Danni and I started planning this workshop in February and had a location picked out in March, but then life happened and we didn’t have it until July! Thankfully, we had 15 wonderful ladies be brave enough to test out our first workshop ever and we think it went pretty well. We are so thankful for their emails and evaluations and now know what we did well and what to do better for next time. We are so excited to have another soon!

Our featured photographer who was sharing the know-how part of the workshop was Jennifer Young from I ART U. It is great to have someone who knows her camera, has great pictures, but is also very familiar with the blogging world. She was the perfect fit for Danni and me!

I think Danni and I were a ball of nerves, but super excited and couldn’t wait to get the show on the road. We had one heavy crafting day and about 300 emails going back and forth between the two of us. It was pretty crazy for a couple of weeks; plus throw in my rascally 3 girls and her insane craft shows, and you just have two crazy ladies running around with our heads cut off. Our husbands are patient men (Thanks Ben and Nick!).

The workshop was held at the beautiful George Key Ranch and ran from mid-morning to mid-afternoon. Danni and I love making things looks pretty, hence our email welikeitpretty(at)gmail(dot)com, so we wanted everything to be absolutely perfect for all our guests! I hope they enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed planning and making everything perfect for them.

At the welcome table, we had handmade crepe paper flower pins for name tags, moleskine notebooks with a cute little camera stamp, pens, and a little program for the day.

For the “talk” of the day, the ladies sat on vintage folding chairs and we hung up a little backdrop on the trees.

After the “talking” portion, everyone had an opportunity to practice what they learned. There were various lighting conditions with the bright sun and shading for the trees that you definitely got to practice adjusting for the varying brightness.

We had a pretty table set up with all the lunch goodies. The sandwiches were from Rialto Cafe, cake pops from local baker Pop Culture Desserts, and macarons flown in from Salt City Patisserie, baked chips and drinks. We made fabric wraps to wrap the sandwiches and chips together; it was color coordinated depending on the type of sandwich they ordered. I must say, I loved both the cake pops and the macarons so much! But I am a dessert girl, so it ain’t hard to please me in that area. We laid picnic blankets out for everyone to sit and everyone was chatting up a storm and usually it involved blogging. What more do you expect?!

After lunch, we had two stations set up with boxes full of props. We separated everyone into a Nikon or Canon group and they went at it styling their little table. Both groups did great and were so natural at it that I want them to come over and decorate my house now! After they styled their areas, everyone practice snapping away at those and just continued with the area surrounding them.

Danni and I could have not done this day without these two ladies… RJ and Linda. They are simply the best in letting us boss them around and doing everything with such a cheerful heart! We love you guys!!!

The workshop ended with some questions and Danni and me sharing our tips for taking good pictures. We don’t claim to be pros, but we just shared the little things we do know and use for our own pictures.

Of course, we couldn’t end the day without without raffling off some pretty cool camera goods. We had 4 big raffles: This Lisa Leonard necklace, a polaroid camera, a Ketti Handbags camera bag, and this bag from JoTotes. Seriously, such good prizes. If that ain’t enough, anyone who didn’t win a “big” raffle prize went home with an iMo camera strap. On top of that, we had a goody box for every single person to take home. There was so much goodness in those boxes that those boxes (and the raffle goods) will get its own post, just so we can outline each little goody. Seriously.

The best part of the day was getting to spend time with all of the lovely ladies. Making new friends is always a good thing. Everyone was so kind and sweet and it was seeing their excitement that makes us want to do this all over again!

Bloggers in attendance were: Cinthya from Lo Fidelity Love, Tiffany from See the Skyline, Katie from A Day with Kate, Kira from Her New Leaf, Bri from Hello I am Bri, Becky from Little Wickies, and Vivien from The Eclectic Life. If you check out these blogs you will also see their views and thoughts of the workshop. Sorry if I missed anyone, but just leave me the link in the comments and I will correct it.

And if the picture overload wasn’t enough, well, here is a little video of our day (if you read in google reader, the video won’t come up)…

Above photos courtesy of Jen and Danni. And a huge thank you to Salt City Patisserie & Pop Culture Desserts for sharing with us their delicious sweets!

Danni and I started planning this workshop in February and had a location picked out in March, but then life happened and we didn’t have it until July! Thankfully, we had 15 wonderful ladies be brave enough to test out our first workshop ever and I must say we think it went pretty darn well. We are so thankful for their emails and evaluations and now know what we did well and what to do better for next time. We are so excited to have another soon!

Our featured photographer who was sharing the know-how part of the workshop was Jennifer Young from I ART U. It is great to have someone who knows her camera, has great pictures, but it also very familiar with the blogging world. She was the perfect fit for Danni and me! And more than cause she is a little on the shorter side like us…

I think Danni and I were a ball of nerves, but super excited and couldn’t wait to get the show on the road. We had one heavy crafting day and about 300 emails going back and forth between the two of us. It was pretty crazy for a couple of weeks, plus throw in my rascally 3 girls and her insane craft shows, and you just have two crazy ladies running around with our heads cut off. Our husbands are patient men (Thanks Ben and Nick!).

The workshop was held at the beautiful George Key Ranch and ran from mid-morning to mid-afternoon. Danni and I love making things looks pretty, hence our email welikeitpretty(at)gmail(dot)com, so we wanted everything to be absolutely perfect for all our guests! I hope they enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed planning and making everything perfect for them.

At the welcome table, we had handmade crepe paper flower pins for name tags, moleskine notebooks with a cute little camera stamp, pens, and a little program for the day.

For the “talk” of the day, the ladies sat on vintage folding chairs and we hung up a little backdrop on the trees. Can you believe I have 15 chairs I could lug out of my house? My collection is out of control.

After the “talking” portion, everyone had an opportunity to practice what they learned. There were various lighting conditions with the bright sun and shading for the trees that you definitely got to practice adjusting for the varying brightness.

We had a pretty table set up with all the lunch goodies. The sandwiches were from Rialto Cafe, Izzes for drinks, baked chips, cake pops from this lovely shop, and macarons from this lovely shop. We made fabric wraps to wrap the sandwiches and chips together and it was color coordinated depending on the type of sandwich they ordered. It was getting a bit hot for the dessert, so after everyone snap some pictures we moved them to the picnic blankets where they could cool off and get devoured. I must say, I loved both the cake pops and the macarons so much! But I am a dessert girl, so it ain’t hard to please me in that area. We laid picnic blankets out for everyone to sit and everyone was chatting up a storm and usually it involved blogging. What more do you expect?!

The streamers hanging are white crepe paper rolls that were water colored dyed. I will have to do another post just for that, but I really like how they turned out and can’t wait to do it again!

After lunch, we had two stations set up with boxes full of props. We separated everyone into a Nikon or Canon group and they went at it styling their little table. Both groups did great and were so natural at it that I want them to come over and decorate my house now. After they styled their areas, everyone practice snapping away at those and just continued with the area surrounding them.

Danni and I could have not done this day without these two ladies… RJ and Linda. They are simply the best in letting us boss them around and doing everything with such a cheerful heart! We love you guys!!!

The workshop ended with some questions and Danni and me sharing our tips for taking good pictures. We don’t claim to be pros, but we just shared the little things we do know and use for our own pictures.

Of course, we couldn’t end the day without without raffling off some pretty cool camera goods. We had 4 big raffles: This Lisa Leonard necklace, a polaroid camera, a Ketti Handbags camera bag, and this bag from JoTotes. Seriously, such good prizes. If that ain’t enough, anyone who didn’t win a “big” raffle prize went home with an iMo camera strap. On top of that, we had a goody box for every single person to take home. There was so much goodness in those boxes that those boxes will get its own post, just so we can outline each little goody. Seriously.

The best part of the day was getting to spend time with all of the lovely ladies. Making new friends is always a good thing. Everyone was so kind and sweet and it was seeing their excitement that makes us want to do this all over again!

Last week I had a free morning without the girls, so my friends and I went out hitting some local thrifts. I think we all came away with a little something and I was totally jazzed about all my finds. I found a cool globe (my collection has grown to 18!), some vintage shoes, little metal frames, child wading boots, and a few other goodies. My favorites were the vintage child oxfords, which are so darn adorable, and the flower crocheted afghan, which I have been coveting since Rachel found one awhile back. I seriously felt like I hit the jackpot that day, probably kinda how Rachel and Heather feel every time they go thrifting, cause seriously, those ladies have such good luck!

I totally love good hunting days! Now I am itching to go the flea market, especially since a vendor has something that I am waiting to pick up, but I have to be patient as I have a few more weeks until that comes around.

I have noticed I am not really in nesting mode. I was frantically cleaning my house a few months ago and feeling the pressure to get everything ready, but not so much these days. Maybe it is cause my focus these days is at least to keep my head above water. Maybe nesting will hit me again soon because I really want to get motivated to clean my house. We have got a baby to prepare for!

While I was occupied getting ready for the wedding and Ben was done with his drop off duties for the event, he took little Soulie on a date (the big girls were with their grandparents). They headed off to the flea market and visited a community garden together. It was a hot, hot day, but these pictures tell me they had a very good time.

I just a few short weeks our baby Soul will no longer seem like such a baby. It will be so strange!

Not only did we do a staycation to celebrate our Six-nniversary, but we did a homecation! We dropped the girls off at my parents’ Friday night, went a quick little dinner date, did some grocery (had to do extra on Saturday morning too) then headed home.

It was super duper nice to have peace and quiet in the house, wake up late (9am is late for us), go to the grocery together, cook together (okay, Ben cooked and I watched and chatted), have romantic dinners by the candlelight, watch movies, not change any diapers, and just do a lot of loungin’ and lovin’ all weekend long. We weren’t in the mood to be out and about. We spend so much time making our house a home, working to pay for our house and getting caught up in the busyness of life that we never just get to really enjoy our home and relax in it. The weekend was exactly what we wanted and needed. I think I am about ready for another homecation!

On Saturday night, the menu included Brown Rice Paella (substituted soyrizo for chorizo) and rice pudding for dessert. The paella was amazing, but my rice pudding… um, not so much. We even got a paella pan and Ben got fancy cooking it outside on the grill (thanks to a crash course from Alton Brown). We set up a little romantic spot outside for us and enjoyed the food, each other, and being under a canopy of twinkle lights.

Sunday night’s menu was Chicken Tikka Masala (substituted greek yogurt for whole milk yogurt and heavy cream) on basmati rice accompanied with some fresh Mango Lassi. My dessert this night turned out much better than the rice pudding! The recipe was pretty good, but it did have a bit of a “canned tomatoey taste”. We will be trying another recipe in the future.

We totally loved being able to enjoy our home, kitchen, and our backyard. The best part was just being together. We are able to have 6 years under our belt only by God’s amazing grace. There is nothing special about us that we are able to sustain a happy marriage, the only reason we are able is because of Christ. When we celebrate our marriage, we are celebrating Christ and the covenant we are in with Him and with each other.

The girls came home late Sunday night and we continued our celebrating with them by taking them to the beach the next day and we ended the night grabbing some yogurt at our favorite place around the corner.

It was an utterly perfect and completely chill weekend. We definitely need to have more of these!

And in case you missed our slice of life videos, I made a couple for our homecation. I couldn’t find my Zumi so these were made using Ben’s iphone and the iSupr8 app. It is pretty cool, but the developing is kind of a pain. I will be definitely looking for a much more quick filming friendly app.

Every time we go on a trip, we normally have a special playlist to help us mark that time, even though we didn’t go anywhere, we still had one, so all weekend long we listened to Me & Mr. Cassidy. Love them! Hope you enjoy our videos…

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