Maria for dinner.

she got the pan out and was playing with it the other day...

she's getting all goofy and smiley when i get the camera out now...

i love her little toothy, scrunched nose, crooked smile...

i think she is the most adorable baby ever...

i am the luckiest mom ever!!

Arches

Another side trip we took this summer was to Arches National Park. I love all the beautiful red rock they've got there...



Marco loved it too.... we tried to do a little off-roading, but we had a storage box on our hitch so we didn't go too far.



We did a little bit of hiking, but it get's tough hauling a one year old around.... Maria is getting so heavy!



During Maria's nap time Marco did a little solo hiking and went out to this arch:



I think it was the one that he wanted to see the most.

I liked playing "what do you see?" with the rocks. I know, normally it's played with clouds, but this one was just too good to pass up. What do you see here?



I see little fat ladies huddled up against the cliff.

It was a beautiful day there...



We'd like to go back and do some off-roading next time.... see more of the beautiful countryside.

Michael Jackson Remix Video

This is pretty sweet:

Michael Jackson remix @ Yahoo! Video

{Mr.S}

This weekend I had the privilege of shooting my SIL's little bro's senior pictures with my SIL... it was so much fun to work with them!!

Here are a few of my favorites from the shoot.

Photoshop Tutorial: Contrast

Most of the time, one of the first things I do when I open a picture in photoshop is play with curves. This morning my sister-in-law and I did a little photoshoot with her brother Scott.

Here is one of the images I got that's SOOC (straight-out-of-camera)



He's workin' on his pensive look there....

So first step is to open up the picture in photoshop.

Second, open cuves (pc: ctrl-m) or the long way is: Image --> Adjustments --> Curves.

A dialog box will then pop up with a graph in the middle. The graph has a diagonal line running from bottom left to top right.

Click your mouse in the very center of the grid. (128,128)

Then click your mouse halfway between the center of the grid and the bottom left. (64,64)

Then use your down arrow to lower the second click you just did. This will create an "s" curve, increasing your contrast; make your darks, darker, and your lights, lighter.

The only thing I did to this shot was increase the contrast.




It's a subtle change. I like how it get's rid of that cloudy feel. This also helps give black & white's more dimension.

Here's the before & after:

Gernam Chocolate Upside-down cake

1 german chocolate cake mix made up per box directions
1 c pecans
1 c coconut
8 oz cream cheese
1 c melted butter
2 c powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350. Grease and flour a 9x13 pan. Mix cream cheese, butter and powdered sugar together, set aside. Sprinkle pecans and coconut in greased 9x13 pan. pour cake mix over top. Spoon cream cheese mixture on top of batter leaving about 1" around the edges. Bake about 1 hour or until cake doesn't jiggle.

Melissa's Wedding

i LOVE this girl. seriously she's one of the funniest people i know.

she got in touch with me a while back telling me that she was going to get married (how stoked was i for her!!) and asked me to be a bridesmaid!! her wedding was so beautiful and her mom sure knows how to throw a party!!
here are the few pics that i took.... you can see more over on her blog here







the candy bar










this is one of mel's nieces... she didn't want to stand in line with everyone for pictures... she was so cute!! The little girls had the cutest little dresses... and the sisters had on these adorable pink frocks... it was great!!


here's my handsome hubby & beautiful baby!!


Here I am with Sydney, another of the bridesmaids.

Day at Yellowstone

While we were staying at my brothers place in Rexburg (during the end of July!!), we decided to take a day trip up to Yellowstone National Park. Marco has wanted to go to Yellowstone numerous times. On our many trips across country I'm amazed that we didn't make it there earlier.... but we didn't.

We entered the park at West Yellowstone and then drove the loop around to Old Faithful, Yellowstone Lake, the waterfalls, and then back over to West Yellowstone. There was a bunch of road construction, so that's all we had time for in one day.

Here are some of the hundreds of pictures that we took:

Do you like Maria's socks??



















One of the times that we were waiting we got Maria out of her car seat, and discovered that she'll keep her sunglasses on for just long enough for us to take a picture.