They Say It's My Birthday

Yesterday was my 23rd birthday. Woot! I didn't do much in the morning but Luke took me on a great birthday date last night. We went to Lawrence to Angler's, which is a seafood restaurant on Mass street. It's our favorite! Here's a couple pictures from our evening. I didn't want to lug along my big camera so I had to use my ancient little point-and-shoot. So, sorry for the crappy photo quality.

I had a martini, which normally I don't drink, but I had a Hawaiian rum pineapple martini... how good does that sound!! It was a little strong, hence the face...


I had the escolar, which I'd never had before but was amazing!
Luke was fancy and got the steak and lobster. It was just as good as mine.
And we got free apple cake!! Yum-o!
It was really good.
I embarrassed Luke and made him take a picture really quick on the sidewalk outside of the restaurant so that we could get the pretty Christmas lights in the background!
We had such a good night and it was one of my best birthdays! Now I'm heading to Olpe, KS for my last wedding of 2009. It's been a great year!!

Oh and Kudos to those of you who knew which song the title of this post is from. Kody, my roommate, got me the Beatles Rock Band for Christmas, (which is my favorite band ever) and it's tradition that I play the Birthday song the morning of whoever's birthday it is, so this year I got to blast the song all I wanted and play along! So much fun!

The Gribble's {family}

Meet Marsha, Elizabeth and Jameson! I took Elizabeth's senior pictures in August and loved working with them so I was very excited to get to photograph everyone this time! We took these in downtown Topeka because Marsha likes the urban-y setting. Here are some of my favorites!











Thanks Marsha, Elizabeth and Jameson!

Coming Soon!

Hey everyone! I'm so sorry it's been so long since I last posted, but the holidays snuck up on me and I was too busy to do much of anything! Here's a list of posts that are coming down the pike very soon! I promise!
- Gribble family shoot in downtown Topeka
- Rodney's snowy senior shoot
- Roush Manhattan wedding
- Broky Wamego winter wedding (whoa alliteration!)
- Hoffman New Year's Eve wedding
- and of course some shots from the Arnesen Christmas!

I'll try to post this evening because I don't know how much I'll get done tomorrow since it's my birthday! Yay! The big 2-3! I hope everyone had a very merry Christmas and a happy new year!

Katie's Baubles

My good buddy and August '09 bride, Katie, has started making super cute jewelry! She's an artsy fartsy person, like myself, and I am constantly amazed by her creativity. I had lunch with her today and got to see her great little "baubles" in person, and they are definitely a must-have part of a girls jewelry collection! They're fun and cute and quirky, everything that Katie is. She has a ton made up and ready to pick from, or she can make custom charms to suit your personality and tastes. Here is her blog, www.katiesbaubles.blogspot.com. Go check them out!!

Pumpkin Cookie Recipe

I had a couple people ask for my pumpkin cookie recipe, so here it is! Go bake some now! They're worth the trouble just to get that great cinnamon-y smell in your house!

Pumpkin Cookies Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 1 cup canned pumpkin puree
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

NOTE: My family never uses nutmeg or cloves, ick, not even in pumpkin pie. So if you make it the Arnesen way, you double the cinnamon and just leave out the nutmeg and cloves. Easy peasy.


Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, ground cloves, and salt; set aside.
2. In a medium bowl, cream together the 1/2 cup of butter and white sugar. Add pumpkin, egg, and 1 teaspoon vanilla to butter mixture, and beat until creamy. Mix in dry ingredients. Drop on cookie sheet by tablespoonfuls; flatten slightly.
3. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes in the preheated oven.
   

And that's it! Super simple! If you want to be really fancy, whip up some cream cheese frosting (or open a can) and put some of that on the cookies. I go back and forth. Sometimes I frost the cookies and sometimes I don't, they're amazing either way. Now go bake some! Go!

Christmas Time is Here

The Sunday after Thanksgiving is traditionally when I put up all the Christmas decorations. And this year Luke didn't have to work so we were able to spend the whole day decorating and having fun! I tend to go a little overboard, but our new apartment is smaller than our last one and is a little harder to decorate, so I didn't get to put out all of my things. I do have 3 Christmas trees though! The main one in the dining room, 1 on the balcony, and then a little one in my office with my fun retro-y looking ornaments! So fun!

Here's our tree!! I'm not one to go with certain color themes for decorating. In my family, our ornaments are really important and sentimental so I couldn't put up just some of them.


This red bird ornament means a lot to me. Birds were my grandma's favorite thing, so my sister bought all of us girls in the family this ornament.






My cute little centerpiece!


Our stockings...


I made pumpkin cookies!!! They're so good!! If anyone's interested in the recipe, let me know, and I'll post it!

The Niedfeldt's {family}

A couple weeks ago I met the adorable Niedfeldt family at Lake Shawnee. It was a freezing cold morning, but they were in great spirits and raring to go! Even little Cooper did great! I actually took Trevor's brother's engagement photos in August... look them up, they're under Tyrel and Jenna. Here are some of my favorites from their shoot!



This one is my favorite!






Cutie patootie Cooper!

Amanda & Alex {wedding}

Amanda and Alex were married here in Topeka on October 24th. They are such a great couple and it was a beautiful day! We started early at Salon 808 where Amanda and her mom, Deanna, got their hair done. Then we headed to the church for all the girls to get all dolled up.



At the rehearsal, Amanda accidentally bumped into a pedestal with a vase on it and it shattered on her foot. So the poor girl had to deal with a foot that should've gotten stitches on a really big day! But her girls took care of her!







The beautiful bride and groom.



Amanda's dad was very emotional all day. I love this picture of him walking her down the aisle.







Thanks Amanda and Alex for such a great day! Good luck to you both in your future together!

Turkey Day and a Trip to Weston

Lately I've only really been posting photo sessions, which is awesome, but now that I'm pretty much caught up with everything and have a little extra time, I thought it would be fun to try to do some more personal posts. Nothing fancy, just what's going on in my life. And I need to work harder at taking photos of my everyday life. Being a photographer, I don't always think to grab my big ole camera when I'm just sitting around. But I've been working at it lately! So here are a few from the Arnesen Thanksgiving and mostly of our trip to Weston, MO the Saturday after.

Somehow Thanksgiving passed and I had hardly any photos to show for it. Ah! But I have some of Marcus! Duh!



I love this one!


I know this isn't the greatest picture, but I loved Marcus' sweater on Thanksgiving day, and he ended up only wearing it about 5 seconds and this is the only picture I got!


The Saturday after Thanksgiving, my mom, sister, aunt and I headed to Weston, MO for a day of shopping and just fun! I love it there! It's such a cute little old town!




First we stopped in a cute little Irish store, the Celtic Ranch. The free Irish coffee sign initially caught my eye, but it was so much fun and the people there are great! I told them I would post a link to their website and blog, so head on over and check them out! They had great knit hats and scarves, which of course we had to try on all of them!







They had neat little coins with saints on them, and I got Luke and our roommate, Kody, both this one.




And something fun for myself...


When we go to Weston, we always have to go to the 5B & Co. Candles. They're so great and it's such a fun store! Here is their website. The ladies that own it have a really fun story and they donate money to their local animal shelter... so I love them!







While we were in the candle shop, Father Christmas stopped in! He's so cute! I love that he has more of an authentic outfit and he just walks up and down the street talking to people.


My street, haha funny.


The Arnesen girls. Me, my mom Anne and my sister, Amanda.


And my mom and aunt Jane.


I'll leave you with these cute window boxes. If you've never been to Weston, go now! Go!