Weekend wrap up : Some times call for special socks...

Happy Monday!

Stone and I had a pretty great weekend starting with a rainy Saturday morning... but, who does not love a good rainy morning on a weekend? The weather turned around quickly and we headed to Olivenhain to shoot engagement photos, which are always my fav! After that we hosted our very first gathering at our house. Yup, even though there are still unopened boxes, walls that have not been painted, and shelves that have yet to be decorated, we still did it. I'm surprised too because Stone and I are both kind of crazy about having things perfect in our home when we have guests over, so this was truly a stretch for the both of us. But, I think we got enough wine in everyone to forget about the piles of random crap that needs to be put away :) and we spent the night playing games and laughing, which is always the best. Stone even whipped out his part socks for the christening of our home with good friends.

Now it is Monday and I need to focus on putting away those boxes... Ooofta.

Weekend wrap up.

Early Saturday morning I flew to Dallas to celebrate our little guy with friends and family! We had a shower and he got a lot of great things that I just cannot wait to see him play with, or wear, or use! Whoever thought I would get so excited about baby things? Surely not me...

Anyway, the most fun part about the weekend was spending time with the cutest babies in the world (I may be biased...), my little niece and nephew (Ruthie and Liam) and their mom, my sister, Lindsay. We ran errands like crazy on Sunday and you would think with two 3 and a half month olds it would be next to impossible to get anything done, but we both strapped those babies on and took them all over the place. They were champs! Even at dinner with my dad at one of our favorite mexican food places, Mi Cocina, they endured not one, but two shockingly loud 'Happy Birthday' songs to the tables on either side of us complete with about 10 waiters and clapping, a nightmare for any mother with sleeping babies at a restaurant, but again, they made it through without tears!

I only pray our baby boy will be as good...

Weekend wrap up.

Stone and I spent the weekend shooting a wedding, doing house work, going to the farmer's market and hanging with friends. I feel like our weekends are going to start sounding quite repetitive now that wedding season is full speed ahead! We shot a wedding that was planned by the super talented girls at Before I Do Events and the venue, Darlington House, was absolutely incredible!

Sunday we woke up and decided to have a relaxing afternoon at the Farmer's Market stopping at a few furniture shops along the way. We had not been to the market in a while and indulged ourselves in a lot of yummy foods! Lastly we braved the pouring rain last night and met friends at one of my favorite spots for dinner. All in all it was a happy weekend and I cannot wait to show you photos from the wedding.

By the way... does husband kind of resemble a blonde version of Chris Gaines (aka Garth Brooks) in the color photos above. And, while I am at it, Garth really made a huge mistake trying to change his image by creating his alter ego Chris Gaines... I mean really?

Welcome to the week. xo.

Weekend wrap up.

I know I look pretty serious in this photo, in all honesty I was just staring into the restaurant window hoping that any second they would arrive with my burger. Ha. This was taken in San Clemente with some of our friends, Troy and Aimee, at the Rider's Club. One of the best burgers I have had, ever. For real. If you ever find yourself in the area you must stop by and try it out.

How was your weekend? We seemed to get a lot done this weekend actually... husband painted our nursery (kind of the color that is bordering the photo above), we shot a wedding in Fallbrook, had sushi with friends, started our taxes (blah), and continued unpacking. I feel like that process is never going to end, I will start in the kitchen, then it turns out I need new drawer liners... run to Home Depot. Then, I will move on to our closet, well it turns out we need more shelving and storage... run to Home Depot. You get the drift. Lots of trips to Home Depot.

Anyway, welcome to Monday! Let's hope for a productive week! xo.

Week wrap up : The BIG move.

Well it is officially official. Stone and I are homeowners. HOMEOWNERS! That is absolutely thrilling and terrifying in the same breath. So much has been happening since the last time we spoke... we moved out of our beach bungalow (by the way, packing and moving when you are 6 months pregnant is not recommended) thankfully with the help of some great friends (thank you Chris, Keiran, and Jenni!), we closed on our home, moved all of our belongings into the garage of our new home, began the process of refinishing the wood floors throughout the house, had new appliances delivered and subsequently scheduled to be picked back up because it is inoperable (bummer), and have been living/working out of our kitchen. Ha! It has been a whirlwind, but so exciting. Stone and I cannot wait to begin putting our things into this house and making it home. And, of course, we will be posting pictures of all of our home decorating, renovations, disasters, and the like so you can see too! xoxo.

Weekend wrap up : Palm Springs polaroids.

Stone and I headed to Palm Springs this past weekend to shoot a wedding and get our very first desert experience! Hot, windy, and totally awesome!

Have you ever been to Palm Springs. It is almost like you stepped back in time... Brady Bunch era. We even shot the wedding at Sonny and Cher's old love shack (it was far from a shack, more like an incredible desert bungalow)! My favorite part about our trip had to have been the breakfast we had at Cheeky's, I highly recommend it and you must try their homemade cinnamon rolls... our only disappointment was not grabbing a few more for our drive home! Plus they have gourmet, organic, local bacon... Needless to say, baby boy has been eating well ;)

xo.

Weekend wrap up : Sweet tooth.

Hello there.

Sorry I have not been around much lately... between traveling to Colorado to see our new little niece, purchasing our very first home, hosting guests, growing a baby boy, oh and work there has been little to no time for me to blog! Whew. All really amazing and fun things that we have going on right now, just a lot. I do have to tell you that lately I have seen my very first craving appear in the worst possible form... sweets! It is all I want. I told Stone last night I could replace every meal with a bowl of ice cream and be perfectly happy. The only thing stopping me is that my baby might come out twitching from some crazy sugar high and I may start gaining crazy amounts of weight on top of the bowling ball that is now my stomach. Either way, I cannot avoid satisfying my craving, but I am trying to keep it to a minimum. This morning I had a deliciously sweet puff pancake! I saw the recipe here and had to try it out. It did not disappoint! Delish.

Hope you are having a wonderful Tuesday, I am back to the blog world and it feels good!

By the way, know of any healthy alternatives to ice cream? I know that sounds crazy, but I have an ice cream maker and have seen recipes for 'healthy ice cream'... worth a shot, right?

xo.

Weekend wrap up.

I will let the iPhone do most of the talking for this post... and if you want to know the real truth, there were probably 4 other photos of sweets from this weekend that I am keeping hidden from you! My sweet tooth has come out in full force lately and there is nothing stopping it. Yikes!

Hope you had a wonderful weekend, welcome to the week... it's going to be a good one! xo.

Weekend wrap up.

Our weekend consisted of soaking up the sun on the beach, going on walks, eating sandwiches from Whole Foods (we went twice), and getting fro-yo (I am too embarrassed to tell you how many times we went)! Pretty easy and relaxing! I have to say my appetite is pretty ferocious these days and all a pregnant woman can do is satiate it as healthily as possible... clearly why I am choosing fro-yo over ice cream, right?

Welcome to Monday, the sun is shining and I think it's going to be a fabulous week! xo.

Weekend wrap up : Let the Christmas fun begin!

It officially took me 3 hours to sort through all of my email from the four day vacation... yikes! I know that I work from my home, so perhaps I have no excuse to not be answering emails over Thanksgiving, but I figure if people with office jobs get to have a holiday then I am going to give myself one too. This does not really bode well with my boss (husband), but to me holidays are meant for sleeping in, shopping, going out with friends and family, and doing anything but work. So that's what I did and I suppose today I paid the price. I have not moved from the computer all morning. Oofta!

Oh well, I now have a clean inbox and am all rested for the week ahead! How was your Thanksgiving holiday? Mine was pretty great, some of the highlights were :

- Making Thanksgiving dinner with Lacey, our dishes included stuffed mushrooms, two pies, roasted veggies, corn casserole, and chocolate bark! Yowza.

- Having a Thanksgiving slumber party with our friends, The Dodds :)

- Shopping for the first time ever on Black Friday... like hard core, a couple of friends and I woke up when it was still dark outside and waited in line to reap the benefits of Anthropologie's 50% off sale. It was pretty great!

- Watching not one, not two, but three Christmas movies! (Elf, Santa Clause 2 and Polar Express)

- Laying in bed and reading.

- Meeting up with friends for dinner and camp fire at San Elijo campgrounds!

- Getting our gifts ready to bring to church for Operation Christmas Child!

- Going hunting in the tide pools near our house and actually finding a huge star fish! I wanted to bring it home, but husband told me it was illegal. Dang.

- Getting our Christmas cards designed and ordered... feels good to get that done!

Hope you had a wonderful weekend! Christmas is in full swing and I could not be more excited. xo.

Weekend wrap up : "There is always money in the banana stand."

Hello all. Stone and I had a busy and long weekend filled with good friends, good food, and a great engagement shoot. Nothing to complain about here :) Yesterday (I know it was a Monday, but it felt like a weekend to me because we were away shooting all day) we headed to Newport Beach to shoot the most darling (seriously) couple ever. Stone and I got there a bit early and I immediately fell in love with this charming little town. So quaint. It also has an abundance of ice cream shoppes, candy stores, and banana stands. Yup, banana stands. We had to try it out, the bananas were great and the stands had us quoting Arrested Development for a good hour after. If you are unfamiliar with what I am talking about watch this short clip and get caught up! We then headed over to Balboa Island with our clients and had one of our favorite engagement shoots to date. This is from a combination of great weather, beautiful location, and the fact that we just truly loved spending time with this couple. We even grabbed dinner after at a delicious little italian spot Mama Ds... if you are ever in the area I highly recommend. Other highlights of my weekend included dinner with great friends (we always love hanging with the Carter's and Dodd's!) at BO+Beau (now on our list of fav restaurants) and getting my nails done with my friend Jenni! Have you ever gotten a Shellac manicure... I don't think I will ever wear plain old polish again, it is that good.

Happy short week you guys! Something I am thankful for this Tuesday is being able to work with my sweet husband doing something we love! xo.

Weekend wrap up : Much needed family time.

Sorry I have gone silent these past few days. We had family in town and yesterday was spent doing loads of laundry and answering loads of emails. I hate that this weekend has already past. Stone and I have had these dates on the calendar since early last summer and have been so looking forward to it. His sister Kelsey and her husband Ryan (also known as Buck) and Stone's brother Brady and his fiance Stephanie all came in for a weekend filled with family time and unfortunately cold gloomy weather. C'mon California! Every time we have visitors you bring out the clouds... whats up with that? We are trying to convince our fam to move out here and nice beautiful sunny California weather would definitely give us an advantage! Oh well.

We did take the fam to Julian, CA to pick apples, pears and indulge in some delicious BBQ. Stone and I are always in awe of how we can drive an hour from where we live and be in a totally different climate. It is so fun. I have yet to make anything with all of the apples we brought home, but hopefully this week I can create an apple crisp of some sort. Yummmm!

I think the highlight of the week, however, was our last night bonfire on the beach with friends. This was our first time doing this and it was so fun that it makes me wonder why we waited so long! We had s'mores, told stories, and laughed... a lot! Definitely a memory I will tuck away.

Hope you are enjoying your week, I am happy to be back :) xo.

Weekend wrap up : Shooting and resting.

Our weekend was wonderful!

Stone and I have been putting the finishing touches on our home and I am happy to announce that I am working from my new desk. No, not the kitchen table anymore, a real desk with a real desk chair! Eeeeeeeeee! We had a couple of shoots this past weekend one located in the middle of the ocean and the other in a grapefruit grove. Win and win. They were awesome! Our car also decided to play tricks on us on our drive back home from our shoot in Temecula and did not go into park... but then told us it was kidding and went into park once we got back to Encinitas. That jokester. It was not funny to us, but it did give Stone a reason to find other uses for my yoga mat...

We also enjoyed a few dinners with friends, which is my favorite thing ever. One recipe that my friend Lacey made for us I will be sharing later on this week because it was perfection on a plate. For real.

Sorry I am a day late posting, but we got a bunch of prints in the mail yesterday and got busy framing and hanging around our house, so I was much too distracted! We will hopefully get some pics of our new place on here soon :)

xo.

Weekend wrap up : Movin' on up.

Oh man, where do I even begin? We spent the last weekend, along with the help of our generous friends, moving furniture, boxes, and clothing from our old home into our new home. You would think that moving out of a 580 square foot place would not take too much time or energy. But, you would be wrong. How do we accumulate all of this stuff, I am not quite sure. What I am very sure of though is that our next move will be permanent :)

I think what really affected us the most this weekend was the task of painting the walls of our new (very old) home. It was a lovely shade of yellow, green, and purple before we got our hands on it. Now it is a fresh mint green and grey. I love it. And just like I predicted, we feel like we moved into a mansion. Stone and I keep laughing at the fact that we sometimes will try and say something to the other and don't know what room to find each other in! It is awesome.

Speaking of awesome things. Ikea. We have been building things from Ikea this weekend like crazy and I have to say I am pretty impressed with their instructions, it means four girls can piece together a sleeper sofa in one hour flat. Sounds like a riddle :)

Hope you had a wonderful weekend and HAPPY OCTOBER! xo.

Weekend wrap up : The land of beauty.

This wedding season Stone and I have traveled to well over half of our weddings. It is a strange feeling for us to go to a wedding without having met the bride and groom before. Of course there is the phone calls and on occasion we video chat with clients, but really we barely know them and we are about to be the two faces that they see the most throughout their wedding day. Weird, right? Well, this was one of those weddings. All we knew was that we were shooting a wedding in Nevada City, CA and we needed to be there at 10 in the morning. So that is what we did. We showed up at the grooms' childhood home and were absolutely blown away with all of the incredible thought and detail that was put into transforming this backyard. I seriously cannot wait for you to see photos of this place and the awesome couple (I secretly, but not so secretly, want to be best friends with them).

On another note, I have never been to Sacramento and had no idea how beautiful it is. I kept having to remind myself we were not in Colorado because it is very similar. Stone and I had our first B&B experience... I have to admit that I was a little nervous. The photos of this place involved a lot of porcelain dolls and frilly old bedspreads, but we were down to try it out and we loved it. It felt like we were staying at our grandparents house complete with a hot homemade breakfast. If you have never stayed at one I highly recommend it!

... Oh ya, then we drove the 9 hours back home. Husband is a trooper :)

Weekend wrap up : People watching.

This weekend my mom (Becky) and sister (Lindsay) came to visit! I knew I had to convince them to make it out to the west coast before the babies were born or else it was likely that it would not happen for a while. So, they flew in on Thursday and we spent the long weekend hanging on the beach, cooking, showing them our favorite spots in Encinitas, talking about life with the babies (less than 3 months away!) and taking long walks. It seems that Encinitas likes to play tricks on us because Stone and I are always raving about the incredible weather, but then every time we have visitors it is gloomy as all get out. So our day on the beach did little in the way of bronzing us, but it was still warm and fun people watching. Does that sound creepy? I love to people watch and usually I try and figure them out, I can write a whole story about a person just by watching them. Not that it would actually be accurate, but interesting none the less. I wonder what people watchers come up with when they see Stone and I?

Either way it was a lovely weekend ending on a great note with a delicious dinner at our good friends' The Carters house! Can't beat that.

Welcome back to work. xo.

Weekend wrap up : 'You is kind, you is smart, you is important.'

Hello all!

I am a little late on blogging today, mostly because I avoided my inbox all weekend and had to play major catch up all morning/afternoon. Truly, it is 4 and I JUST finished writing back all of the emails. Craziness!

How was your weekend? Stone and I had the first weekend in months without a wedding. As much as we love our job and shooting weddings, it was pretty great to have a small break from it all. We took full advantage of it too! We had dinner/game night with friends and ate delicious burgers + drinks at one of our favorite restaurants Starlite, we found a house to rent when our lease is up in October (yup, that's right, a HOUSE! we are going crazy with all of the possibilities...), and we went to see The Help at a swanky new theater in town. Have you ever been to these new deluxe theaters. They are more expensive, but have the most comfortable reclining seats and a waiter that brings things like lattes and gourmet popcorn to you while you are watching! Not something we will do often, but definitely a treat!

I loved the movie, by the way. Obviously not as much as the book, but still Emma Stone is the perfect Skeeter... exactly how I imagined her to be.

So on to another week, I have a 'To Do' list about a mile long... things are not looking good if my emails took me more than half the day, hopefully I can pick up the pace!

xo.

Weekend wrap up : Hanging with the Swedes!

I am not a lover of doughnuts. Well, homemade doughnuts are another story. My dad used to make the best homemade doughnuts covered in cinnamon sugar, but for some reason every time I have tried to make them I have failed miserably. Yesterday I woke up with hankering for a rainbow sprinkles doughnut... so random. But, it was all I could think of and husband was laying next to me sleeping soundly and I could not wait! So I "accidentally" kicked him and he woke up! It worked. 5 minutes later we had gathered as much change as we could find around the house (this is a CASH ONLY type place, and unfortunately we never have cash) and headed to Leucadia doughnut shop. There they were, perfectly sprinkled and ready for me to take! We came home ate doughnuts, made eggs, and had coffee. Then we watched Friday Night Lights for at least 2 hours. The best.

By the way, have you watched that show? Stone and I are almost finished with the last season and it is well worth the many hours we have spent watching it. I mean who does not love a show about Texas football?! Anyway, you should check it out.

I have to tell you about the wedding we shot on Saturday! When the groom walked out in his tan linen suit, in which he had hemmed the pants into shorts, we knew this was going to be an awesome wedding. I did not know this before, but I am into suits with shorts... definitely. Pierre (the groom) was born and raised in Sweden and moved to New York 2 years ago where he met his beautiful new wife Cleshawn. We loved this couple from the start and felt so honored to be a part of the marriage of their two very different worlds. The Swedes came to LA for the wedding and could not have been a more friendly and beautiful family. They also brought traditional Swedish candy, which made us like them even more :) Best thing about this wedding? It turned into a pool party after dinner and the bride and groom did the inaugural plunge dressed in their wedding attire! So fun.

We ended the weekend at our friends Sean and Brianne's house. They made an incredible salmon and we spent the night laughing and chatting... don't you love having friends like that? We feel very fortunate to know them, you should check out their blog here!

Happy Monday. xo.

Weekend wrap up : Happy Fourth!

Hope you all had a wonderful long weekend!

Stone and I had a blast this weekend celebrating Independence Day... probably my favorite Fourth yet! We woke up and enjoyed our sweet neighborhood parade, rode to the beach to have tacos and hang with friends for the day, and then headed over to our friends' house for BBQ and fireworks! Just perfect.

xo.

Week wrap up : Girl time!

My sister-in-law Kels has been in town for the past few days, which is why I have been a bit missing in the blog world. I thought I would catch you up on some of our happenings. We have had such an incredible time including, but not limited to, the beach, paddle boarding, craft night (I did not know I was capable of making such incredible necklaces... more on that to come!), making homemade mango salsa, the spa, seeing Bridesmaids (round 2), and pool time! Can't get better than that can it?

xo.