Graham Newborn

It is SUCH a small world we live in!  When I was sent a facebook message asking if I could take photograph someone's soon-to-be-born son, I was thrilled.  When I found out that this someone was actually a fellow member of the missions trip I went on back in 1999 I was shocked!  Finding out that it was Lindsay was such a thrill!  So after meeting with her for a catch up dinner and talking all things baby, walking with Lindsay to get the little guy moving, and praying, praying praying...he FINALLY arrived!  Welcome to the world Mr. Joel Graham!

 By far, the most adorable model for my new "Frank Sinatra" hat

 Sweetest sleepy owl

Big brother stole the show sporting his best cowboy stances!

Mom and dad read lots so it only made sense to make a Dr. Seuss-themed photo prop.  Such blessed to have sweet little Thing 1's and 2's.

I don't say this enough...

I LOVE MY JOB!

Fergie Fun

I had the wonderful opportunity to photograph the beautiful and famous Ferguson family a few weeks ago.  J and I first met the Fergusons in a small group that was meeting from our church while we were dating/on the brink of being engaged.  Jonah was sharing some stories of premarital counseling and Andrea was so warm and quick to make us laugh while being pregnant with baby #5.  They have a wonderfully blessed family in large supply (did I mention that they are expecting #7?)  And the love that they share is so clearly evident that you can't help but want to hang out with them all the time in order to witness their love and be a part of it.  You'll see what I mean by the pictures.  


This shoot was so much fun and I literally walked away with my smile muscles absolutely exhausted.  I have not once failed to laugh when editing some of these pictures because of the great stories behind them....oh Jonah you kill me!  




See what I mean? Smokin!

*funny story behind this next picture. I had asked Andrea to close her eyes and relax and even hum "mmm" for me.  Well little Ms. S was in the room with us and goes, "yeah mommy, like you're really hungry!" hehe

Oh baby #7, you have no choice but to be beautiful, just look at the rest of your family!

Little Ms. S

Their love for each other is beautiful.  

 I can hear Andrea laughing at Jonah's middle-school dance rendition here. 

This picture is such a great example of the Lord's craftsmanship- from the baby in her womb to the beautiful sky we were able to capture.  He is why their love is so enrapturing. 

Seriously what a handsome/gorgeous family!  I got a true smile from Ms. C!

DYY-ing! ouch! sides still ache!  There is another picture that I'm not sure Jonah would appreciate if I posted, but let's just say the superstar he poses will always make me laugh just thinking about it!

Thank you Ferguson Family for a HIGHLY enjoyable shoot.  SO MUCH Fun!  Stay tuned for little Ferguson's arrival as I have the awesome privilege of taking pictures of that sweetness as well!

Best...Job...Ever!

Mmmmm..... Granola

In addition to photography I love to cook, bake, and consume the items created by these means.  One of my favorite things to have around the house for the whole 15 minutes it usually lasts is homemade granola.

I first started making granola way before I knew of Mr. Smith.  I sometimes wonder if it wasn't the granola that landed him hook, line, and sinker. hmm.  Well anyways, would you like to learn how to make the famous Smith granola?

Here is the picture-list of ingredients that you will need in order to make the Smith famous granola.

8 c. Old-Fashioned Oats

3 c. nuts of your choice

1 c. packed brown sugar

1 t. salt

1 t. cinnamon

1/2 c. vegetable oil

1/2 c. honey

2 t. vanilla (yes that is GENUINE vanilla from MEXICO (thank you Rebecca) not an alcoholic beverage that it appears to be.)

3 c. dried fruit (in this case cranberries)

**I added 1 1/2 c. of sunflower seeds just because I like them!  Feel free to add what you have or don't add what you don't, it's VERY difficult to mess this recipe up.

Combine together the oats, brown sugar, nuts, cinnamon, salt in a VERY large bowl or you will have the tidal affects of an oatmeal mix overload all over your counter (trust me on this).

In a small saucepan heat the oil and honey until it begins to bubble.  Once it is bubbling remove from heat and add vanilla.  Pour this mixture over your oat mixture and stir, stir, stir.  The goal is to coat the entire mixture so that it is all moistened in order to create a yummy, yummy treat.

After it is all mixed thoroughly spread it out evenly onto two deep-edged cookie sheets.  Notice how my cranberries are not added. I prefer to add these in after the granola has baked so that they remain dried fruit rather than the plumpped fruitage that will happen in the oven.  Bake at 300 degrees for about 40 minutes.  I stir my granola halfway through and only then. This creates a very crunchy and chunky granola. If you prefer less chunky, stir about every 10-15 minutes. (oh and go easy on the stirring, or those little oats will burn at the bottom of your stove...not the best aroma, again trust me on this.)

If you follow all of those instructions you should be driving your apartment neighbors nuts with your yummy granola fumes!  When the granola appears browned as the picture below, you are done.  Set those babies on a nice cool hot-padded surface and go ahead and add your dried fruit.  Since hubby is not that big of a fan of cranberries, or anything that is dried of fruit, it goes only on one cookie sheet in our home.

*******DO NOT TASTE-TEST AT THIS POINT!  It is imperative that you fight your fleshly urge to dive into this deliciousness.  The small pleasure of flavor will be wiped out by the overwhelming of burnt taste buds, that will in effect, ruin the rest of your granola tasting experience for days.  It's worth the wait I promise.  (trust my husband on this one)

I hope that you get a chance to make this soon, in fact more than likely you can make this today!  Let me know how it goes and how your world has been rocked by the yumminess of this granola.  

Thanks for stopping by!

The Maple-smelling momma,

Christina

Going Camping...sorta

Growing up, camping was not the norm in my family. My mom still says to this day that camping for her is a black and white t.v. at a Holiday Inn. My husband grew up much differently camping quite often and having dreams of taking his family someday. Enter our first camping purchase of our tent!



We were getting really excited with our dreams of grandeur and our adventures in the great outdoor! My sweet husband allowed for glamorous items to be added to our inventory such as air mattresses and electronic bug repellents for his rookie camper of a wife.



Mr. Smith was in hard-core outdoor man mode.



Ms. O didn't have a clue what we were doing, she just knew that our car was busting at the seams and she got to bring her trusty sleeping buddy - Dog. (yup, that's his name).



We decided to go to a Federal Park - Harden Ridge off of Lake Monroe, and it was Beautiful! I was so worried about the amenities and had nightmares of nasty nasty bathrooms and forget any showers. But I was pleasantly surprised that not only did I need to bring my own toilet paper, but that the bathrooms were ridiculously nice! No spiders or cobwebs in sight and plenty of high-powered, hot water showers! Things were looking great!

As we were all sitting around the fire that outdoor man had made, Mr. Smith goes, "Oh no, I just remembered why I hated camping" !!!!!!! Are you kidding me? He explained that when he was little he hated the sleeping part of camping. Things were too quiet and he could hear every....little....sound. I looked at him with a look that I'm sure screamed, YOUR TIMING IS IMPECCABLE!

Turns out, he called it. We blew up our air mattresses, snuggled into bed. Ms. O was ecstatic that mommy and daddy were slumber partying it up with her in the same "room" and wiggled and giggled and chatted away until finally sleep took over. I actually did fall asleep despite the constant acorns falling outside, and wind moving the trees. Mr. Smith did as well until they came.

I have a whole new hate of raccoons. We knew that you don't leave any food out when camping, and we didn't even take our cooler out of the car knowing this fact. But we did NOT know that they were SEVERELY attracted to a styrofoam cup of leftover iced tea. Those monster-sized rodents came out and attacked the cup, and scratched up against the tent and TERRIFIED THE DICKENS out of this camping rookie. My maternal instincts went into hard-core overtime and i was prepared to fight them off in a sort of Chuck Norris styled attack if they so much as dared to unzip our tent (my imagination had totally convinced myself that this was an absolute possibility). They came and went from our campsite revisiting that loud-speaker styrofoam all...night...long. No sleep for mommy and daddy, but Ms. O slept right through it all, happy as a clam.



This is the only thing that kept them coming back for more!



Bright eye-d and bushy tailed



The child had so much fun waking up next to her sweet daddy.
She didn't notice the red, baggy eyes from no sleep.

Our camping adventure was over. As we sat looking at our remains of the fire before we were both on our smart phones locating the nearest hotel and creating a change of plans. It ended up being a wonderful time where we drove south and visited some of our favorite attractions and had a great time as a family...in air conditioning....with cable....and comfy fresh sheets.

Stay tuned for our part 2 of the non-camping weekend!

Mother's Day Traditions

This past weekend was amazing weather for fishing so me and my partners in crime "wet some lines" as my dad says.  Even though it was supposed to be mommy's day, it turned out being daddy's day!

Our day started out with picture-perfect weather. Thank you Lord!

Beautiful day with a wonderful family!

This is pretty much what Liv's goals were for the day; 

1.  "Catch" grass with a pretty pink butterfly net 

2. Sneak pieces of the hotdog buns mom and dad bought for bait cuz we left the worms at home on Sunday. 

3.   Do whatever possible to not let THAT fish touch her.

Yes, my little flesh and blood is TERRIFIED of fish, worms, sometimes fishing poles if it has a fish on the end of it...

There may have been some traumatization that happened because of all of the fish that she had to run from...but in the end she resorted to finding safety in her chair.

As long as she was not touching the ground and nothing of hers was touching the ground then those pesky fish couldn't hop off the line and go bopping down to get her.  Please tell me she grows out of this?

Regardless of her fear, Ms. O's handy princess pole was a hit.  Here's one that was a perfect example of a big scary monster that she "caught" (Daddy cast out the line, felt a bite, handed to Ms. O who runs away leaving daddy to land the trophy).

Regardless of all the fish, because mommy brought her favorite yogurt the silver lining came through and Ms. O really did have a good time for the rest of the time.

Daddy had a shining jaw-dropping moment this weekend.  He caught a BEAST of a large-mouth bass.

It was a monster!

That is actually MY shoe, not Ms. O's.  It's a size 8.5!  The fish was 20" long, weighed roughly 5 lbs (our fish scale was older than me and completely sketchy). 

Even though I didn't catch the trophy fish, it was so much fun to see Justin bring it in, and Liv dashing to her chair.  I love family fishing days!

Mother's Day...and a two-year old.

I've been thinking back on this past Mother's Day and I remembering how blessed I am to be included into the category of mother.  Ms. O is a very special little lady.  Of course every parent knows that about their children but God allowed me and my husband to experience that reality in an extra special way.  We were told that it did not appear that we would be able to have children, but God had other plans.  It's a longer story that I will save for a different date, so for now I would like to take the time to talk about my special little Ms. O.  She's constantly reminding me that she is not the baby that I call her, "I'm a big girl momma!"  And she is TOTALLY two.  

She has this fetish lately, of washing her hands- ever since I bought her an extra tall kid step (LOVVVEE IKEA) that allows her to reach things out of reach like-a bathroom sink.  My husband knows this of me, but he will graciously not make fun of me for bing totally guilty of getting so distracted or caught up in a project, that I take on tunnel hearing.  On such an occasion I realized that the bathroom sink had been running for quite some time (More than likely I was immersed in photo editing).  After quickly telling Ms. O that her ceremonially washing experience was over, I didn't think anything of it.  When Justin came home he said, 'Uh honey what happened here?"  bringing to me our foam soap dispenser (I'm a creatively thrifty person, some would say super cheap, but I like to say creative/imaginative when it comes to saving money, you'll pick up on it when i explain how we 'make' our own foam soap later).  At first I didn't catch what was wrong until I looked closer and saw something that made me think of the old-school Sesame Street Song that goes, "One of these are not like the others"...

look really close....Do you see it?

That, my friends, is an eyeshadow applicator that my curious little lady found out out fits PERFECTLY into our foam soap dispenser.  Serves me right for leaving it on the counter.  This is a very very simple adventure that I have a feeling is only the beginning of the ride of our lives with this little mini-Christina lady.  Here's another picture from a few months back that proves my point.

...wait a minute...

I just realized something....both incidents involved a steady washing of hands...and, admittedly, a distracted mommy.  

Oh and in case your wondering her "gloves" are actually a boat-load of Desitin.  You are familiar with Desitin aren't you? The diaper-rash-soothing, water-repellent, can't-wash-off-except-with-an-economy-sized-bottle-of-Dawn-Desitin?  Yup, that's the stuff.  Oh, but how I love her and all the excitement she brings!

Happy belated Mother's Day!