Monday, October 31, 2011

boo!

Happy Halloween!  Hope you are having a spooktacular day. :)

This weekend I took some pictures of little miss Lexi in her costume – she made a darling little farmer, I must say. 

Here are a couple sneak peeks…

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Stay tuned for the rest…

and you may have noticed…I updated my little signature stamp…thought it was time for a new look :) let me know what you think!

Thursday, October 27, 2011

some family photos

so I went out on a limb this year, and decided to attempt to get some “family photos” of us…….myself.  You know, like a self-family-portrait (or something like that).

I wasn’t sure how it would go…but it seemed like a fun idea, so why not!  The husband was oh so excited.

I am actually pretty impressed with how they came out.  It only took 2 afternoons, a tripod, and a lot of running back and forth while trying not to look like I just ran back and forth (don’t have a remote for the camera just yet…) Although there were several poses that would have come out really awesome, but instead came out as a beautifully focused tree with two blurry people in front of them, I did manage to get a few good ones (you know, where we were actually in focus).  We even threw Daisy in for a couple of them!

I’m only showing you a few for now…I do have to save something for the holiday card you know. :)

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I also ended up with some pretty stinkin’ cute shots of Matt and Daisy, which came out of the bazillion “setup” shots I took (while attempting to get the camera positioned, the settings changed, the timer set…)

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These two do make a pretty cute couple………

I’ll post all the pictures from this “session” one of these days…if I don’t forget. :)

Thursday, October 13, 2011

woof

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A few weeks ago, I organized a bake sale at work which benefitted a great charity, Wayside Waifs.  If you haven’t heard of Wayside (you probably live under a rock.  or you just aren’t from Kansas City), they are a wonderful animal rescue group.  And who doesn’t love animal rescue groups.

Anyway, I decided I would also contribute to the bake sale, so I whipped up some sugar cookies with paw prints on them (cute, right?).

I know I’ve posted about my attempts at baking before, and shared the recipes before, but I’m sharing again.  Because I can.  I am slowly mastering the art of this baking thing…although it is still quite an ordeal.  I end up spending more than a couple hours on it each time.  But it’s actually pretty calming to me, and, well, the end result is delicious!

I started with this sugar cookie recipe.  The dough is amazing.  Not that I would eat it or anything.  But it’s delicious.

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This is the recipe I use for my Royal Icing (and here is a little “how-to” that I use as well). 

From there, I just let the creative juices flow.  This time it came out in the form of paw prints, just perfect for a bake sale benefitting an animal shelter.

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I think this batch turned out pretty well – every last one of them sold at the bake sale, and I didn’t hear any complaints. :)

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Thursday, October 6, 2011

football and a flyover


A few weekends ago, we rang in the official start of fall with the first Chiefs game (ok, it wasn't technically the first game, but it was the home opener.)

That day was also the 10th anniversary of a day most of us will never forget. 


It's one of those days where everyone remembers where they were, what they were doing, who they were talking to...every detail about when they heard of the terrorist attacks.  I know I remember it like it was yesterday. 

You see a lot of different ways to memorialize and pay tribute to all those who lost their lives that day - of course the NFL and the Chiefs were no different, so we got to see some pretty neat things at this game.

But lets start at the beginining.  As always, the day starts with some good old fashioned tailgating.

Look!  That's me!  I have been told that my face doesn't show up enough around here...

Well you know it's a little tricky when I am the one behind the camera most of the time, but I'm working on making an effort to hand the camera over every now and then. 

(Just ignore the fact that I look like I just rolled out of bed and am still half asleep.  That's because I did, and I was.  It was a Sunday afterall.)

See, I did it again. :)

Once we had consumed enough free beer good tailgaiting food, we made our way inside.



The first cool thing we saw was the unveiling of this larger-than-life American Flag.  I'm not kidding when I say larger than life.  The thing covered the entire football field!  And if I remember correctly, everyone holding the flag were first responders on the day of the attacks.

Since it's hard to capture this type of thing in photos, I attempted to animate it to give you a better idea of what it was like to see it unfold.  Pretty cool.  (if the image below isn't moving, click on it to see the animation)


After the unveiling of the awesome flag, a moment of silence, and the national anthem (sung by our hometown American Idol David Cook...) we were also treated to a flyover.

And who doesn't love a flyover.  I get goosebumps every time.


Then the game finally started...
...and, I promptly stopped taking pictures.  The Touchtown photo above, was pretty much the one and only good moment by the Chiefs the entire game.  It was quite sad really how badly the Bills stomped on us. 

And the 2 games after that were no better. 

But this past weekend we finally brought home a win! 

I guess we're just getting off to a slow start this season...or something.