We made the beautiful 3 hour drive to this wedding and pulled up to Albbee’s Garden in what seemed to be the middle of no where. We got out of our car and were instantly greeted by Veronica in her pajamas holding a big paper bag full of sunglasses. First, she gave us each a pair of their custom wedding sunglasses, then she asked where Myles was? haha. “You should have brought him!”. We spent a while just walking around this gorgeous farm owned by the sweetest woman. She saw us wondering around, looking at the fruit trees and chickens and starts telling us all about the history of her life and her farm. Grayson and I have a dream of opening a wedding venue when we’re done being photographers so we are so drawn to venues when they are people’s home that they open up for weddings. We were talking about how we want to get some chickens because organic eggs are so expensive so she went and grabbed a us a dozen fresh eggs and a few peaches from her tree. We were blown away with her kindness. She had no idea we were the photographers at this point!

Ross and Veronica had a common love for northwest Washington beer {who doesn’t??} so they themed their wedding after it! They even met at a beer garden! On their contract where we asked what they liked doing together it said” biking, hiking, hugging”… haha, I loved that. This was overall just an awesome day, we had so much fun shooting these two in such a beautiful setting and getting to witness them get married. Days like this make us just love what we do.

Ok.. for anyone watching the Bachelor this season, doesnt Ross look like Sean!?! haha

Hats to block from the intense sun during the ceremony

This place was so awesome. The woman had all these dogs who ran around. This one got up on the ledge just to watch people get food. She sat in her kitchen eating popcorn and just talking to everyone in line.

First .. Ross’s brother gave a speech, it was a pretty good speech. Then his other brother gets up to give the speech and starts off by saying he saw brother #1 rummiging through his bag this morning and he found his speech and that was the speech he just gave!! Leaving the brother standing in this photo totally screwed! It was so… so funny, everyone was cracking up. No one seemed surprised, haha

The goodies we got from the farm

We’re back in California for a couple weeks because my best friend had her baby {wooooooo!!!!}. I went to post a wedding for you guys and realized we didn’t have the files with us! Woops! So instead we thought we’d share a little video I made of our trip up to Lake Arrowhead a few weeks back. It was Myles’s first time playing in the snow, he didn’t really know what to think, haha. We had so much fun, played in the snow, played a lot of Twister and discovered Settles of Catan, which we are now all hooked on!!

Anyway, life has been good! We’re excited for what 2013 holds. We have a few trips planed {for business and pleasure, of course}. We get to go back to Pennsylvania to shoot another cousins wedding, taking a big family trip to Belize {never been}. The new year has been treating us well! Myles is still a maniac, he’s so cute I can’t handle it sometimes and he’s started REALLY saying “mama”, but only when he’s whining unfortunately, haha

We’re working on redoing our blog completely! We need a fresh start! This blog just doesn’t seem to represent who we are anymore, it needs a little more color to it! So we’re excited for the change, hopefully it will be a smooth process.

Chris + Brittany were married in the beautiful area of Napa Valley up in Northern California at the vacation home of a family friend. This place was beyond amazing. It was the most intricate house we’ve ever been to. They had their ceremony overlooking the rolling hills of Napa Valley and had their ceremony in the front yard, lined by trees. It was a perfect day!

Their friend volunteered to paint their ceremony as it was happening.

dinner time!

Such an awesome pool

This was one of our favorite weddings of the year. The couple was awesome, it was in a barn {we are huge suckers for barn weddings} and everything was home made… something we are also huge suckers for. When we booked Christina and Robert she and I spent a good hour on the phone just talking about everything. They met when she took a trip to Europe. She was in Austria and went on a tour, who was her tour guide? That’s right.. Robert. She soon moved to Austria to be with him and now they’re getting married! I was joking that she basically lived every girls dream {and most Lifetime movie plots} of traveling to Europe single and meeting some good looking, soccer playing European boy and bringing him home to marry him. Haha, it’s awesome. These two were just amazing, so sweet, so fun and so so so excited and in love.

They were married at Red Barn Studios in Chehlis, WA. We’ve shot here once before and loved it even more this time! This place used to be a working hops farm, now it’s covered n lavender, apple trees and of course, hops. It’s overall just a beautiful place, and we love shooting in Washington!

I love it when the groom cries during the first look!

Her family owns a carriage company so they got to ride in on this bad boy!!

When you walked onto the ceremony site there was this long twine everywhere {which we watched almost everyone trip on, haha} and they put their rings on the string to be passed along until it was time to put it on their fingers. They had everyone pray or give a blessing on their rings.

There was a lot of apple biting involved in the family photos, haha.

Their cute little Austrian cake topper.

Ryan and Danielle are really good friends of ours who I met them when I was in my early 20′s. I’ve had the privilege of shooting their engagement shoot, wedding, pregnancy with Wyatt and now pregnancy with little Adeline! Danielle was even a bridesmaid in my wedding! I’m so excited they are making another baby!! Their first son, Wyatt, is our Godson and he’s so stinkin sweet. Although once he dumped a big bucket of water on Myles in the kiddy pool, haha it was so sad. Myles was like 12 weeks old and bummed out. Anyway, we were so happy to shoot them yet again!

It’s that time of year again! Time for us to think of this years Christmas card, and this year was a doozie. We decided to have two sides. One “normal side” with that cute baby we made….

And the awesome side…. this little gem of awesomeness.

Your welcome. Merry Christmas!!!!! We hope you enjoy your time off and eat lots of cookies and stuff that usually makes you feel guilty.

Mitch + Michelle definitely stretched our comfort zone as far as shooting style.  They envisioned more of a fashion feel and we LOVE when couples are close and intimate.  We made it work though!  We definitely had a blast running around Hollywood with Mich + Michelle.  We visited the Jonathan Adler store, Melrose Place, as well as Mitch + Michelle’s awesome rooftop.  They were like our tour guides are we were their photographers.  It worked!

We just celebrated Myles’ first birthday, I can’t believe it’s already here. It didn’t go fast, or slow, which was nice. It’s been so amazing and different having a baby around. Our sense of “normal” is totally different now. We used to do what we wanted on a whim, going to get food or running to the store,  now leaving the house takes 3 times as long. “Did you get his pacifier clip? Where is his beanie? Can you take him for a second, I have to go pee!, Grab an extra diaper and another pair of pants in case he pees through them!”… haha.  But life is so good. We love being a mama and daddy and wouldn’t trade it! Sure, we haven’t really slept straight through the night in a year, and have to wash our hands constantly because they have poo or pee or pureed beets on them, but it’s all worth it! I now understand why people with kids are always late :]

So needless to say, this year was awesome. It messed with our work routine and left us a bit jumbled trying to edit whenever he fell asleep, but I think we’ve got the hang of it now! I love that little baby SO SO much and maybe I’m bias {of course I am} but I’m pretty sure I gave birth to the cutest baby known to man.On his birthday I was reading through his birth story and somehow it made me so excited to do it all again! We had him at home in our bedroom and it was the most amazing experience we’ve ever had.

I decided to put together a little summary of his life so far in photo form, and some photos from his amazing birthday party. enjoy!

Here h is 3 minutes old!

3 days old

5 weeks old, when he first started to smile

6 weeks old, my favorite photo.. hahha

7 weeks old

15 weeks

21 weeks

23 weeks

8 months old

9 months old. We have this photo {among many others} framed in our stairway and every time I pass it I want to pinch his face, he is SO CUTE!!

Myles is now ONE YEAR old, I can’t believe it’s already here!

I struggled a lot with what “theme” to make his party and decided on Yellow Submarine…. It really just turned out somewhat “under the sea” with a lot of color, haha. That’s us though! We just love color!

I snagged this wooden high chair at Goodwill for $8!!

We’ve recently discovered that Myles LOVES felt balls. I bought him a pack of 300, haha.

tiny twigs are pretty impressive too. I made him a felt crown for his big day!

I covered this huge “M” in yarn, it took forever!

Myles has never had sugar so I was pretty adiment about not starting just because he turned one! I made him a sugarless cake! A bunch of people on Instagram {HeatherGlasby} were asking for the recipe, so I’ll post it at the end! most of the decor was stuff we already have, a lot of it is in his “70′s nautical” bedroom!

We spent all week {after Myles went to bed} watching Hercules and making daisy chains and paper flags!

Myles Myles everywhere!!

left over paper from the paper bunting flags made great confetti!

I am married to the most clever man. Grayson said he’d make a cupcake stand and he’s in the garage for 10 minutes or so and comes up with THIS!!! A spiral staircake cupcake stand, he is a genius!!  It’s wood from the forest across the street and an old pallet!!!! I made the cupcake toppers with Photoshop and my printer!

We zip-tied a high chair tray to his chair so make it work!

My favorite photo of the day. He loved having everyone sing him Happy Birthday. He just grinned and clapped at the end when everyone else did, it was adorable.

So it turns out my vision of cake everywhere and the worlds dirtiest cake baby was a bust. He wasn’t the least bit interested in that cake, didn’t even try it! The only reason he got any on him is because I put it there trying to get him to want it. AHHHH what a bummer! haha

Not impressed, haha.

present timeeeee!

Grayson got him a harmonica, haha. He attempted .

I’m pretty sure this was the highlight of his day. My child is like a dog, he loves leftovers on the floor {usually they’re his}. He was scrounging around eating goldfish crackers and cupcake crumbs…

Kasparian kisses put him into a baby trance, it was the funniest thing.. he had this look on his face for a good 5 minutes.

There a a ton of sugarless, egg less, flour less {you name it} cakes out there for baby. This one is from a blog {link below} but my favorite blog has a lot more helpful hints for home made baby food in general! I’ve made all of Myles’ food since he’s been eating solids and it’s SO easy and SOOO much cheaper! And you can know exactly what is {and isn’t} going into your baby’s belly!

Healthy First Birthday Cake- Banana and Blueberry Cake

What we love about this recipe – apart from the fact that it tastes AMAZING – is that there are no complicated techniques involved in its preparation. You just put everything in one bowl, mix it all together, and you’re done! If you have little baking experience and you’re worried about making a mess of baby’s first birthday cake, then this is the recipe to try – it’s almost foolproof!

4 oz (1 cup) old fashioned rolled oats
5 oz (1 1/4 cups) whole wheat flour
4 oz (1 cup) all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
2 1/2 tsp cinnamon
good pinch of salt
6 medium ripe bananas, peeled and mashed
4 fl oz (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, melted
1/2 cup blueberries, chopped (use fresh, or frozen berries thawed and drained)
4 eggs, beaten well
6 fl oz (3/4 cup) frozen unsweetened apple juice concentrate, thawed*

*You can use regular apple juice concentrate instead for a sweeter result, but do bear in mind that the recipe will be a higher in sugar than if you use the unsweetened variety.

Preheat the oven to 350 deg F (175 deg C).
Put the first seven ingredients into a large bowl and mix them together.
Add all the rest of the ingredients and stir well until thoroughly combined.
Grease a 9 inch cake tin and pour in the mixture.
Bake for around 50 mins to one hour, until a sharp knife inserted into the centre comes out clean.
Cool in the tin for 20 mins, then turn out on a wire rack to cool completely.

To make the cream cheese frosting in the photograph…

Stir together one 3 ounce package of cream cheese, 1/4 tsp of vanilla and 2 1/2 tbsp regular frozen apple juice concentrate (thawed). Spread over the top of the cake once it’s cool.

Amy + Dave are definitely kids at heart.  And we are too.  So we’re friends.

Ever since we moved up two states, we heard about this unbelievable place called Treehouse Point.  It’s like treehouses, but on super steroids.  Fully furnished rooms nestled up in the treetops!  We vowed that we were going to shoot there and would do whatever it took to do it.  So when Amy + Dave asked us to shoot their wedding, we practically yelled, “YESSSSSSSSS!”

Amy and Dave were HEE-LARIOUS. We had such a good time at their wedding, shooting and eating the best fried chicken we’ve ever had.. and pie, oh the pie. Heather locked herself in the bathroom right after a little kid did too. She was in there 10 minutes just knocking on the door yelling before the coordinator found her and jimmied her out with a butcher knife, haha.

Amy’s wedding gift to Dave.

A very happy father seeing his daughter as a bride for the first time.

There were rocks stacked all over the river side.

taking some time to skip rocks

A quick hoe down in the forest.

They had a trick ceremony.  Everyone was ready to go, but no bride + groom.  They had everyone head down to an alternate spot where they were waiting together.  Pretty awesome!

Amy’s dad read “the little yellow leaf” to everyone.

They drew names to see which of the guests would be the two witnesses.

This was the best beverage both of us had ever tasted. It was crushed watermelon over ice.. WHAT?!?

Love this one

mmmmmm pie.

We LOVE Alyssa + Jorel for many reasons.  They are super similar to us in the fact that we all love to go to thrift stores and look for purpose in things deemed to have no value anymore.  We also learned that Alyssa loves to find deals.  Most of the wedding decor was thrifted, made or on sale! Heather and Alyssa are those people who love the deal that they got just as much or more than what they actually bought.  And at the end of the wedding, Alyssa + Jorel asked us if we wanted to take a set of the ceremony backdrop doors home with us!  We were ecstatic because they were amazing.  We loaded the doors up in our civic and hurried off to catch the last ferry of the night back to the mainland.

Alyssa and Jorel were married at the Red Cedar Farm in Poulsbo, WA.  It was an amazing farm property that was sunny, open and had an amazing barn.  They had a vintage game room with tons of pinball machines and arcade games. The owner has collected antiques of all kinds through out the years and integrated them into the property. Everywhere you looked there was some little gem, we were in heaven!  There was plenty of cornhole boards up and a good time was had by all.

They collect heart rocks {so do we!!} and she happen to have this giant one {their favorite one} in her purse, haha.

She has the best skin I’ve ever seen!

We love new babies. Gray and I went around to everyone with babies and hung out, I think we missed Myles, haha.

Family sing along

In the middle of the speeches Alyssa got up said “I’m so sorry, but I have my favorite photographers and it’s golden hour and we can’t miss it! We will be right back!”, haha. That’s dedication.

A local donkey was curious

After a while the donkey started giving me the stink eye, maybe because I was holding a big black thing and hiding in the grass in crouching position… at one point all three of us darted away… from a donkey… haha