I was making bagels yesterday and I couldn't resist taking some photos. I have an obsession with making any kind of bread. And an even bigger obsession for taking pictures of bread. When I look at the photos I've taken of food, about 99% of them are of some form of delicious bread. I could never live a gluten free life!

 

My mom, sister and I started a blog to share recipes with each other and you can find the recipe I used to make these yummy bagels there. If you want a more extensive recipe, especially if you don't have a bread machine, this is the original recipe. And by the way, these bagels are the real deal. You'd never know they weren't from the store! Except for the fact that you made them and will pride yourself of that fact. Seriously, they are delicious and surprisingly easy to make.

Food photography has always intrigued me. There's such an art to it in how they style the dish to make you want to eat it right off the page/screen. With our recipe blog, I  really want to try and photograph more of our recipes. Wouldn't it be fun to have your very own cookbook with all your favorite recipes along and pictures to boot? This is the kind of thing I get excited about. . .kind of silly, I know.

I haven't been posting some of my photos for my photography goals lately, so I thought I'd share my favorite photo shoot so far. I'm not sure if I've been doing them weekly as planned, but I am getting better at whipping my camera out and taking pictures more often. Some weeks I take a lot of photos, others, not so much. This was from a month or so ago. It snowed (which it rarely does here) and so we bundled up and played outside. It was fun to watch Zoey experience snow for the first time. She was a little timid at first, but once she realized this stuff was fun to play in, she was crawling all over the yard (which is evident in the last picture)!

I had so much fun planning Zoey's birthday party! I kept asking Lance if I was insane for putting so much work into a party for a one year old. He probably thought I was, but never admitted it :) My mom said we do all that work for the pictures. And ya know what?? She's right! Well, it's for the guests and the birthday girl, but we all know it's fun to have pictures to remember it by. So, here are the pictures from the party. We didn't do any games, just a lot of socializing and eating yummy food with friends and family (who I somehow didn't get any pictures of??), cake and presents.

The invitation I made. It was supposed to be Mary Poppins themed. Didn't turn out very "themed" though. Just a lot of frilly girly decorations with a hint of Marry Poppins.

I love how these parasols turned out! They were my favorite thing to make and my favorite part of the table. It kind of looks like a carousel from far away.

 

 

I'm so glad my mom was there to help with the cake. There's no way I could make butter cream do that!

She almost burned her finger. . . oops!! Gotta watch those curious little fingers.

 

It's hard being the birthday girl!

 

She really wasn't into the cake. Maybe because I already gave her some "test" cupcakes the week before? Who knows. This is pretty much what she did the whole time - pick at the frosting

 

Presents! It's a good thing she had a little helper. She was more interested in the already opened gifts than the wrapped ones. Thank you to those who came and shared this special day with us!

 

Zoey turned ONE almost a month ago! I was excited that this was going to be the last time I would have to keep this girl on her back for a photo. I waited until she woke up happy from her nap, got everything ready to go and prepared for the usual, and she surprised me!  She just laid there looking cute for 2 straight minutes! That was the easiest photo shoot I've had in a long time. At her appointment a few weeks ago, she weighed 21 lbs, 11 oz and was 18.75" tall. She's been up to quite a lot, so here we go:

> She has a total of 10 teeth and working on 2 more.

> She learned how to sign "more" after a lot of persistent work. It looks like clapping when she does it, and it's so cute!

> Walking is not happening and neither is standing on her own. I've caught her standing a few times so I know she can do it. I think she's just going to stand up and start walking one of these days like she did with crawling.

> She can say "brrr" (like, brrr it's cold outside), "uh oh," "baby," and sometimes we can get her to say "mama" and "dada" on cue.

> She loves her green beans and spinach - go figure!

> Anything that clinks together and makes a sounds is her favorite toy. 

> She loves to snuggle soft things. Her new thing is to lay her head on anything that is soft for a total of 3 seconds, then she's up and moving again. 

> She loves to read books. Well, look and play with them anyway. She will sit and let us read to her but her attention span is so short we usually don't get through the whole book :)

 It's hard to believe how much she's changed in a year! She is such a happy girl and it seems like everyone is drawn to her. I love that I get to spend time with her everyday and watch her learn new things. We sure love our little Zoey!

 As someone who loves to take pictures, it's inevitable that there will be very little photos that have me in them. I know it's something every photographer struggles with, along with the fact that most of us feel much more comfortable behind the camera rather than in front of it. I'm one of those super awkward people when having my picture taken by someone else. Especially when they're supposed to be candid. It's hard to be candid when you know someone is watching you. Anyway, as another part of my photography goal, I wanted to be in more pictures. I don't want to look back at when my kids are little and realize I wasn't "really there." I finally bought a remote for my camera which makes this goal a little easier. So, Zoey and I played on the bed today while I snapped a few shots with her favorite little blanket.

I've never been one to really get into resolutions every year. Probably because I'm horrible at long term goals. But lately I've noticed that I want to improve on a few things and what better time to start than a new year!

One goal for this year: Become a better photographer. 

Photography is something I love. I loved taking pictures as a kid and would steal my parents camera when we went on vacations. Out of a whim, I took my first photography class in high school and it quickly became something I was passionate about. In fact, I started out majoring in photography in college, but things changed along the way and I went a different route. Every since then, I feel like I've been kind of stagnant. I've learned a few things along the way, but I'm not where I'd like to be.

And so, as part of my goal, I'm going to post at least one picture a week for the rest of the year. Each week, focusing on different techniques, themes, or editing tricks that I'd like to work on.

I'll try my best not to take pictures of Zoey every week, even though she's so stinkin' cute! But, for now this applies to one thing I'm working on: taking better quality photos indoors.

So. . . I totally slacked off last month. I took Zoey's 10 month pictures, just never did a post. Whoops! So here's a combined post for 10 & 11 months! Here are her pictures from last month:

 

 

 

And now, onto current Zoey! I don't know what the deal is, but the older she gets, the lazier I get at wanting to weigh and measure her. All I know is that she's growing and my arms get tired after holding her for a long time. Here's what she's been up to lately:

> She is an expert at eating any food that is bite-sized. It's great at dinner time! She can feed herself while I finish making dinner/do the dishes.

> She has curly hair!! I've been waiting for this gene to make it's appearance :) I have to put a little gel on it to keep the curl, but there are lots of little curls on the back of her head.

> We don't have stairs at our house, but my parents do. A couple weeks ago, she tried climbing them and I was shocked! She climbed 6-7 stairs like they were nothing.

> She now has a total of 8 teeth! The last one was miserable for both of us and I'm glad it finally broke through.

> Her hair is long enough we can make ponytails! Well, it's more like a whale spout. I've had several comments from people when we're out and they always say something about her "hair do - thingy?" :) 

> She loves to wave at people (and things)! It's so cute! If she's awake when Lance leaves for work, we walk to the garage and she starts waving as she hears the garage door go up. 

 

 

 

 Can I just say how crazy it is that this little girl will be ONE in a few weeks?? I can't believe how fast time goes by. Yet, I'm glad I will only have one more monthly post like this. It's nearly impossible to keep her lying down for a picture. Luckily my mom is close and helps every month. She got her workout today, though! Zoey thought it was a fun game to keep rolling over as soon as my mom got her in position. She's a funny girl!