Gobble, Gobble....

This was my Thanksgiving turkey I made this year. I was VERY happy with how it turned out. I cannot take credit as I got the recipe off Martha Stewart! I stuffed it with homemade cornbread sausage stuffing and smothered the outside of it with butter. Then I took a bottle of white cooking wine and 3 sticks of butter and melted that down on the stove. I then took 4 pieces of cheesecloth and soaked it in the butter,wine mixture and covered the turkey with it. I cooked the turkey at 450 degrees for 30 minutes then lowered the temperature to 350 degrees and cooked until done and basted about every 30-45 minutes. (Total cooking time was 3 1/2 hours) I then removed the cheesecloth and found that beautiful golden brown skin underneath. It tasted amazing and wasn't dry at all! I'm definitely going to be cooking my turkeys this way for a long time to come.
I also made an awesome gravy that I received off Martha Stewart's website. If you are interested in the recipe, email me and I'll send it to you. It was the BEST gravy I have EVER made!

Hope your Thanksgiving was a blessed one!

Pictures To Come Soon!

Hey Everyone!
Sorry for the absence, I've been super busy with Thanksgiving, Black Friday shopping and now I'm visiting family for the weekend. I'll be posting some things tonight and get ready for a lot of pictures!

Hope you all have a great day!

And *This* Is Why We Call Him "The Joker"

VOTE: Favorite Christmas Songs!!!

So what do you like to listen for music at Christmas time? Tell me your favorites and I will add them to my Christmas Playlist which will be up and running the day after Thanksgiving!


Today I'm doing the kids Christmas Photos! Yeah! I hope to get some good ones of them.

And no, I didn't take the picture of the cat. I thought it was cute with the music notes and all :-)

First Snow!!

Just a little sprinkle, but it's really pretty. The kids were playing in it at 8:30 this morning. I was not quite up to taking pictures at that time. I'm really NOT a morning person. :-)

Winterizing

A cheap investment but boy does it help keep the heat in! I am so thankful to have a husband who is a do-it-yourself- kind of guy! And I love that he involves the kids too. Here you can see "joker" is happy to assist Daddy!

Not Just Ribbons!

Today I received a letter in the mail from the library. Enclosed was my "Grand Prize" of $20!!! I didn't know they were handing out anything more than ribbons. I have never been so happy to see $20 in my life!
And guess what I did with it? Well, what ANY good mommy would do...
I bought WALL-E for my kids.

Elf Yourself!

Oh my goodness this is so fun!. Thanks Hannah for reminding me of this really fun Christmas video. I have spent WAY too much time on it today and now won't get all of my "to do" list done, but it was worth the laugh! Send me your video if you choose to do one!

Have a great day!

Susen Photography

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Guess What? I won! I Won!!

I am so thrilled! I mean, it's nothing fancy and I only got a ribbon but BOTH my photos won! The B&W won 2nd place and my color won 1st I think OVERALL! This was my first photo contest so I'm pretty pumped that I won at all.

Thank you SO MUCH to all who voted on what pictures I should enter. Looks like you all have great taste!

Now can I classify myself as "Award-Winning Photographer"? :-) ( I'm kidding...)

I "thick" We Need To Work On Spelling!!!

A card Sassy Pants made for Monkey. To her defense, "think" is a sight word. But I got a good chuckle out of it.

TAGGED!!!

Ok- I've been "tagged" by my friend Bethany. These are usually fun so I'm going to do it! I will try to be as weird and random as I can be, which shouldn't be too difficult since I am kinda of a weirdo :-)

1. As a teenager my favorite evening snack was plain frozen peas or frozen corn in a cup. I would just munch away.....

2. I do not pre-treat or separate my laundry; I wash everything together. And yes, my clothes are clean!

3. We once had a racoon in our house at 3 am. Our basment window was open (broken) and the basement door just happened to be open as well. And then a confused racoon "fell" into our basement and came upstairs. I woke up to scratching and thought it was our cat. The funniest part was when I told Josh there was a racoon in the hallway his reply was "Lock the door". I think he forgot that racoons lack opposable thumbs to turn door handles. To his defense he was awoken at 3 am from a dead sleep. We did eventually get him back outside after the racoon peed and pooped a few times in the house... eeeeewwwww......

4. My first job was at Dairy Queen when I was 15. I LOVED it!

5. I met my husband at Husson College outside the dorm smoking a cigarette. He was playing hacky-sack the first time I ever saw him. We were such babes! (18!!!)

6. I quit smoking when I was 20, right before I found out I was pregnant with my first child! ( phew!!) I had been a smoker for 2 1/2 years.

7. I sometimes wash my walls with my mop when I am mopping the floors. It works really well and I can clean a large area in no time.

So there you have : 7 weird/ random things you may not have known about me. Ok- who's next??? Steph? Hannah? Karen?

My Monkey

I love the simplicity of her expression. I posted both because I like the fall foliage and golden sun in the color and I like the contrast in my B&W.

Again, I found this gem while going through my pictures for editing. I take SO MANY that I just forget about some good ones. Maybe my mission over the next few weeks will be to find the "lost treasures" from months past.
What do you think?

Back to editing....

Oh My Bethany!

What a handsome little man you have, check out those eyeballs! I really love this picture, I hope you do too!

He Doesn't Even Know What's Coming......

They're brothers.

Too cute not to share!

Little Brother, Little Sister

Obviously "Little Sister" did a bit more posing for me. Hopefully she will see these as she's been asking for quite some time *when they'll be all done.

I love my family :-)

ALL FINISHED!!

PHEW!! That only took me 6 weeks to complete. But the prints have been ordered this morning and I'm meeting with them Saturday. I can't WAIT to show them their pictures. It's some of the best "work" I've done before.

1000 Words

No I didn't steal her teddy......
But this is what she thought of me and my camera.

Hannah, ever had this happen to you?

And as a side note, her expression matches up with my mood tonight.......

Per Steph's Request......

In Color.

2 VERY Cute Girls...

From a photo shoot today....


enjoy!

Sassy! I Love IT!!

From a Senior session in October. I found this *gem* this morning while editing some pictures.

I just LOVE it! I love the color, the cuteness and the fun of this picture!

And now she's probably going to KILL me for posting it to my blog! :-)

We Have A WInner!

"The Kiss" is the Public's Choice!


BUT...... I am entering *2* photos. So there's still time to cast a vote.




And I forgot about this one:


So if you like this one, then I'll call it #5 "Come Away With Me"

There's still time- so vote!!

Photo Contest- I need Your HELP!!!

The local library is having an Amateur Photo Contest and I've decided to enter. There are no ostentatious prizes to be given away... just a ribbon at most. It's just for fun and all proceeds go to the library. I *just found out about this and only have a few *hard copies of select photos here at the house. So I need your help in choosing! These are the 4 I've narrowed it down too. I can only enter 2. So PLEASE vote!

#1- Butterfly

#2- Footprints

#3- The Kiss

#4- The Dip



A BIG thank you for ALL who vote.

Remember These Girls?

Just finishing their Senior pictures up so I thought I'd share just a few more with you.
Enjoy!

Fireman at the Library!

Just about 2 weeks ago the FireStation visited our local library. It was so great to see these big tough guys reading to the little kids. The Fire Men went over some safety tips with the kids and then took them outside to see the trucks and look at their gear. It was really fun! And the kids were SO good.