busy

We've been busy lately.

But the fun kind of busy.

Birthday parties, starting to decorate for Christmas, shopping and wrapping presents, visiting my family, Brent got a buck hunting up north, the last wedding of the season, planning Thanksgiving, and many photo shoots with people I wish I saw more often.

Today we took some time while shouty was sleeping to bake,

and to talk about how we are grateful for our full busy lives.

success

This year I took on less shoots and am still a little overwhelmed with the ones I am doing.

Happy that I get to be overwhelmed though, if that makes any sense.  Being a successful photographer, to me anyway, doesn't mean I'm a busy photographer.  It means I get to take shoots that bring me joy, to shoot families I'm invested in, and to shoot in a style I love.

It's also being able to create a balance where spending my days at home with this 8th month old tornado

and his no- pants- wearing sister come first (in case you're wondering why there are less photos of her... they aren't what I want to be sharing with the whole internet)   Even if picking up puzzle pieces for the 98th time that morning isn't as glamorous as planning styled shoots or spending time browsing blogs and websites...

I'm good where I am.

this girl

For having a mom and aunt who are photographers, she doesn't really like having her picture taken, so I don't have as many taken with my big camera as I would like.

It's so much fun seeing her grow up, and freaks me out all at the same time.  She says the strangest, funniest, and most heartfelt things, depending on the day and her mood.

She loves peach yogurt, Doc McStuffins, and talking about Christmas.  She loves to make cards for other people, paint, and do her other "work."  She dances with her baby bear and talks about everything she is learning at preschool

She does not love that her brother can crawl over and take her things and yells, "no shout, no!"  He laughs at that.

Love you, my Kira girl.

Shouty pants- 8 months

Well, he's several days past 8 months.

And we're still calling him Shout...

And he's still pretty easy going and super smiley.
He's growing up way too fast.  He has one (almost 2) teeth.  He army crawls, pulls himself up on everything, and eats everything in sight.


But he's still my baby : )

Our half marathon

Honestly, it's kind of hard to put into words the feelings that came from this past Saturday's Monster Dash Half Marathon.  I thought I knew what it would be like, but I was so far off.

 

The Cathedral was gorgeous in the morning light.  We got there super early.  I was super anxious.  There were SO many people and the excitement was crazy!

We ran/ walked/ shuffled/ sweat/ and said we'd never do it again.

But at the finish...

We realized we had done just that:  finished a half marathon.  13.1 miles.
And crossing the finish line, seeing our family

 

 

It was SO emotional

 

 

Because this half wasn't just about us, it was the support of our families and friends.  It was our husbands watching our kids on all of our summer runs, it was our awesome moms on the run coaches and friends, it was our parents and siblings encouraging us *side note: after our first 5k, we called my mom and over speaker phone my mom exclaimed, "I am so proud of you girls, you ran SO FAST." even though we hadn't even told her our time yet* and the overwhelming amout of texts, calls, and facebook posts from friends.

 

 

And to my running partner-  Katie, I couldn't have done it without you and wouldn't want to have done it with anyone else.  13.1 and we have the stickers for our mini vans and skull jackets to prove it.  

 



what we shoot with and other wedding necessities

A few people have asked lately what lenses and other gear we shoot with for weddings and portrait shoots.  So, here it is!



If I was stranded on a desert island and could only pick one lens to have with me, this would be it-  a 50mm 1.4G.  Love it.

 

Another great prime lens is the 85mm 1.8G.  Super sharp

 

 

.

 

 

This 24-70mm 2.8 is amazing for family shots, ceremony photos and anything else where we might need a wider angle.

 

 

 The Nikon D700 will probably be remembered as one of the great loves of my life.  Seriously.  It's everything I want in a camera and I totally love it!

 

We also have a good variety of other equipment including a d90 we use as a backup camera, as well as flashes and other artificial light sources, zoom lenses, a lens baby and filters.  The above is just what we use every single time!

 

Jenny and I both have Kelly Moore camera bags, totally worth the investment because the are made really well! 

 

So that's it!  Nothing too out of the ordinary  : )

 

What else do we need on a wedding day??

 

Diet Coke, York peppermint patties, and *not pictured* cheddar chex mix and roast beef sandwiches.  Jenny loves the chex mix, and roast beef sandwiches were the only thing I could keep down when I was pregnant with Shout last summer so now they're just kind of a tradition!

 

And are you curious what songs get us PUMPED up to shoot a wedding?

"One Day More" from Les Mis and "This is How We Roll" by Florida Geogia Line.

 

I feel the same way about Luke Bryan's little verse as I do my Nikon d700....

 

 

 

 



a best friend and getting beat by a bird



You know how they say that you never really understand how great a period of your life is until after the fact?

I feel like the opposite is true when it comes to this past summer.  My friend Katie and I started running on Easter Sunday.  We did the couch to 5k program at first, the one that tells you when to walk and run in different intervals.

 

We spent the following months running together whenever we could, usually when kids were in bed at night, doing fun races, and having like, the best time ever.  It wasn't that we love running, it was just so fun to get out of the house, do something that made you feel better physically, and talk about EVERYTHING during all those miles

We talked about nutrition, ice cream, alcohol, vitamins, protein powder, and more ice cream...

We talked pregnancies, babies, kids, husbands, friends and families...

We talked about growing up, high school, college, marriage, and the future...

And Katie got scared of dogs.

We talked about so many things and I can't say enough how thankful I am for this past summer... I knew it was special then and am still so thankful for it now.

 

I don't mean to write this all in past tense, hopefully we can keep running together through the winter, but winter in MN can be pretty lame so we might have to move it indoors!  You'd think all this running would make me a total speedster, but....



Last weekend I ran a 5k by myself, which is weird because I always run with Katie (or Brent.)  I went to the race by myself (also weird) and was hanging out near the starting line waiting for the race to begin.  The 5k was held at a local college, and their mascot is a huge bird, maybe a falcon?  Anyway, the falcon mascot was taking some photos with people and I heard one guy ask the large bird if he planned to run the 5k in less than 20 minutes again (last year the guy in the bird suit ran without the bird suit, they mentioned).  I laughed and thought, "there's no way the person in a bird suit can run that fast.... if nothing else I can beat the bird!"

Nope.  See the bird?  Now see the person behind the bird in a pink top with blue shoes?  Me.

 

Maybe next year.

*not sure who to photo credit the bird photo to- it was just up on their website.

published!

Taking photos has led me to some led me to some interesting situations:  seeing babies be born, in a small airplane taking aerial photos, vow renewals, weddings, special events... and fitness photos.

My friend Carly has a sister Abby who has a friend Lindsey who is like, the most awesomely athletic person I've ever met.  About a year and a half ago Lindsey was going to be competing in her first competition and needed photos.  She asked me to do them.... and I wanted to say no.  It was out of my comfort zone; children or engaged couples are one thing, this was another.  But, I said yes- why not?  Turned out to be SO fun, and I did more photos about 5 months ago.

One of those photos is published in the November issue of Oxygen Magazine!  It's hard to see, but that's my name on the right side of the photo.  Obviously the photo is in the magazine because Lindsey is amazing, but still!  It's so fun to see a photo I took in a national magazine.

Thanks Carisa for letting me use your photo of the article!

 

 



So, try something new... you never know where it will take you.

small changes and free coffee

Yesterday at our moms group, Carisa Rasmussen (https://www.facebook.com/CleanAndLeanFit)
came to talk to us about her story with clean eating.  She's super sweet and somehow makes the task of getting processed food and junk out of your life not seem so daunting.  One of the things she touched on was the importance of non- GMO food.  This is something I didn't know a lot about, so last night I watched the documentary Genetic Roulette  http://geneticroulettemovie.com/

Um, holy smokes.  It's something I'm looking into more, but it totally freaked me out!!

So, we're going to start making small changes.  The first change up for today, looking into a different formula and food for this guy. 

 

 

Also, I'm going to start drinking more water.  Small, do-able changes.

Speaking of drinking, if you can correctly guess what Kira drew a picture of, I will buy you a coffee.  If you don't live near me, I'll mail you a gift card.  

Seriously.  And it's pumpkin spice latte season... so start guessing!

cookies

What a great day to bake cookies!  We bundled up and went over to the Miller's for a morning of Tinkerbell and cookie making.

If you're trying to eat low carb, or are following THM, these are delish! 
The recipe found on pinterest:
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/225954106279953198/


Here's how they turned out today...

I first tasted these when my friend Katie brought some over last week.  I loved them, so she gave me the recipe.  I made them over the weekend and they turned out like this:

 

 

Turns out that 1/2 tsp xantham gum is kind of important. 

Kira loves them and Shouty even had a taste!

So if you're looking to eat a cookie without refined sugar or white flour, try these out!

Being Conscious

It's been almost 2 years since I've written a blog.  I had another baby, started running, did a bunch of other fun stuff.

I'm not totally sure why I stopped writing a personal blog.  The photography industry is HUGE on having a professional blog to showcase your current work.  For some reason I have a hard time keeping up on 2 professional blogs, especially since I post a lot to facebook, and I think my personal blog fell by the wayside trying to keep up with everything I thought I had to do "professionally."

I still take a lot of pictures, but don't take a lot of my own children and family.  My New Years Resolution this year was to take more of my family, and I'm doing better than the year before, but still not great.

When I was blogging in the past, I made a conscious effort to take photos for my blog, and I'm so happy I have some of the photos that I do. 

http://unexpected-joys.blogspot.com/2012/05/10-minutes-with-kira-and-bella.html

Like these photos (my big girl is a BABY).  Not only do I love having the photos, I love having the memories written down.  I am terrible at baby books, don't even ask about Shout's, and if I look back over my blog posts, it's all there!  From baby showers, to times with my family, to recipes-  I just have to click.

So, here we go-  trying it again.