It has been cold & rainy for days, so I decided to try this new recipe for minestrone soup that I found on the internet. I like to keep soup on hand during the week – besides being an easy light meal when Jim gets home from work late, it is really a good thing for weight control since I can have a bowl of it instead of something fattening. So I made it yesterday in the crockpot (dumped everything in after I sauteed the veggies), and it is just delicious! (I left out the pasta since I am watching every calorie). It made A LOT, so I froze half of it which suits me fine. If you don’t use a crock pot, it takes about 90 minutes to simmer up. I made it exactly like the recipe, except I used frozen spinach instead of fresh, and dried oregano instead of fresh (but luckily I had some fresh basil, which really made it good!). I think the red wine is key, too…really gave it richness. Try it & let me know if you loved it as much as I did!

JAMIE’S MINESTRONE
3 T. olive oil                      1 can kidney beans, drained
3 cloves garlic, chopped        15 oz can green beans
2 onions, chopped                2 c. baby spinach, rinsed
2 c. celery, chopped        3 zucchinis, quartered & sliced
5 carrots, sliced                  1 T. chopped fresh oregano
2 c. chicken broth                2 T. chopped fresh basil
2 c. water                          salt & pepper to taste
15 oz can fire-roasted
    diced tomatoes               1/2 c. seashell pasta
26 oz can tomato sauce       2 T. grated parmesan
1/2 c. red wine

1. In a large stock pot over med-high heat, heat olive oil & saute garlic for 2-3 min. Add onion & saute 4-5 min. Add carrots & celery and saute for 2 min.

2. Add chicken broth, water, red wine, tomatoes & tomato sauce, bring to boil, stirring frequently. Reduce heat to low and add kidney beans, green beans, spinach, zucchini, oregano, basil, salt & pepper. Simmer 40 min, the longer the better, until veggies are tender.

3. Cook pasta – spoon a few tablespoons into bowls & ladle soup over. Sprinkle Parmesan on top. Spray w/ olive oil on to & serve.

Jim left for his annual week to go skiing with his friend Greg, and I left for a weekend drive of, oh, 1500 miles! Went to Stacey’s on Friday to visit her & David & the grand-dolls, then drove to Pittsburgh on Sunday to do an engagement shoot & watch the race with my neighbors, then on Monday visited with my mom & grandmother, had lunch with a friend, spent some time with Jessica, then met my friends for dinner Monday night! Left at 6:30 am on Tuesday to drive home. I’m ready to stay home for awhile. Anyway, here are a few shots of Genevieve and ONE of Gavin, who is now not cooperating for pictures just as Genna is getting better.

Well, if there were a Whole Foods anywhere closer than an hour away I would be all over this for valentine’s day – bon bons with the perfect amount of dark chocolate shell, chocolate ice cream and cookie. AND they are 100% natural with only 60 calories per bon bon!!!

Ice Cream Chocos

Jim and I spent last weekend in Phoenix visiting some of our family. We really didn’t have much of an agenda except to relax in the sun & hang out at the pool (oh, and eat lime-flavored tortilla chips silly!). So I took the opportunity to photograph our beautiful niece Jenn and her four adorable children. Dad Andrew was away for the day, so I decided that it was a great time to focus on some "Mommy and Me" shots – lord knows that one-on-one time is very precious when there are four kids this close in age! I SO SO SO wish that I had images like this of me & my kids when they were little, but, sigh…I feel happy that I caught these for Jenn.
Here’s Shelby, the oldest at 7:

Aidan:

Holden:

And baby Quincy (she’s 1 and 1/2):

Jenn with all:

I saw this on another internet site and thought it would be very cute for those of you who like to celebrate little fun holidays like Valentine’s Day without spending a lot of moola – and even better, spending time with the kids doing something they will love and remember always. All you need is some felt & some glue to make these:

Once you have the white chair covers, you can change out the decorations:

Instructions here: Family Fun Craft Projects

Is that a word? Well it should be, because it’s how I describe these girls! Their mom had been planning on calling me for a session for them as soon as they were all done with braces, but then she realized I had moved. No problem – I had to make a trip back to PA anyway, and we were lucky enough to have some snow at the same time which ALWAYS makes for great images. Taylor & Carly were really good sports in the freezing cold (it was like 20 degrees for these) – they are true naturals in front of the camera. I love all of their images, but I’m restraining myself from posting all 50.

Couldn’t resist this…got it today! Just in case you forget.

One of the questions that photographers frequently deal with from potential customers is related to pricing: they want to know WHY prints are so expensive, since everyone knows that you can print them for $2 at Target, right? And once you have a REALLY GOOD camera, well…just how hard can it be?

I always tell everyone that a really good camera is just the tiniest bit of a start. The real work is in the post-processing. It used to be that photographers developed their own film so it would come out as they’d envisioned it – now we do it in Photoshop, an unbelievably intricate program that takes years to learn.

Here is one example of what I mean. Everyone (well, just about) knows how to convert a color image to black & white using software that came with their camera or even just selecting the b/w option when getting digital prints made. Just hit the "grayscale" button, right? Then you get this:

It looks fine at first to the untrained eye. But it lacks the correct contrast and tones – and after I’m finished with it, it looks like this:

See the difference? I sure hope you can! And the great thing is that all of my clients "get it" – they can see right away what makes a casual shot valuable beyond the cost of the paper it’s printed on. LOVE YOU GUYS!!!!