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I've been camping my whole life but peeps & peppers were never on the menu...until this year. Remember the Bailey's Marshmallow recipe ? The same family was thinking outside the box over the weekend when they brought Anaheim peppers that had been in a teriyaki marinade for two days. After they had been roasted over the fire a hotdog (roasted separately) was stuffed inside and waaaa-la! A Mexican Hotdog was born! Yum! Then there were the peeps....extra sugary, extra sticky, extra gooey goodness...that is if you like peeps in the first place. More camping pictures to come after I catch up on work, laundry, work, menu planning, work, grocery shopping, work, vacation planning, and you guessed it..... work . Photobucket" bor der="0">
You can still view my recent work at carriepauly.blogspot.com , but my new website , carriepauly.com contains all the details about the services I offer. Check it out today! To celebrate the launch of my new website I am offering a special package for new and existing clients. Included in the package is a 30 minute session, sneak peak within two days, online proofs within two weeks, your choice of five images that I will burn onto a CD for you (and sign a copyright release form), and the option to purchase additional prints from your proof site at any time. With Christmas just around the corner why not get family portraits done now? You'll be able to avoid the inconvenience and expense of ordering through a studio. With a CD of your five favorite poses you can head to your local photo lab and print enlargements and photocards in a few simple steps. The package price is $200 but you can save $50 by referring a friend or family member. For every family that books a session through
Welcome to Alphabitty Moments and week two of the $50 Mixbook.com give-a-way! There is still time to enter, but you'll have to go to this post to enter the link to your own post that includes a page from a mixbook book you've made. Here is my page for the week.... I took these pictures the very first time Julia put on a tutu (my little sister's old one). She knew what to do without being told. She twirled. She pranced. She gazed in the mirror. I posted about that night here . She hasn't stopped dancing since that day. If there is music, (like today in the toy aisle at Walmart) she's grooving. I love that she feels confident enough to do her own thing - be her own person.
I've been picking 3-4 tomatoes from our garden every day for the past week. My goal is to can a batch of salsa using my new canning equipment that I scored last week at a garage sale for $20. It's hard with only 4 plants to produce enough at one time to can though. ****Update***** Our neighbors were giving away tomatoes by the gallon so I now have enough tomatoes to can salsa and tomato sauce!!! PapaBear and I spent Friday afternoon chopping and peeling tomatoes. See that tiny little grape tomato? They are Julia's favorite - she eats a half a dozen every day. We've come up with a way to tuck away tomatoes for soups & chili one or two at a time by freezing them. Our high tech food sealer aka: vacuum with a straw taped on the end, keeps the tomatoes fresh until we're ready to use them. (First you set the tomatoes on the tray in your freezer and then when they are solid, stick them in a freezer bag and suck the air out.) When you are ready to use the tomatoe
Welcome to week three of Alphabitty Moments! This is an exciting week in Bear County because I have been given the opportunity to offer one of YOU a $50.00 Mixbook gift card compliments of the fine folks at Mixbook .com . But first I want to take a moment to explain what Alphabitty Moments is all about for those of you who are just joining us. I created this carnival as a way to record the little things my kids do. The special occasions get enough attention in photographs, blog posts, and storytelling. These keepsake book pages are meant to take a closer look at the ordinary and every day moments of childhood. Some day we will look back on all the little things and realize they were really the big things. For more information on the roots of Alphabitty Moments click here . As far as participating, it's pretty simple: Each week (usually Thursdays) post a word that begins with the letter of the week and a corresponding photograph. For example: Here is my page for the letter C
I walked into Sam's room tonight at bedtime and saw this: "What in the world!?!?" I thought because we've never practiced spelling JoJo before. Then when Sam said that he wasn't the one to write it my jaw hit the floor. Julia can write letters? Since when? OK, so I knew she knows 'O' and 'H' but to spell out her nickname? As I said in my tweet earlier I ran downstairs to get the camera so I could take a picture of the magnadoodle before it was errased and then I had her right it again. Sure enough, she knows her J some of the other letters in her given name. Did I mention that we don't practice writing with Julia? With Sam we do - he's two years older and is required to write his name in preschool. My baby is going to be 3 in a few weeks. At this rate she'll be typing 60wpm in 3rd grade.
...because while I wait for photoshop to complete a task, I am creating book pages . While I wait for my book software to think, I upload pictures to my computer from my camera. While I'm getting even closer to maxing out the hard drive on my computer, I upload images to proof sites. While I rush to meet photo shoot deadlines, I search for discount codes online until photoshop lets me finish up a picture. While photoshop saves a photograph at a snails pace, I think of titles for new blog posts. While I'm thinking of new titles, I pick out pictures to upload to blogger. While pictures upload to blogger I get a couple more photos edited in photoshop. and round and round my evenings go..... How do YOU while away the hours ?
Tonight as I walked out the door to head over to the office he said I love you first. Usually I call out to everyone 'LOVE YOU!!!!' and the same words are tossed back at me (or catapulted - if everyone is upstairs)and off I go. But not tonight. "I love you Mama", he said, "All the way to God....and back to your heart." Ditto Sam.
When I saw the theme for this week's challenge at I Heart Faces I knew exactly which photograph I was going to pick. Julia at 21 months. Somehow she's about to turn three. Tomorrow is her very first day of preschool. Hey fellow photo lovers! While I have the traffic I wanted to throw out a job opportunity.... I have a book client who wants to hire someone to photoshop his images for a book I am designing for him. You need to be able to replace backgrounds of images besides the usual Photoshop skills. There are only 6-8 images that need to be touched up. If you are interested I will email you two images (before & after) If you feel that you have the skills to recreate what you see in the 'after' one then we can go from there. Thanks in advance! Photobucket" border="0">
Specifically the three days I garage sale each year. They fall right after I've switched to Spring/Summer wardrobes for the kids so I head out knowing exactly what I'm looking for. Remember this post about all the things I got for under $100? I didn't think it was possible, but I did even better this past week! I sold something on Craigslist (just down the street from all the sales! What are the chances of that?!) which canceled out $100 of my purchases, leaving me with 100 things for only $60. Most of the 25 pairs of pants I found for Sam look brand new. He won't wear some of them for 3-4 years but it would be stupid to pass up 50 cent 'new' pants. Julia didn't make out nearly as well this time around, but based on her drawers and closet that I've switched over to Fall/Winter, that's OK. We were generously given really nice hand-me-downs from my cousins. She was too busy trying on three fancy dresses that I got for a total of$4.25 to notice
I'm still speechless whenever we get to the September 11 th page in the devotional I stuck in PapaBear's stocking the Christmas before our wedding. It was December 24,2000. (Hopefully clicking on the image will make it big enough to read....otherwise here is what it says: "That day will be a day of wrath, a day of distress and anguish , a day of trouble and ruin, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness." ) We will never forget. Photobucket" border="0">
Welcome to round two of Alphabitty Moments ! I created this carnival as a way to record the little things my kids do. The special occasions get enough attention in photographs, blog posts, and storytelling. These keepsake book pages are meant to take a closer look at the ordinary and every day moments of childhood. Some day we will look back on all the little things and realize they were really the big things. For more information on the roots of Alphabitty Moments click here . As far as participating, it's pretty simple: Each week (usually Thursdays) post a word that begins with the letter of the week and a corresponding photograph. (creating scrapbook pages is optional. I used Blurb.com for the last book, but am using mixbook.com for this round. Need more inspiration? This link will take you through all my posts from our previous trip through the alphabet. One thing I'm going to do differently with my mixbook is to do one letter on one page instead of a two page spread. It w
Summer vacation is over. I feel like I missed it almost completely. Bummer. Target doesn't carry my favorite hair dye anymore. I have to use a brighter color. Bummer. I can't find a fireplace insert for our fireplace for under $500. Bummer. There are beautiful fireplaces on CraigsList, but we only need an insert at this point. Bummer. We picked the very last apple on Monday. Sam declared, "Apple season is over!" Bummer. We tried to go pick wild grapes on Monday, but the mosquitoes drove us away. Bummer. I found clothes in the basement that Julia would have fit into all summer long had I known they were there. Bummer. I took Friday through Monday off from work, but spent a decent chunk of my vacation cleaning and organizing the house. Bummer . My SIL is going to miss out on Fall Camping . It's the highlight of our year. Bummer. The mosquitoes have been feasting on Julia for the past two weeks. She has 18 places where she's made herself bleed. Bummer. We almos
I'd already put in my 40 hours for the week by 2pm on Wednesday, but in my line of work there is no pay for overtime. The trade off is that I have the luxury of scheduling photoshoots around my the activities my family has going on. Unfortunately in the summer that pretty much means that one job is scheduled around another job and when I'm not working at that job I'm working on things related to my third job . I'm not writing this to complain - I'm writing this because this is what life in BearCountry is like for me at the moment. It has always been my intention to be real with everyone - to share the good with the bad - the highs and the lows.... When I am overtired and overworked it's challenging to stay positive, but every day I can feel the Lord whispering to me that He knows what He's doing, that this too shall pass, that we are blessed in SO many ways. Tonight I am at the tail end of some pretty big projects. The biggest is a 400 page blog book
I'd already put in my 40 hours for the week by 2pm on Wednesday, but in my line of work there is no pay for overtime. The trade off is that I have the luxury of scheduling photoshoots around my the activities my family has going on. Unfortunately in the summer that pretty much means that one job is scheduled around another job and when I'm not working at that job I'm working on things related to my third job . I'm not writing this to complain - I'm writing this because this is what life in BearCountry is like for me at the moment. It has always been my intention to be real with everyone - to share the good with the bad - the highs and the lows.... When I am overtired and overworked it's challenging to stay positive, but every day I can feel the Lord whispering to me that He knows what He's doing, that this too shall pass, that we are blessed in SO many ways. Tonight I am at the tail end of some pretty big projects. The biggest is a 400 page blog book