you can visit your local boutique baby store. Or you can order their slings and nursing covers at Target, Nordstom or BabysRus. If you are going to by a sling go for The Peanut Shell. I have seen the others and the P.S. slings are not just a piece of fabric. The cut and construction are far better than others on the market... they have been tested and are the most comfortable. ....and no, I was not paid to say any of that. lol.

I hope you all have a great weekend! Thanks for letting me share my news. On a side note if you have emailed me I swear I will be getting back to you no matter how long it takes me. I read every email and comment and they really mean a lot to me. So leave me a comment and I'll stop by your blog! 

xoxo

Dena