Blog Fail.

So, I'm supposed to be doing a blog a week with my lovely friend Nicole and her Mother, Marie.  I've mentioned it before, on the blog post Lil More Favorite.  Well.  I haven't been doing so well with it.  We should currently be on week 7, and I've done.... well, none of the original blog post ideas lol. 

So, today I'm going to post a Self- Portrait, which isn't really a self portrait cause my little sister took it of me, and Something Green, to replace a High Angle.
That works, right?

Self Portrait:

The purple things in my ears are ear plugs- this is from our Thanksgiving extravaganza!

Something Green: (photos courtesy Kate Weatherby, our tree shopping buddy!)

Our first real Christmas tree together, my first real tree ever!

 

Isn't it beautiful?!

I'm very much in a Christmas mood- even to where I'm drawing Christmas cards in the paint program on the computer.

 

So there's a couple pics to catch up with my blog post fail.  Hopefully (fingers crossed) I'll do a better job in the future (though not likely)!

In other news-I took some photos for a beautiful wedding this weekend- but sure to check back soon to see the lovely wedding of Mr. and Mrs. Sanborn!

Until we meet again,

Carrie :)

Home for the Holidays

 

Thanksgiving. 

I love Thanksgiving.

I love the smells. The food.  The family.  The love.

All of it.

And this Thanksgiving I got to go home and celebrate with my family and also enjoy 70 degrees of sunshiny awesomeness.
  
The week was awesome, relaxing and a chance to catch up with those I love.  We did a lot of eating and a lot of hanging out and it was a great change to our normally busy lives.  The week flew by and before we knew it it was Thanksgiving day and my Grandparents came over to celebrate with us.  We had enough food to feed a small army, but it was still delicious many meals later.

We had the works- ham, turkey, green been caserole, stuffing, sweet potato caserole, rolls, apple pie, pumpkin pie etc. It was mmm mm gooood. 

After the meal we cleaned up the kitchen sat back and relaxed before going out in the woods and partaking in an actual Thanksgiving tradition (not ours, but the settlers).  Target shooting.

*Always use extreme caution when handling any sort of fire arm- they can be extremly dangerous*

We've never gone out as a family to shoot so it was an experience all in itself and Callie-girl had never shot a weapon.  Needless to say she was stoked to be able to do so!

We had a blast finished and then finished the night with some hot cocoa.

Meet Ema.

After I got married my parents bought a Havenese puppy and she is a funny little dog!

Also, a little bundle of a cuteness :)

She is one well loved pup ;)

Mom, Dad, Chris and Callie.
We love you guys so much!! Thanks for the awesome week and your continued love and support, I couldn't ask for a better family!
Love,

Carrie and Joel

__________________________________________________________________

side note:

 

 Happy Birthday to my Daddy!!

I hope you have an awesome day!
Wish we could be there to celebrate with you.
Love you bunches!!

Lil More Favorite

A few weeks ago I was supposed to be starting a weekly blog with my friends Nicole and her Mom, Marie.... well lets just say a weekly blog is a bit of stretch for me.... seeing as how out of 3 posts I have done zero. Oops. 

Today is the day that will change, here is my week three blog (maybe one of these days I'll get around to doing week one and two) Today's blog is about "A little more favorite". I have a lot of 'little more favorites', things that are a little more favorite then other things, and things that are a lot more favorite then most things. 

 Flowers.

The other week my hubby surprised me with tulips.  I woke up on a sunny Saturday morning to a clean kitchen and a beautiful bouquet of tulips awaiting me.  Just because he loves me.

Just because flowers are a little more favorite.

Fall.

I love the colors of fall, the crisp air, the smell of woodsmoke, the holidays approaching, the closeness of family and the feeling of community.  It brings back memories of walks in the woods looking at the trees and the way they magically change colors. Also, the the fact that thanksgiving is coming up with yummy things like pumpkin and apple pie, sweet potato casserole, honey baked ham and oven roasted turkey, mmmmmm (I'm making myself hungry). 

Yes, Fall is definitely a little bit favorite.

My husband.

He's more then a little bit favorite. He's a LOT bit favorite.  I'd be lost without him, God totally knew what he was doing when he stuck Joel in my life.  I'm still astounded by the way God brought us together and the fact that we can honestly say we met in a castle in Germany (sounds more romantic then it was, but it's still cool!).  But yes, *happy sigh* he's my favoritist favorite.

And those are a few of my favorites.  Though, I have SO many more.

Be blessed!

Carrie

New Hobby

As I sit at work I have an awesome chance to work on my bible studies, each week we have a bible verse to memorize and in an attempt to remember the verses better I have started typing them up and making them look pretty. I've wanted to learn bible verses for a long time, but I keep putting it off... always finding an excuse when in reality there is no excuse. The Word of God is our strength and our shield. Slowly I am learning.... but not without God's faithfulness to remind me. Take the initiative- learn some bible verses today. A great way to memorize God's word is to repeat it out loud three times in the morning, afternoon and evening. Saying things out loud helps to cement them to your memory, and honestly, who couldn't use some good cement to help them remember something.

Here's the verses I've been working on lately- Feel free to print them and post them where you will see them.

Week 1:

Week 2:


Week 3:
Hope they help inspire YOU to learn these verses with me!

The VanderHeiden kids

Some of you may remember the senior shoot I did for the adorable Brenna back in June, (you can view that shoot HERE!) well this time I had a chance to photograph all the VanderHeiden kids as a surprise present for their parents anniversary!  How cute is that?!  We did some planning and managed to sneak out for a couple hours to snap some pictures of this awesome family.

Mom & Dad you guys have done an awesome job raising these children!! I have been blessed to get to know them and to see the passion they have for God shine through their lives.  Happy (very late at this point) Anniversary and I wish you many more!

Enjoy!

 

Love, 

Carrie

Rhubarb Pie

Until a couple years ago I had never had rhubarb, and until last night I have never tried to do anything with rhubarb. I wasn't quite sure I ever wanted to experiment with the celery like, poisonous leaf, sour plant either.  However last night I decided to be brave. I knew of only one thing to do with Rhubarb..... and that thing was:

Pie.

Rhubarb Pie.

"I can do this" I thought to myself, though I have made many pies before I have never made a pie crust (Pillsbury by the way, makes awesome pie crusts- and are conveniently stored in the refrigerator section of the grocery store).

Since this was a night for adventure I decided I would make the pie crust too.  Amazingly enough the whole thing turned out quite well and since I'm trying to blog more lately I decided I would take photographs to document the experience, and if your feeling bold, here's how to make a delicious rhubarb pie.

How to make Pie Crust:

Ingredients: (for a single pie crust)

                                                             1 1/2 cup flour

                                                             1/2 cup shortening

                                                             1teaspon salt

                                                             1/2 cup ice cold water



 Mix the flour, salt and shortening together until it is nice and crumbly, you want it to sorta look like you have small flour covered peas in your mix, then add the ice water gradually until moist enough so that it sticks together (pour in slowly as you may not need the entire 1/2 cup).

Next comes the pie!

How to make Rhubarb pie

Ingredients:

                                                            4 cups chopped Rhubarb

                                                            1 1/3 cup of sugar

                                                            6 tablespoons flour

                                                            Some butter to dot the top

                                                            Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.

Mix the flour and sugar together and pour 1/4 of the mixture in the bottom of the pie (as shown below).  This is important because the rhubarb itself has a lot of water in it so the sugar as it cooks on the bottom caramelizes and helps the crust become crispy and not soggy (who wants a soggy pie crust?)

Pour the chopped rhubarb on top of the sugar then dump the rest of the sugar mix on top- like so...

Doing it this way actually causes the sugar to soak into the rhubarb creating a consistent sweet and sour flavor throughout the whole pie.

Dot it with butter then cover

Cover it, seal your crust and slice some vents on the top.

Cook for 15 minutes at 450, then turn the oven down to 350 and continue cooking 40-45 minutes .

And then Tada! A beautiful golden brown pie, let cool (so it's not all runny inside), and enjoy!!

Love,

Carrie

 

Been a long long time...

It's been awhile.... too long actually. To any one that even occasionally looks at my blog, I apologize for the many months of absence. Honestly I'm not sure why I haven't blogged in many months, have I been busy? Yes, but not uncommonly so, and not enough to excuse my lack of writing a few simple paragraphs and adding pictures to update people on what I'm doing in my life. So here I am... and for sake of time, I am not going to post a picture and paragraph on every month missed between my last blog post and this one, but instead show you some pictures of a lovely lady who I recently got to photograph.

Meet Brenna.

I first met Brenna back in October when Joel and I started helping (or more like hanging out at) a local youth group called Teens for Christ (TFC). When I first met Brenna I thought she was quiet and very sweet, and while she is still very sweet I'm discovering the not so quiet side of this gorgeous lady. She is super outgoing, willing to try new things, loves her family and friends deeply and is a devoted daughter of the King. I love watching the way she soaks up the bible and the way she truly walks with Christ. She is a wonderful young lady, and I am so blessed to know her. Brenna graduated from high school last year, but we got together a few weeks ago to shoot some "belated" senior portraits. We had a great time, and actually managed to choose a photo date that was sunny (rare in spring of Washington I'm discovering). So, without further adieu, here she is! Enjoy!

Lake Curlew

We recently celebrated Memorial Day weekend, and with that we took a family trip to Lake Curlew in Republic WA. Getting there was a journey in itself....

 Joel's Aunt and Uncle opened up their lake house for a big family gathering (about 18 people and 5 golden retrievers).  We had a a great time, the weather forecast was bleak, but thankfully God gave us gorgeous weather (a sunny 70 degrees).



The Larson Clan decided to have a fishing derby, er, darby (since you have to have a license from the state to actually have a fishing derby.... we improvised).  Two days to catch the biggest fish. There was a list in the living room where we could include our "big catch".  Thing is, I have never gone fishing, didn't really have that much of an opportunity while I was little, and as much as I wanted to believe it would, dangling a string in the water with no hook was not going to catch me a fish.  Johannes was kind enough to show me how to cast a line and bait a hook and with that I was off! Well, sort of, many failed attempts at casting lines later, I was off.





Maybe it's because I was more determined to catch fish then the others, or maybe it was all just beginners luck, either way I managed to catch 7 fish that weekend, my longest one a grand total of 16 5/8"  giving me second place (next to Zac's 17 1/2" whopper).  There is a picture of me holding one of my fish out there somewhere.... I'll track it down eventually...

And to be completely honest, I can't wait to go fishing again! (Though I'll continue to leave the cleaning of the fish up to Joel.....)

Love,
Carrie

Just because...

Just because it's been awhile since I posted a picture of "Us" here is one of me and my hubby on our patio.

Love, Me