Talia and Brandon married at the Chicago Cultural Center on July 7th, and while I'm still working on finishing up the photos, here's a small taste of what's to come to hold you over.
Upcoming: Talia and Brandon
Life Lately
Food and fun that's happened lately...
Top to bottom, and left to right:
Flowers from our yard in a vase/Pizza on pita bread with homemade sauce,
pepperjack cheese and fresh basil/Homemade lemon curd
and almond flour/Open faced french onion grilled cheese/
Aria napping/Aria eating yogurt/
Aria eating broccoli/Aria eating a strawberry/
my new shoes
Lace
About 2 months ago I set off to the nature park near my house armed with my camera, tripod, stroller, and daughter; to take some self portraits. The real reason was because I had found this lace maxi dress at the Unique thrift store near my house and wanted to show my sister. But the photos turned into very nice portraits of myself and my daughter so I thought I'd show them off.
She always makes these crazy faces at the perfect times for photos.
April and Tim
Okay, I will say that I took these photos a little under a year ago. Last October to be exact, but I have nothing new to upload so this is what I have. I didn't have this blog when I did these photos so that is why they don't already exist on the blog.
This is my cousin April and her boyfriend Tim. She just wanted some portraits of the two of them and ended up using one as a Christmas card photo. At first they were both a little shy about showing affection in public, but being the sneaky person I am, I caught a few good shots of them.
At the time I was feeling very grateful for my long lens, it helped them relax because I was farther away and still get close up shots.
I prefer getting more candid, natural looking shots but I also took a couple more "posed" photos.
It was turning to evening as we were finishing up the photos and so I got several shots in the high grass with some lovely evening light.
And of course since we're in Chicago, and this park has a lovely hilltop, skyline view, we had to get a few of those shots in. And as luck would have it, the photos also got to feature Chicago's trademark wind.
Melissa
Melissa is the niece of a family friend. I first met her ten years ago when my family was still in Cambodia and she came over as an intern. I haven't seen her since then. Long time. And now it turns out she lives only a couple blocks away from me. How crazy is that?
She just needed some portraits done for work and resumes or for whenever she needs a nice photo of herself.
Mother's Day
Mother's Day is coming up. My second Mother's Day since Aria was born. Sadly I can't be with my mother on Mom's Day but I will see my mother-in-law. My mom will be visiting this summer. I'm so excited. My family currently lives over in Cambodia - where I lived for 7 years as well - and someone donated money so my mom could fly over to the States and visit us. Yay. It will still be a few months before she gets here, but it doesn't hurt to be excited.
from left to right: Grandma, Mom, Aria and myself - four generations, taken July 2011
Below is a preview of some photos I will be posting soon. Next post will have the full amount of portraits.
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Catch Up
So it's been a little while since I've updated a post on here. I would post more often but the only time I get on the computer is when Aria is asleep so I usually end up going online at night when she's down for the night. Unfortunately, I'm usually pretty tired at that point too so I've been going to bed early - or I had other stuff to do around the house. So this is me playing catch up.
I started this entry a couple weeks ago, and just never got around to posting it, so it is obviously way past Easter now. Things have happened since then. I got hooked on this show on the HGTV channel called "House Hunters" - which has inspired me to sketch quite a few of my own "dream house" floor plans. I made a new friend as well, I met her through my upstairs neighbor - and I was quite excited to learn that my new friend, Krista, has a son who is only a couple months older than Aria. Yay. AND she organizes a playgroup on thursday mornings - which is so great because I'd been looking for something like that for months and this one is a ten minute walk away.
I've also made lots of new foods in the time I've been away from the blog - so I shall proceed to bestow a food dump upon you.
Above: Bagel Pizzas - Below: Spicy Corn Chowder
Above: French Onion Soup Grilled Cheese - Below: Baked Potatoes and Eggs with Pesto
Above: Pasta Salad - Below: Pumpkin-Ginger Muffins
Berry-Coconut Macaroons
adapted from here.
I used a blender because I don't have a food processor and so I had to do each of the steps in several batches to make sure it was evenly blended.
Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
Ingredients
- 14oz. sweetened, flaked coconut
- 2/3 cup granulated sugar
- 3 large egg whites
- 1/4 tsp. salt
- 1/2 tsp. almond extract
- 1/2 pint, 6oz. or 1 1/4 cup of your choice of fresh berries, i.e. strawberries, blueberries, raspberries etc.
Instructions
- In a food processor or blender, blend the coconut for a minute.
- Add sugar and blend another minute. Add egg whites, salt and almond extract and blend another minute more.
- Add berries and pulse machine until mostly blended. Some parts should still be completely white, resist the urge to mix it all together. It makes for pretty marbled cookies this way.
- With a tablespoon measure, scoop batter into 1-inch mounds on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet.
- Bake cookies for 25-30 minutes, until they look a little toasted on top. Let rest for 10 minutes on the tray, then transfer to a cooking rack.
Enjoy.
