A Wild Hair

I've been thinking about it for two days. I've been planning it out in my head, and now my plan is completely scattered over every surface in my kitchen.

My pantry is just not working anymore. It has to be rearranged. And there is simply no way to do that except for removing everything. Like - I mean EVERYTHING.





Oh dear, it looks like my fire exit is partially blocked. And seeing as how I may start burning all of this junk that I can't possibly have a use for, I'm going to have to rectify that situation.

I will say this, though: that is one hardworking little pantry! I had no idea it could store this much stuff!! I have three boxes each of cornmeal and hershey's cocoa, and two each of Splenda (which I use once a year for my dad at Thanksgiving), Ritz crackers and pink sprinkles. A truly gifted cook could take all this excess and make something delicious with it. Let's see...cornmeal and pink sprinkles...what can be done with that...?

Annnd We're Back!

I know - I know...it's been a while! But I've been thinking about you! I've missed you and now I'm finally here with something to show you!

Basically, this is what I have to show you:



A bunch of dancing 9th grade girls! I believe they're dancing because they were soooo happy to have me as their DNow Leader!

You other Baptist kids know what a DNow is, but for my other friends, it's just a youth weekend retreat. We do a little Bible study, a little community building and a lot of goofing off.

I don't have pictures of the Bible study part, because that would've been weird.

I have a few pictures of the community building. This year it was a "community impact" scavenger hunt. Basically, we had a list of helpful tasks we had to run around town to get done. We wiped tables at a fast food restaurant:



We bought a guy some coffee. He was excited about it I think:


We also scared lots of people. This lady thought she was being attacked by girl scouts. We just wanted to carry her groceries for her, but the girls were maybe a little excited about it, so she yelled, "I already bought 20 boxes!" before the girls could explain. After that she was totally into it, though.



They also scared a homeless man that they just wanted to give some water to. He ran away. No joke. Like, actually ran. I don't have a picture. That would've been weird.

They also invited people to church, handed out water to less skittish homeless folks, and they pumped a stranger's gas for him. (That's the stranger in the background.)



I got a lot more photos of the goofiing off, though.

Like we've already seen, there was dancing:






There were some interesting makeovers:







On Saturday there was a little bit of playing outside. The weather was perfect!



The whole weekend was so much fun! Thanks girls!

I Loves Me Some...

1. Randy Rogers Band Pandora station. (Although Pandora did try to throw in a Colby Callait song. In what way is Colby Callait like the Randy Rogers Band? I do not understand.)


2. Listening to my Pandora station while cooking.

3. Cooking.
That's me - that's what I look like when I cook. Except my stylist is off today, so this is not a picture of me cooking today. (What fuzzy purple socks? I don't even own any fuzzy purple socks. But if I was wearing fuzzy purple socks, I would look hot in them. Whatever.)

4. Cooking tacos.

5. Cooking tacos with my very own special taco sauce recipe. (I recreated it after we ate at Fuzzy's with Heather and Andy and Carmen and Matt. I'm not sure it's exactly the same, but it's good.)

Recipe:
Mix this stuff together:
1/2 C. Mayo
1/3 C. sour cream
1 tbsp. lemon juice
2 tbsp. tarragon vinegar
1 tspn. cumin
1 tspn. garlic salt
dash red pepper
dash white pepper


6. Eating.

7. Eating the guacamole I make to go with tacos. It's just avocado, tomato chunks and lots of salt. That's the whole recipe.

Not that I'm one to brag on my cookin...I learned humility from this guy:

Fourteen More Shopping Days...

...until My Birthday!! (yes it is supposed to be capitalized.) So this is the last weekend in January and next week will officially start birthday month. In anticipation, I decided to compile a Birthday Wish List. However, I found one thing that I really want and so it is not so much a Birthday Wish List as it is a single Birthday Wish.

Let's get started.

This past fall, Lonny Magazine Online featured the JK Place Italian hotel chain. When I blow out my birthday candles, I will be picturing this:


It's their Capri location. Spending a few days (or months?) here would just tickle this Birthday Girl pink! Isn't that what Birthdays are for?

Here's how it would go:

I'd start my day with a little breakfast:
It's included in the cost of my room anyway. Isn't that just the classiest? JK Place doesn't like to nickel and dime their guests over a grapefruit.

And then, with a view like this from my bathtub, you better believe I'm going to take my time getting ready for my day!


The rest of the morning might be spent doing whatever there is to do in Capri. Or I might just decide to spend it here on my private balcony reading a book. It would have to be a super classy book - like Confessions of a Shopaholic. Or Shopaholic Ties the Knot. Which one is classier?


I'll have lunch and dinner both here, in the dining room. After dinner I may just sit here and watch the stars twinkle over...whatever body of water that is.


Of course, we could also do that in our private sitting room:
We'll need two chairs, though, if Michael is going to sit with me.

I think this would be just a lovely Birthday Gift.

Of course, if Capri doesn't sound appropriate, then there's always the Florence location!


If Capri is booked, I would accept this substitution.

I just checked availability and Florence is available on My Birthday! How perfect is that? And it can be ours for the low, low price of ... whoa!!

5,600 Euros per night!! Do you know how many dollars that is?! Google says it comes to $7625.52. PER NIGHT!!!

What a deal, right?

I mean, it includes breakfast.

IT BETTER INCLUDE BREAKFAST!!

It better include a bucket of cash, too!

With a bow.

Maybe this would be a more appropriate gift for my Thirtieth Birthday.

All Rested Up...

...and ready to show off! Meet Haven.




We actually did two separate shoots for Haven. The first time we met, there was just too much excitement and falling asleep took a long time! So we got some awake and headed back for some sleepy pictures.

A warm fire and a snuggly blanket ended up doing the trick the first time. (I'm sure a full belly didn't hurt either!) We did end up getting a few in front of the fire:



And some more in a bucket. Yup. In a bucket. Where else would you store a baby? It's certainly less awkward than most baby carriers.




But we just couldn't get enough of Miss Haven, so we headed back this past Saturday for another hour or so of shooting. This time, she went straight to sleep and just about let us move her around as much as we wanted.




She didn't even object to playing dress up.



She's just blissfully unaware of us cooing over how much she's rocking the tutu look.



And lastly, I can never resist a tiny feet shot:



Email me at jenni@jennirobertsphotography.com to book a session for your new arrival!

Love It!

There was a girl at church today dressed just about exactly like this:

Church Girl by jifferdoodle featuring pink jewelry

It made me very happy. She was so cute! So what do you think? Should I be a little more daring with my personal style, or leave the sequined dress and converse look to the 13 year olds? (Who, by the way, totally rocked the look!)

Also - I created the "look" above on polyvore. Found it on the Pioneer Woman's blog. Such fun! Just follow the links to play around with your own looks!

Miss Haven...

...is sooo sleepy because we made her take so many pictures today! She's going to take a nap and then we'll show you some more tomorrow.