“I can’t believe she chose ME.”

That quote from the movie “The Wedding Planner” kept playing over and over in my head.

As I walked through their gorgeous new home and Lexi pointed out how she decorated each of the rooms, I was not jealous as I would have expected, but awe-struck.  I mean, this girl has an eye for STYLE.  It is BEAUTIFUL.  I am going through this too, the attempt to decorate rooms and make it both functional and beautiful, so I know that it is no easy feat.  But she does it.  Oh BOY, does she do it!  She puts things together from Target and Walmart and other stores and makes a room look like it is out of a magazine.  But not in a “don’t touch anything in the room” kind of way.  Just in the most perfect, beautiful, “what an amazing space this is!”  kind of way.

Then she revealed that her pre-motherhood job was designing clothes.  OH.  THAT MAKES SENSE.  Yep, she has GOT THE EYE for beautiful things, for style, and for making a room or a piece of cloth come to life.

And that is when I heard the quote.  ”I can’t believe she chose ME.”  I am sitting here in the most marvelous home ever, and it hits me!  I mean, what a TOTAL and UTTER compliment that she actually likes what I create!  WOW.  I am floored.  Awe-struck.  Most definitely the warm fuzzy all over, this is the coolest feeling in the world, kind of feeling.

Then we got to talking about motherhood, life, husbands,kids, gardening, chicken coops, and everything under the sun.  And I remembered that she is just a girl who is real and down to earth and simply just amazing to hang out with.  In fact, I am pretty sure I could have hung out with Tim and Lexi and the kids all day….(I almost did!  Thanks to you for both the lunch!)  They are incredible.  Stylish. Hospitable. Easy to be with.  And yes, photogenic.

(I know what you are thinking, and yes it is true, I am just lucky enough to have the worlds’ best people as my clients!)

Introducing Nolan

And the new family of four…

I am a total fan of the “non traditional” family portrait.  How often do we sit around posing and looking stiff.  These are my favorite kind of portraits:

Adella loves her new baby brother

My secret for keeping newborns asleep (this is harder than you think) is a hair blow dryer. It provides white noise and keeps the room nice a warm (good for a naked newborn)…and on the rare occasion it provides hair styling for the nearby toddler. This picture just makes me laugh out loud:

Most women are shy to let me do capture them post pregnancy (which I totally GET…I have been there!), but I am SO glad that Lexi let me capture a couple of her and Nolan. I can’t think of a more stunning pair:

Lexi knows how to work it. WORK IT GIRL.

And Nolan knew how to work it on his own too. I am also going to point out here for all the photographer nerds, below are some of my first shots with my new lens, the 50mm 1.4. I am IN LOVE with this lens! Lexi and Tim actually had a couple firsts for me on this shoot….I also used a Love Sac for posing this little guy for the first time too. I am SO thankful for clients like this who let me try out new skills on their tiny little guy. I am pretty excited with how these turned out! I think the new lens and the new Love Sac posing are keepers! Now I just some more of my clients to have babies. Yep, I am talking about YOU.

Giving me all sorts of fun faces this little guy was!

And, just for kicks, a little ear.

This last shot got me all excited!! I have actually had a few clients that are fire fighters, but this is the first time I got to photograph the fire fighter gear (and it is so cool, no?!) Maybe baby Nolan will be a fire fighter one day like his daddy:

Tim and Lexi, thanks for your INCREDIBLE hospitality and letting me invade your life after it has just been rocked by the entrance of a brand spankin’ new baby.  Thank you for the basket of home-grown and SO yummy veggies (yes, I took a picture…that will have to be featured in another post!)  Thank you for feeding me and moving around all your furniture so we could get the perfect light. And thank you for choosing Sundin Photography! You all are simply divine.

I don’t really recall when.  Does that make this a bad story?  Seems like I should have details, exact memory, of the first time I tried passion fruit.  The only thing I am certain of is that I tried it with Daniel.  Fruit or juice?  Which did I try first?  No idea.  Like I said, this may not be a good story.  Oh well.

I had never had a passion fruit before I knew Daniel.  I do remember having passion fruit sorbet when we went to Hawaii together though.  OOOHhHhhh BABY!  That was TO. DIE. FOR.  Then we went on a search to find it and stumbled across passion fruit concentrate at 99 Ranch Market (a hard core, well, hard core for this white girl anyway, Asian food store) and Daniel and I were SO excited!  Passion fruit sorbet, ice tea, cocktails, smoothies, juice, you name it, we made it.

Somewhere along the way of our passion fruit journey, Daniel’s angel mom started growing passion fruit vines.  What a woman. So now we get to partake in her yearly crop of passion fruit (and of course hope to grow our own vine someday too!)  If you have never seen it, it is a pretty ugly fruit.  And very labor intensive to process into juice.  But one you get that sweet, wonderful juice, it all becomes worth it.

In refection of the end of summer that is upon us, and passion fruit season, today’s Food Friday is to honor, and to show you all about passion fruit juice!

The process goes something like this: Pick fruit (or commandeer from your wonderful mother in law).  Cut, and then scoop out insides, that have the consistency of snot but tastes so much better (not that I would know).  Blend, seeds and all.  Strain.  Get frothy, tart, concentrated juice.  Add to water, put in cup, and sip the day away. Smile.

Today’s Feature:  Homemade Passion Fruit Juice