Tristan Quigley Designs

A way long time ago I went to an outdoor even in our little community in San Elijo. Tristan Quigley had a booth set up with beautiful pictures of her kids that immediately drew me to her. I took her card and tucked it away. Back in November, I contacted Tristan and we immediately connected. Tristan ended up shooting our beautiful family pictures shortly after. I cannot say enough great things about Tristan! Being a mom herself, she knows how to work with the kids and has patience. Drew gave her a run for her money that day, I assure you!

Check out Tristan's website and here was her blog post of our session. Tristan is preggers with her third little girl! I would contact her soon to book a session before she pops or tuck her info away for your next family photo!

DOMINO's back!

Hi friends! I have to say, it was a sad, sad day a few years ago when Domino Magazine made the announcement that they would stop publishing their magazine. That was one of those magazines that I got giddy looking forward to it arriving in my mailbox every month. I know I am not the only one. Before there was ever Pinterest, I would tear out pages and pages of Domino and safe in my "inspiration" file folders (see a few examples below). Yes, I have their book, but I still missed the magazine. Matchbook (p.s. it's fab) the online magazine, is the closest thing I have gotten to my Domino fix since.

Many of you know that I took huge inspiration for Drew's nursery from a room I once saw in Domino. This was long before I was ever pregnant with Micah. Here is the actual page:

I had been a "fan" of Domino on Facebook, and one day recently I was checking FB, and I saw their post that they would be coming out with a special edition issue. I was SO excited. Here is their Facebook page and if you're on Twitter, their handle is @DominoMag. I found mine on Saturday at Target.

I highly recommend you grab one for yourself, if only just for the resources in the back! It gives great suggestions on some easy changes for big impact updates for your home. I was most excited to see they are planning a September issue as well! Yippee! Let me know if you got your Domino fix too!

Family Photo Books

How much do you love Pinterest? I recently came across a "pin" that I knew I would do. I often pin all these ideas in my "DIY projects" board, just to tuck that idea away for the future. When I saw this one, I knew I would do it!

I have often wondered when I would start organizing all the 12,000+ pictures I have in our iPhoto. A big chunk of those pictures were taken this last year and since we had Micah. I came across this pin from A Thousand Words blogger, where you can check out her full post here. Inspiration overload! I immediately went to Blurb.com. Since my M-F job is in the Publishing industry, I was really eager to check it out. I have used other book sites through Costco and Snapfish, but Blurb blows those away, in my opinion.

So, off I went. Every spare minute for a couple weeks I meticulously organized iPhoto into folders by year and added every picture that I liked in there. Those of you who have kids know that you get lots of good ones, but you can't frame all of them. This is a perfect solution.

I whipped out 3 books and even found a 20% off coupon code online! Woohoo! I decided to buy the iPhone/iPad version of our books too. Here are some pages...



I chose the 8x10 hardcover books. They really came out great! I started doing a Christmas letter with our cards two years ago, which summarizes our year, so I decided to put that in the introduction of each book. These are going to be a great addition to our wedding and engagement albums. Blurb.com also does Instagram albums, so once I get some more pictures, I'll probably do that too!

Easter festivities

We sure had a busy few days surrounding Easter! First up, on Saturday morning, we took the kids to the floral trade center in Carlsbad to get some blooms for our Easter table. Drew was having so much fun...I'm looking forward to the days we do flowers and weddings together!

Here we are planting jelly beans in the backyard for the Easter Bunny (thanks Pinterest for the great idea)!Our first time dying Easter eggs. Micah had so much fun....most of the eggs are green, which is his favorite color.
On Easter morning, we went to a sunrise service, bright and early at Ponto Beach. This is our 3rd year doing this...unfortunately I left my camera and phone in the car, so no picks. So bummed about that! We came home to see the jelly beans had grown into lollipops over night!

Next up were their Easter baskets. Aren't those bunnies adorable? Thanks to my good friend Amanda, she did these cuties just for Micah and Drew.

Drewey got a new "Yo", a.k.a. a cell phone (hello = yo). Micah got a Nerf gun with darts (what was I thinking?) and I couldn't get him to hold still for a picture the rest of the day....no joke.

Next up were the eggs hidden in their rooms. Three eggs each that they had to find. This was something my mom used to do for us.

Micah's first Cadburry egg. He didn't like it, so I volunteered to finish it for him. Yum.

A little game of peek-a-boo with the curtains!

Here is our dining table...all ready for guests! I wrote on the eggs that we dyed the day before with a Sharpie is the seating "cards".

Drewey was ready to go at the kids table.

I made popcorn with melted chocolate and sprinkles....thanks again Pinterest!

Took Drew a little bit of time to adjust to all the people in our house!

Here is the good stuff....dessert! I made (from scratch) the french silk pie and an apple pie cake, with homemade caramel and vanilla ice cream. Soooo yummy!

My parents surprised the kids with some presents. Micah got an airplane toy and Drew got Perchance, an owl BlaBla doll. Here she is taking him for a stroll in her stroller later that evening!We had such a wonderful Easter. I hope you had a great one too!

Easter with Instagram

I hope everyone had a lovely Easter! I have been soooo swamped with my M-F job and the kiddos have been keeping us plenty busy, so sorry for the lack of posts lately! I wanted to share a few Instagram pictures from our Easter. More to come soon!