Christiana Childers Photography Blog

My sister said that about farting once…”Ah man, it’s never not funny!”  And I thought that was funny!  You see, she used a double negative! And she’s a comedian so the way she said it… And it’s about FARTING!….Oh, never mind….

Anyway, I think laughter is really important.  The man I married made me laugh and thankfully still makes me laugh.  I know he will continue to make me laugh.

I think that is why this image is one of my favorite photos I’ve ever taken.

I was hired to photograph their anniversary party given to them by their children.  I hope that someone catches a shot like this of me and my husband at our 58th Wedding Anniversary Party.

Hopefully it isn’t because one of us farted.

(Note: that isn’t why they are laughing in this photo, btw… They are super classy and would never have hired me had they known I giggle like a Jr Higher when anyone passes gas in my vicinity.)

We had our home group over for dinner this weekend again.  It really is one of my favorite things to do.  We had such a great time that the neighbors up and down the block commented on it the following day.  Now that is a party! My cheeks still hurt from laughing.  We had a tacofest.  Here are some photos from the night -

Ben has been working hard to get our wall of windows and doors finished for the party.  I love how it turned out!

I made Whoopie Pies for dessert!  I’ve never made them before and will definitely be making them again.  The ones with Oatmeal have a Bacon-Maple filling.  Yum!  I’m not kidding!  You can find the recipe here.

But the yummiest dish of the night…these cheeks here -

Doesn’t the wall look so pretty?!My friend Dawn grabbed my little camera and took some great shots of the night.  I made a collage of them -

Oh!  They are going to kill me for posting that!  So long world!

I like to cook.  A lot.  I love the menu planning, the prep, the presentation and, of course, eating it.  One of my favorite things I do is cook for my homegroup a few times a year.  We had a Valentine’s Dinner last weekend and I wanted to show you what we did.  So fun!

First, I was inspired by my trip to NY where a lot of the window displays and store decorations where made out of old books.  So I bought this book at “the Boutique”  (that’s my code word for Value Village!).  I love old books and I kind of hate to tear them apart especially when someone like Vern J Cole has written in it claiming it as his own in that cool old fashionedy writing..

Ah well!  So I made invitations by tea-staining an old sheet I had.  I then printed out the invite on an iron-on transfer to the fabric and sewed it to one of the book pages.

For decorations, Lora and I made paper flowers out of tissue paper and some more pages.

We also made some lanterns out of sewing book pages together -

Now onto the food!!  Well, at least the soup.  I forgot to take photos of the rest of the food but the soup was my favorite!  Here’s some photos of the beet soup in progress (note: you might die from saturated color! Did anyone else hear me channeling Sue Shoop just then?  One day my mom will read my blog and see all these references to herself…)

I made a second soup – a pea soup and then we put them side by side.  Ben made it look pretty (he’s way better at that than me!) -

Kari took couples photos of everyone.  Here’s ours

And one last photo that I couldn’t resist posting…

If you think you have the best friends in the world, well, your wrong.  I do .  I had to do a quick post on the party my friends threw for me on Saturday night.  As my birthday is on the shortest day of the year (like being four days away from Christmas isn’t lemon juice in the paper cut enough!), my friends had a “Big Night” party for me!  Remember that movie?  It’s about an Italian Restaurant set in the 50s.  If you’re a foodie like me, you’ll remember!  Anyway, they made it all Italian themed in my friends garage (which we call the Garage Mahal -  nothing like MY garage!) Here are some shots from the night…

Is that cake the best or what?!  I tasted great too!  Greg, you have to leave a comment on who made the cake!

My nickname is Sugar, btw…

Ah, Bono.  A birthday isn’t complete without you.  Sorry you couldn’t make it this time…

Here’s me feeling so grateful and humbled by the toasts.

Time for cake!

I wish….what could I possibly have that is better than this.  I love you all so much.

This post is definitely in the “Things That Make Me Happy” category. Last week so full but it was packed full of so many of my favorite things.  I have a lot to be thankful for.

This tree makes me happy because it is in a special place for me.

I think I’ve taken a photo of this tree every year for several years.  Once a year my girlfriends and I go away to my friend KA’s parents house to pick our book club books for the year.  This year we just gave up pretending to be a book group and we are now just a group would loves to be together and stay in our jammies all day and sometimes a few of us read the same book.  I’m thankful for my girls (who’d all kill me if I showed a photo of them all in jammies so I’ll stick with the tree).

I’m thankful for cozy moments like this in front of a real fire.

I’m thankful for my home group.  We celebrated Ryan H’s birthday on Saturday.  There is nothing better than getting together with friends over a yummy meal.  Here’s a few shots from the evening.

Lora decorated the table for me.  I just love it! 

I love it when people pick up my camera and take shots.  Thanks Ryan B for this one.  Look at JJ waiting for his turn to hold Baby W.

I’m also so thankful for my family, wonderful friends here and abroad, love, laughter, adventure, U2 tickets !, new babies in my life, my home, my camera…and on and on.  The Lord has blessed me richly and I am humbled by it.

Happy Thanksgiving!

*I just re-read this and thought I should mention that I’m not trying to be all code-y with KA and JJ that’s really what we call them!  But I never use kids names in my posts so will always say W, C, P or whatever for kids.

The rain today is hardly bothering me.  I’m still enjoying the glow from spending my weekend in the “Palm Springs of Washington”.  That’s right, my hometown – Yakima, Washington.  I haven’t been to Yak for many years now because my parents moved away my Senior year of High School so I didn’t have the pull back to my hometown like I would have if they’d stayed.  But we have some dear friends, the Erickson’s, that still live there and, before kids, we got to visit them quite a bit with Scott and Mary (our friends, their daughter/son-in-law!).  Well, it’s been far too long since we’ve made the trek.  My youngest hasn’t even been to Yakima before!  Shame on me!  I was rolling in nostalgia this weekend like never before because I was watching my kids do the same things at our friend’s home that I used to do at their house when I was a kid.  I realized that there isn’t a place like that other than the Erickson’s house for me because my parents no longer live in the home I grew up in.  What a treat to watch them play on swings, playing in the leaves and help with the cider making process!  The cider was a big reason why we went over this weekend, btw.  Here are some shots of the cider press and process (the very one I threw apples into as a kid!)  –

Kids at play making mud pies, playing in the leaves….just like I did!

I’m sure this is the very tricycle I rode! (Is this getting old for anyone yet?  Well, I don’t care! I’m enjoying myself!).

The kids thought it’d be fun to roast apples and it turned out to be a big hit.  A new tradition started, I think.

Aunt Pat has a fabulous antique/garden shop out of the Carriage House called Country Garden Antiques.  She specializes in things for the garden but has something for everyone in her shop.  I always come away with a few treasures.   I picked up some of my favorite pottery (Emma Bridgewater) for myself  and a couple gifts.  Here’s some shots of the shop.  If you are ever in the area, I’d recommend a drop-by.

I haven’t yet mentioned that my husband also grew up coming to the Erickson’s for Apple Press so this place also has a special place in his heart AND it is where we had our wedding reception!

The older boys, being boys, thought it’d be fun to bash apples.  We decided that men, instead of having a combined IQ when together their IQ actually goes down.  I mean this with the greatest respect.  I was laughing just as hard as the rest of them!  Here is a shot of Ben apple bashing…right before it sprayed all over me!

And a group shot!  Thank you Pat and Fred, Scott and Mary and Robbin and Maria for a most fabulous and restful weekend!

Lastly – the house I grew up in…on Memory Lane (just joking!).  Isn’t it cute!

I feel a twinge of sadness as I say goodbye to summer like you do when you say goodbye to a good friend who you loved to have visit but didn’t get anything done while she was here.  So now we are back to the schedule of school which means that I get to go back to walking in the morning!  Yeah!  Lora and I go on a walk most mornings that, up until a few days ago, was laced with beautiful juicy blackberries.  Hmm, blackberry pie!

We also celebrated G’s birthday and I had to share this one with you because I thought it was a great idea and it was a big success!  Ben came up with this one, actually.  He suggested that we have all the girls over for breakfast on the morning of G’s birthday.  We gave prizes for the best bedhead.  Which is perfect for G because G regularly has THE most impressive bedhead you’ve ever seen.  Hands down, bar none.  I’ve started a photo collection dedicated to the record of her bedhead.  Here’s a recent one.

The girls really got into it and had a big time.  

They also decimated 3 pounds of bacon!

And last but not least!  We are now the proud owners of a new puppy!  We are over the moon with him.  His name is Blue.

Can you get over the cuteness!

Happy Fall!

We have some friends who moved for work, by work, to Paris (including a paid for flat in the St. Michel area!). I know, right? Whatever! But, let us set aside our jealousy for a moment because;

1.       It couldn’t happen to better, more deserving people.

2.       This blog entry isn’t about overcoming jealousy, remember? Oh right! On to our project…

So I hosted a party to send them off in style! I had just been to Paris a couple of months before so I printed out on plain ol’ paper two photos that said “Paris” to me,  took some random glasses and bottles that I had, and put them together for the display you see in these photos.

I just slid the photo in between the inside jar with the flowers and the outside glass/jar.

My favorite thing is making decorations out of nothing (i.e. FREE) and this really was.  The velum was the only thing I bought.  I bought four different sheets of printed velum and turned the right side in so that you just saw the outline of each design coming through.  I cut each velum into strips the height of whatever glass or jar I was covering and then taped it into a cylinder.  I then wrote French words or phrases (found on the internet – sadly I don’t speak French) on strips of paper and taped that over the velum.  Dropped a votive it and, well, voila!

Another quick note:  I didn’t have enough fruit to fill the bowl so I took a smaller bowl and turned it upside down in the big bowl and piled the fruit onto so it looked like it was full.  See, I’m really cheap!

Adieu!