This year, we took our photos on Thanksgiving Day.  My sister in law, Jennifer, took this photo.  She did such a good job, right!?  I admit to being a little crazy about having a nice picture to send out.  I mean a photographer has to represent, right?  My kids are cute on their own, but getting everyone looking decent at the same time a little more challenging.  So, Jennifer walked with us down to the pier on Long Beach (I love under pier lighting!) and snapped away.  I didn’t even have to swap a head!  We all looked and smiled.  Extra piece of apple pie for everyone!

This was the actual photo that we chose for the card.  It was really hard to decide between this one and the top, but ultimately this one won out.  So nice when you have choices.  Thank you Jennifer!

Every time I have to be in front of the camera, I am reminded why I like to be behind it!  I don’t know what I look like.  I’m asking, where should this arm go?  Are the kids smiling?  Ahhhh!

On another note…what you guys making for Christmas dinner?   Here’s my plan…Barefoot Contessa’s Pan Fried Onion Dip.  I talk about it here and share the recipe.  It’s, I’m not kidding you, SOOO good.  I love to serve it in the afternoon when people are hungry and dinner won’t be ready for a few more hours.  This year, I got thick ridged fancy potato chips and I’ll cut up some broccoli, carrots and snap peas.

Prime Rib is where it’s at for the dinner hour.  I had the butcher season the roast with a rub, so all I have to do is throw it in the oven.  I’ll make a horseradish cream sauce.  Also from Barefoot Contessa.  Mashed Potatoes only make sesnse.  Jake, my 12 year old, can peel the whole bag for me now.  Put those kids to work!

I’m also making Sagaponack Corn Pudding.  It’ll be my first time making it, so I’ll let you know how it turns out.  Looking at the list of ingredients, I can’t go wrong!

Roasted vegetables (brussel sprouts and carrots) will make us feel a little less indulgent and we’ll finish the meal off with my mother in law’s famous apple pie and ice cream.

And after that we’ll go back to our healthy eating ways…yay for New Year’s resolutions!

Hey friends!  I hope you all had a Happy Halloween!  We had fun dressing up and going to parties, trick-or-treating and the rest.  I meant to post this yesterday, but I didn’t get around to taking pictures until the evening and by the time we got home, I was just too tired to do anything but sit on the couch!

Can we talk about carving pumpkins first?  It’s been so stinkin’ hot here lately that if you carve a pumpkin too early and it sits in 90 degree weather for a few days, the trick-or-treaters are greeted with rotten pumpkins.  So, Monday night we rushed through homework and dinner to fill our table with pumpkin guts.  It looked so easy, but really, do we want our kids hacking away with a knife?  Isn’t this really for the adults?  Brent and I high-fived each other for doing a great job carving up the kids’ favorite designs.

Also, I love these little Cinderella pumpkins you can buy at Trader Joe’s now.  I put them on top of the antique spools I just bought at the flea market.  Simple table decoration!

We hosted a Halloween party last weekend.  It was in the middle of a busy work schedule for both of us, so we whipped together a costume.  It was inspired by the awkwardly awesome school photo costume I saw on Cup of Jo.  We both raided Jake’s closet for my clothes, Brent’s tie and his head gear…ewww!  Also, thumbs up for posting stupid pictures of yourself and thumbs down for the bad quality of the iphone photo taken at night.

The kids on the other hand had awesome costumes!  Jillian was a peacock.  I made her costume from some of the cool stuff I bought at Michael Levine in downtown LA.  My mother in law, Kathy, came over to help with last minute costume assembly too!

Cooper’s costume was thrown together in about 30 minutes a few weeks ago when he told me the party he was going to that night was dress up.  A quick trip to Joann’s and a handful of sticks later, we were in business!

I ran out of steam by the time it came to Jake’s costume and our friend Marcus, who’s a way better seamstress than me, offered to make it.  Jake takes guitar lessons and is super into his electric guitar.  Most of the lyrics of popular songs he wants to play are questionable at best, so Brent introduced him to Stryper.  Marcus did a bang-up job with Jake’s costume and his was the hit of the night!

My camera is an extension of me.  If I’m nervous before a photo session, everything disappears once I get the camera in my hand.  It’s what I was made to do.  And I didn’t start my life knowing that.  But once I discovered it, I knew I’d never walk away.  This may not always be my job, but I will always love photography.

What’s your medium?  I think we all have a bit of artist in us.  It’s that creative expression that makes all the stress go away for a bit.  It mutes the noise of life.  Do you remember that season of American Idol where the guy had Tourette’s syndrome and when he sang the stuttering stopped?  All the symptoms went away.  Singing was his medium.

But, I’ve seen people that crunch numbers like an artist.  My accountant explains things to me that normally makes my mind spin.  My web guy makes something beautiful out of all my scribbled notes.  I’m inspired by people that do their job like an artist.  And they live their life like an artist.

So, what’s your medium?  Go inspire someone today.  Be an artist!