Awesome & Awkward

 Awesome

• It's finally boot & scarf weather and I love it
• Watching the entire 1st season of Homeland in a week with the hubs... so good
• The oreos that I bought for Andrew, but secretively bought for myself... I've eaten far more than he has. Shhhh....
• Weekly play dates with our baby cousin Isaac. If you follow me on instagram or facebook, you know how ridiculously adorable he is
• Our Sunday morning marriage class at church- really challenges us to discuss and pray about applicable and important things
• The insane amount of pie we've had in our fridge over the past 2 weeks. Whew! 

Awkward

• Rolling my ankle at the crosswalk while leaving from work. Don't worry, there were only a few people behind me and just 1 car at the crosswalk. Smoooooth
• Trying to console a fussy, tired, yet oh so sweet 5 month old in a strategically chosen aisle at the grocery story (the baby/diaper aisle- hoping for sympathetic moms who understood). Poor baby fell asleep shortly after and slept the whole way home. No sympathetic moms- just an abandoned aisle
•  The fact that I'm wearing all black with a brown purse in the pic above... hence the black and white photo to cover it up
• Trying to speak Spanish with my patient and calling blood "sangria" instead of "sangre"... She probably would have preferred some sangria after delivering a baby and was super confused why I was asking about it. Oh boy, I have a lot to learn
• Being the youngest in that Sunday morning marriage class by at least 10 years... Most are probably in their 50's. Never too early to make our marriage a priority and learn ways to keep it that way

Second love

Okay, I admit it... I've found a second love.

My crock pot. 

It sure ain't fancy or new or pretty, but I love it. I love getting home from a busy night's work, throwing ingredients into my crock pot, and waking up to the mouth watering aroma of deliciousness. Even better is the effortless dinner to enjoy. Mmmmh, so good. 

These 3 easy recipes are on the crock-pot to do list this week. 

This site has 300+ crock pot recipes. Knock yourself out. Photos from the links below.

Slow cooker spicy chicken lettuce wraps

Crock pot black bean soup

Apple Butter

Wes | before & after edits

While I'm happy to show more of little Wes (this won't be the last), I hesitate to show my before & after photo edits; I feel vulnerable... That being said, I'm doing it anyway. Even with different photo shoots, my "editing style" may change. However, in general, I do the following for just about every image (discussed below). As little Wes has stunning, "wise" (as another commenter stated) eyes, I chose to emphasize the blue and try my best to make them literally pop out of the photo as they do in person. The day of the shoot was bright as ever with clear blue airy skies, a blinding sun, and crisp yellow leaves. I kept this in mind while editing to keep the spirit of the day intact in the photos. Bright, crisp, airy.

 All edits are done in Photoshop CS5.
All photos were taken with my Canon 50D and Canon 100mm 1:2.8 L lens. 
 *Sidenote- this was all self taught... I have no idea if this is how you actually edit photos. But it seems to work for me!

1. Crop if needed 

2. Adjust Curves (play with curve to lighten exposure)

 

3. Adjust Brightness/Contrast if needed

4. Adjust Vibrance and/or Saturation 

5. Sharpen- though I try to capture the sharpest image I can during the shoot and avoid using this tool in photoshop

6.  If a certain color is overwhelming, play around with selective color

 7. Fix blemishes with spot healing brush tool or patch tool

8. Repeat steps until happy with end product

Depending on the pic, I could spend 1 minute or 20 minutes to edit just right. This process definitely takes a long time. This is why people charge for their photography- It's not the shoot that takes time, it's the editing and processing. Whew... hours and hours of it...

Side by side, the edited photos look over exposed, but try to imagine just the edited ones framed on a wall. They'd sure catch your attention and highlight this sweet little boy's face. 

Notice the sun light directly cutting his right ear off. Ugh, so frustrating. So, I just cropped it off! Still works. Easy fix right? But, those eyes, how can I focus in on those eyes and make the photo look like something different? The answer: duplicate photo, crop & flip canvas horizontal (image rotation).

There you have it! I still have a lot to learn about editing--- like how to make it go faster! I'd like to get Lightroom; I've heard great things.

Apples

When life gives you apples...

 

Make Applesauce...

And lots of it.

Kind of like lemons right? 

*Thanks, Nick, for teaching Andrew and I how to make applesauce*

Wes | Preview

I had the pleasure of photographing this little cutie pie yesterday morning.  I just began processing a few photos.

Here's some sweet blue eyes to brighten your day! 

 

 

Antlers

 Just some elk & antlers for your Wednesday. I kind of want a pair of these fabulous antlers (minus the animal face... that's just creepy) for my guestroom/office. Well, not these precisely... but some like them. Aren't they fabulous? Or, maybe I'll just settle for these photos in prints. Has a wintery feel...

We came across these wild elk on our drive home from our Lighthouse Oregon Coast trip this summer. I was so excited and literally jumped out of the car to photograph them.

In other news, I tried to be super crafty yesterday and have a stack of fabric with great plans.... Then I broke my last 2 sewing machine needles in a matter of 10 minutes. Blah.  Big, huge bummer. I tried to make up for it with a fancy salmon dinner (Thanks Catherine for the recipe).

Fall Fest | Part 2

 As a fall fest weekend  (part 1 here) finale, following Sunday church, we met up with friends & headed westward to Sauvi Island's Kruger Farms. We did the usual corn maze and perfect pumpkin search- both of which were successful. Andrew even met his goal of finding the ugliest (yet still round and un-molded) pumpkin in the entire patch. The food items stood out in my book- the buttered, roasted corn, apple pie, wood-oven pizza... mmmmmhhh, so good! A tough second place stand-out were the many green little frogs in the patch and the impressive frog catcher that Christine & Jon's little Sam turns out to be (from Apartment 46).  After the patch, we arrived back home to a sweet potato veggie chile and warm apple cider waiting for us in the crock pot. Truth be told, I've gained at least 2 pounds this weekend... oh boy.

I'm not a huge fan of carving pumpkins, but have a few ideas up my sleeve as alternatives. Do you have any favorite pumpkin activities?

Fall Fest Weekend | Part 1

 To kick off Fall Fest weekend, we headed out to the boonies for some apple picking (Bell's Orchard). You'd think that this would be a popular fall weekend attraction; but thanks to the heavy rain, we had the place all to ourselves. Quite literally. It was perfect. Thanks to the rain, I also got very few photos.

Muddy boots, Costco Pizza, & 40 pounds of apples later, we had ourselves an apple pie making party. 

Andrew, Brandon, Sam- Med School buddies 

'Twas a great start to the weekend! 

Saturday called for football, food, and lounging. What else could our tired med student hubbies ask for? Catherine and I worked away in the kitchen and the boys enjoyed being couch potatoes.

Catherine had the house perfectly decorated for a fall football day. She even made some delicious sweet tea in perfect southern style. Yum. Can't get enough sweet tea.

The following treats were made and devoured (click on link for recipe):  

Bloomin' Onion Cheese Bread

Bacon-Wrapped Water chesnuts

BBQ Chicken potato skins 

Chesse-Chile Queso 

This was just half of the full fall fest weekend. More to come!