He is the epitome of thoughtful, lovey, and sweet. He is a Mama’s Boy through and through. His imagination runs wild. His thoughtful comments blow me away all the time.Just the other day he walked up to me and said, “Mama, you’re my beautiful and so is my Ry Ry. I love you.”

 He is the tiniest of my babies. He is still so small that he can climb into my lap and fold himself up into a snuggly little ball. When I go to sleep at night he’s curled up on his tummy like a newborn with his legs tucked under him. But don’t ever say he’s small because he’ll yell, “No I’m not! I’m a big boy!”

 Kai is a person who loves life. And he’s a fighter. I know in my soul that this child will grow to be an incredible person. I love having him as my son. I am so thoroughly honored to be his mom.

 Happy 3rd Birthday Kai Boy!!! Love you to infinity and beyond….

My baby girl is five today. Five is big. Five is no longer a baby. Five is Adventure, Curiosity, Learning, Growing, Emotions, Understanding.

At five she is such a little lady. She asks so many questions and soaks up all the answers that I can provide her. She’s helping me learn too – for when I don’t know the answer to her questions we go find out together. She’s so curious about the world, about saving and preserving our planet.

She made me a mom. She changed my life – forever. She is a beacon of light for me. Sometimes when I’m sad she comforts and consoles me in such a loving manner. She is strong, she is courageous, she is simply an amazing person. I love being her mom.

Happy 5th Birthday my amazing Ryenne Alicia Grace Waiwaipuhia Dagupion!

While I’m busy editing away, enjoy one of my favorite things – the Golden Gate Bridge on a beautiful, clear San Francisco Day. It was absolutely beautiful!

On my personal Facebook page and my personal blog I have had many friends and clients ask me how to make their Christmas tree look magical in the background of their photos. I’m happy to share a tutorial with you today.

The effect is called bokeh. To do this effect you’ll need an slr camera. My living room is not super well lit, but I do have some overhead can lights. I turned those on.

Set your camera to manual mode, and put your shutter to about 1/100 of a second (depending how dark the room is, you may adjust to 1/80 or even 1/60, but keep in mind the slower you go, the more steady you need to be!)

Set your aperture wide open. I was using my 50mm 1.4 prime lens, but I set it to 2.0.

Depending again on how dark your room is, set your ISO. Mine was at 800.

(does all this jargon sound crazy to you? email me and I’ll be happy to help you!)

Put your subject far away from your tree. Focus, and take the picture. If you’re finding that it’s still too dark, I would adjust your ISO first and then your shutter speed if necessary. The further away your subject is from the tree, the larger the round lights will appear.

They even look awesome in black and white!

(thank you to my sweet Kai Boy for putting up with me and the camera in his face today)

And if that wasn’t enough of a lesson, I have a recipe coming at’cha! We made homemade apple sauce today. This is a great project to get the kids involved – they have so much fun!

You’ll need:

Apples

Cinnamon

Agave or Maple Syrup

Crock Pot

(descriptions are corresponding with image #’s)

1) make sure you sniff the cinnamon (Ry got cinnamon on the tip of her nose. It was so cute!)

2) Don’t do this – Kai decided he wanted to lick the apples before I peeled them.

3) Have each child choose their apples

4) Peel the apple (mom or dad need to do this part)

5) chop apples coarsely (another job for mom and dad)

6) Have the Littles put their apples into the crock pot

7) #7 is strangely missing (maybe you could put on music for this step!)

Don’t forget to eat some apples

9) And double check to make sure they’re tasty

10) Don’t put your peels down the disposal (I have learned this the hard way in the past!)

11) Have each Little sprinkle cinnamon

12) Add some maple or agave syrup (not too much… just a little bit)

13) turn your crock pot on low and enjoy the beautiful smell in your home! Cook down to your preferred consistency and serve by itself, with yogurt, on toast, on pancakes, ect.

But then Ryenne came and put her head right next to me on my bed, “Mama, I’m not going to tell you that there are cards waiting for you downstairs.” – I opened my eyes – “and Mama I’m not going to tell you that the purple one is from me.” – excitement in her eyes – how could I say no? I got up.

I had sweet cards from my babies. Peter says a gift is on it’s way…

Her in-laws live on a gorgeous creek in Hill Country. They are wanting to simplify and sell their home in the spring – 5 acres can be quite a bit to take care of! But they fell in love with the home’s creekside location and my friend asked me if I could capture it for them.

I’m not usually a landscape photographer, but when I arrived, I could see why it was instant love when they saw this creek. It is such a special place. The late afternoon light lit the water like an aquamarine and raced along. I hear this spot is perfect in the summertime. There was even a family wedding here years ago. Wish I had been here for that!

Enjoy these images of beautiful Texas Hill Country… and Happy Holidays to you and yours!

I’ll start with a few Finao albums. These are my lovely’s…. I’ll be keeping one in house for showing everyone in person, and the others are going out to a client and to a birth center for display. These come in so many amazing covers. Seriously… hard to pick. I do have full swatches to show off. These books shown are 20 pages.

Next we move on to the Couture Books. These are completely  hand made (here in the US). Both of these are wedding albums, but they make amazing displays of portraits with quotes, song lyrics, ect. This first is a studio sample of the French-Paris line. It comes with a vellum overlay, but sadly my children have gotten to it. So this is the woven cover underneath the vellum.

And finally is the Couture NYC book. It comes with a slipcase and a full image wrap cover. This is going out to El Paso today for Nasla & Amador.

Each of the Couture books shown have 100 pages. This give me lots of room for image display

Thanks for letting me share!!!