She turned on the sass. For some reason she seemed so much older to me. I had such a hard time picking her picture for her cards to pass out to her classmates. This one isn’t “the one” for the card, but I love it so.

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.

Here we are, right after we met for the very first time.

She is headstrong, strong willed, opinionated, knows how to push my buttons. But above everything else, she is beautiful inside and outside and comes to my rescue all the time. She and I have started special cooking projects together. Being her mom has opened up my world to learn new things everyday and to see things from a child’s perspective. It is her that made me fall in love with children’s photography and the emotions that are involved with capturing someone as they grow, literally, every single day.

Ryenne,

You are my sunshine

My beautiful sunshine,

You make me happy

When skies are grey

You’ll never know Dear

How much Mommy loves you,

Please don’t ever take my sunshine away…

Happy Fourth Birthday – to my amazing baby girl!

I just love how round he is! Check out those thighs… and those knuckle dimples…

Booty dimple. {love!} All images copyright Austin Professional Baby Photographer, Mariah Milan

Photography by Mariah Milan, LLC

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…

Makenzi Laine came and did my makeup (LOVE HER!) and we put the kids in the car and went down to the field. I metered the light and let my husband have at it! Here’s what we came up with together and I am thrilled and so happy. I haven’t felt that pretty in a long time. Oh yes… and Ryenne was my creative art director here!!

I wake up to sweet things everyday. We started a little renovation yesterday and we had to move things around in the living room. Ryenne discovered “Peek-A-Boo”. This stuffed doggy was my own as a girl. He grew up with me. I love him… even still. I had him in a hutch overlooking the room where I knew he’d be safe.

Ryenne swore she’d take care of him and asked to sleep with him last night. And then this morning…. this is how they laid on the couch. She is perfect. The light was perfect. Off I went grabbing the camera as quickly as I could.

Now she’s the perfect age for me to pass “Peeks” on to her. Can’t help but smile…

Just had to share a picture of my Hippie little girl dressed up for Halloween! This was the first year she really “got it” and was so excited. Love her to pieces. Hope all of you guys had a wonderful weekend!!

My princess, Ryenne. I am so proud of her on the balance beam. So much more graceful than her Mommy.

Little man, Kai. Wondering how he’s going to get up into that Playscape!

Goldfish snacks are a little boy’s very good friend.

Part of being three years old is experiencing all of Earth’s wonderful things. She was collecting special pebbles.

And where’s the train, you ask? Well we did ride it. But they were both cold so I was holding them both, snuggling, and watching the beautiful view as the park whirled by. So I’ll just commit that one to memory and save the camera for another time.

By the way, Kai’s shirt is from the uber talented Monica Sweet of SuperSweetCreations!