Concentrating hard at the seedling planting station.

Butter making was a hit! The kids really seemed to love it, despite all of the hard work it required.

Thank you for a great day in the garden! You can see a slide show of more images HERE.

I met Nicole and Pruth at their home and we all piled into their car and headed over to the green belt in Davis. The fall colors where here... I knew this would be a pretty session. There is nothing like warm orange, yellow, green and brown as a backdrop to a family portrait.

Rowen is a cute little bugger. We took turns telling one another stories as I was taking his portrait. I am pretty sure that this is about the time in the story that the little boy finds a treasure chest in the middle of the forest.

I love it when I catch these little out takes. It gives a better idea of how family sessions go, especially when there are little ones involved. I have the perfect setting, stunning light, everyone is in place and...wait a minute...where is Dane???

It may take a little bit of effort, but eventually we do get everyone in the shot.

And after we get the formal shots out of they way, we can play. These are when I get some of my favorite images. That, and I am a sucker for a good game of hide and seek.

Nicole and Pruth, thank you for sharing your family with me for a day. It is so special to be able to document a little snippet of time for you. These little guys are growing us so quickly!

If you have spent any significant amount of time with me recently you have probably heard me raving about coconut. It is true, in this little house of ours we go through about a coconut a day. Let me tell you, breaking open a cold coconut and slurping out the sweet water after a hard work out is like heaven. Enjoying the gooey insides of the coconut after the water is all gone is just a bonus. And then there is coconut oil. Cooking with coconut oil adds a light, beautiful taste to the food, you can also use it at high temperatures unlike olive oil. My most recent discovery: Coconut flour. At last, I can have muffins with my Sunday tea once again! These came out beautifully, no gluten necessary!

Banana Nut Muffins

Ingredients:
1/4 cup sifted Organic Coconut Flour
2 TB Coconut oil or butter (from grass fed cows!)
3 eggs
1/2 ripe banana
3 TB honey
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup toasted pecans

Combine the ingredients and pour into greased muffin cups. Bake at 400F for 18 minutes. Makes 6 muffins. Enjoy!

Ethan and Lianna came over for their image viewing, at the end of our evening together Leanna handed me this sad looking image. It was one of the images that Ethan's mom had given them to display on their wedding day. It is her favorite image of Ethan when he was just a little tyke. When they were leaving the house they forgot the image on the roof of the car and drove off. Ethan's mom found it and brought it to them, it was all covered with scratches from the broken glass in the picture frame. Poor old photograph.

I did manage to fix the image. It took me about two hours of editing, but I got the scratches out. I also fixed the color and brightened it up a bit I also increased the contrast after lightening it and finished with some sharpening. Done and done.

It has occurred to me that there are many images that are sitting on my hard drive just waiting to be enjoyed. You see, when I do a portrait session with a family we are usually trying to get certain images. I need to get a nice shot of the whole family, one with each of the kids on their own and together. The parents with each of the kids and so on. But, inevitably there are some really funny pictures that get taken that never don't get purchased simply because Mom and Dad want that image of the whole family. But for me, the best ones are the ones that are showing the kids for what they are, kids. This series cracks me up. The first image Dane looks like he is up to trouble. The second shot you can see him looking at his mom who is warning him. In the third shot you can see he has gone for it, the leaf throwing has begun. I love it.

My thought is this, I am going to use the out-takes from the session as a bit of a carrot. They can get them in one of two ways (and by get them I mean that I will put them on facebook). Either they can pay a minimal uploading fee. Or if they spend a certain amount with me they will get them for free. What do you think? Is this a good idea? Is it something that you think people would be interested in?