We weren’t like fish :)

IMG_2696While traveling through NC… one of the stops we decided to make was to visit with my dear friend Shannon. Shannon and I met only about a year 1/2 ago at a home school field trip… and instantly clicked. It was one of those friendships that took just a few visits with each other, to know we’d grow close.

Who knew at that time, that I would have to leave one of the best friends I had ever made, to move 8 1/2 hrs from her to another state… after just meeting her.

The Lord has such a perfect plan though and even though we are hours away now, we still have remained very close.

We stayed with Shannon From Jan 1st – 5th. We had planned on leaving earlier but honestly had such a good time we didn’t want to go. Travis joked with her saying that visitors are usually like fish and after the 3rd day begin to stink :) – which usually means its time to go. Well apparently we weren’t like fish because we were practically begged to stay, hahaha.. Kidding! No we really loved our visit and our kids did not want to leave.

The house was filled with 7 children under the age of 8… and not once did I feel it was out of control. Our kids got along so well…

Such a blessing!

So Thank you Shannon and Stevie for your hospitality… we loved every minute! We look forward to future visits with each other :)

Here are a few memories from our visit…

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Our boys were introduced to the Wii… let me just say, they got addicted FAST!

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Taite and Shannon’s oldest girl were bff’s from the start. I think they secretly want to marry one another :)

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Owen wants to marry the youngest ;-)

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The innocent nap :) – this did not last long until we had to separate them, just for those concerned :-\

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I also had the brilliant idea to get the Wii game “Just Dance 3″ :) – so funny!!

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Laurie and I facing off. I can’t remember who won ;-)

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Shannon’s husband, WAS THE MASTER OF JUST DANCE!
Which is funny, since he protested playing at 1st.

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Laurie, I love your expressions. They can fix any bad day :)

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Even the kids got into it :)

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This shot was one of the last I got… of Caleb and Shannons youngest son.
You would of thought they were brothers the way they were sitting together.
Totally zoned into the DS games. :)

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Can you tell we had a great time? :)

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We miss yall!

Boba Behind the Scenes

As you all know I work for Boba photographing their incredible line of baby carriers.

The session from thursday was so much fun & my friend who tagged along snagged some great behind the scene photos. I thought they were really neat to see, so here goes…

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Thanks Coleen! I loved having you there. Hope to do it again :)
See some of the resulting shots on my photo blog HERE.

Boot Twins

Today was one of those days that was very busy but in a good way.
From 9:30 – 3:30 I was out working.
Which feels totally weird… since I

I took on another job with Boba, photographing more of their line and some new super top secret coolness ;-) – and today I had a few sessions for them.

A new friend of mine Coleen (who is also an awesome photographer) came with me to lend a hand… and I had just a great time with her.

IMG_2952It was so funny though… when we got to the location… and saw each other… she looked at my boots and said “Did you get those from Rue?” – and sure enough, her and I both had the same boots on! Just different colors. Then we noticed we both had the exact same leg warmers on from Target. How weird is that? Had I worn my purple shirt we would of been twins.

I had intentions of posting a sneak peek blog post from todays sessions, however… I feel majorly whooped :) – so its off to bed.

Thank you to all the models and Coleen!

Oh…

and heres 1 ;-) – just to tease.

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Note: My husband is amazing. The entire day while I was away he was home, home schooling the boys, changing cloth diapers, washing dishes, feeding the kids lunch, grocery shopping and then when I got home, he even took care of dinner. I am royally spoiled by a great man!

Whole Grain Buttermilk Waffles

One thing we have committed too this year is to eat all whole grain. Although this started months before the new year – it sort of is our new years resolution ;-) – to stick with it! It wont be hard, since well… we love it!

Best decision ever.

Worth every investment we have made in order to make it happen.

That being said…

I have a new favorite recipe!
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Whole Grain Buttermilk Waffles…

Oh… we loved them.

I follow this blog called Inspired by Charm. This guy runs a bed & breakfast and has some great recipes go up from time to time… worth checking out :) – he put up this week his go to waffle recipe & so I had to try it. After all, if he feeds it to his clients, it must be awesome!

I did however tweak his recipe some, in order to accommodate our whole grains and different source of sugar. So heres what I did…

Ingredients:

1 cup fresh milled hard white wheat
1/4 cup honey granules
(otherwise known as sucanat w/ honey – if you did not have this option,
you could use pure sucanat or regular white sugar)

1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp raw salt
1 tbs melted butter
1 egg
1/4 tsp pure vanilla
(I used my friend Nicholes vanilla)
3/4 cup butter milk

optional ingredients: You can throw in some semi-sweet chocolate morsels, blue berries or other fruit into your mix if you’d like. I made a few of the waffles with chocolate to treat my boys, 4 morsels per waffle did the trick just fine :)

Directions:

Mix all your dry ingredients together.

In separate bowl mix melted butter, egg, vanilla and buttermilk.

Once mixed, pour that mixture into your dry mixture.

Stir well until thick and smooth.

I liked my batter really thick… sometimes letting it sit for a few minutes helps you get better results, so don’t rush pouring the batter.

Also this recipe only makes a handful of waffles. So for us, since we are a family of 5, I doubled it. We only had 1 waffle left. Next time we make this, I will triple it :)

These cook very fast on my waffle maker too. So keep an eye out while you cook yours too.

Enjoy!

(Note: If you don’t have whole grain, you can still use white flour for this recipe)

Angry Birding Him

Since we love Angry Birds (guilty!!) – we had to teach Travis’ dad how to play.


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& he actually did pretty good :)

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