real life. real love. real pics of my 3 under 3.

I love taking pictures of my kids, one of my favorite hobbies in fact.  I've always been obsessed with picture taking, even back when it meant taking a couple disposable cameras on all my adventures and vacations in high school and then making photo album after photo album of the developed pictures. I've never professed to be a great photographer but I do love capturing memories and pictures of people I care about.

That love only intensified when I started having kids, as it seems to do for many of us.  I pulled out my "good" camera and we even bought Photoshop, something I'd been wanting to learn how to use for years.  And I have thoroughly enjoyed the process of learning how to take better quality pictures and using Photoshop.

But ever since we had sister, our third, join our ranks, I haven't even bothered trying to take pics of all three of them together, usually just one or maybe two of them together.  Well, a couple days ago I decided it was high time, mostly because all my pictures in my house are outdated and I really wanted some with ALL the kids together.

Ha, it was a laughable attempt, I couldn't even get them to all look at the camera at once, let alone smile or keep their fingers out of their eyes or nose or mouth, or each other's.  A bit silly to try and take them on like that flying solo during the day I know but evening is hard for just about anything with them.

But as I've gone through the shots I got, I just felt more and more happy with them, no the kids aren't looking at me most the time, at least not all of them, in not one of them are they all smiling at me, but they are being themselves. And I loved capturing some of those real moments. I've tried hard to focus on the good moments I want to remember from this crazy and busy stage of life. And as I took these pictures and chilled out a little bit about the result, I found myself loving the growing friendships I was able to capture as a result. I absolutely adore my three little miracles, in spite of how far they push me past my capacities every day. And I can only hope and pray they will learn to become the best of friends, as my siblings have become for me.

I believe there will always be a place for that classic family picture but I hope to fill my life and home with more of the real family moments from here on out.

So without further ado, here are some of my favorite shots (from a couple different days) of what makes up so much of my days (and my nights) currently.

our summer staple: grilled veggies.

Okay so this is the thing I have to tell myself I can only put on the menu once a week, every week while I'm planning meals... it is SO good and SO easy. One of the things that makes it so easy is its versatility, you can (and should) use whatever veggies you have around, I try to switch up the line up quite often because I like to try new things with old recipes and because we like a lot of food variety.  But some of the ingredients are kind of the backbone, almost always present in this dish... So I've listed the foundation ingredients and then as many of the other ingredients we've put into it, I would recommend picking 2-5 of the non-foundation ingredients each time you make it.
*the more people you plan on serving, the more extras you'd want to add in, or increase the amount of each one. 

What you need every time:
-grilling pan
-1 Tbsp olive oil or grapeseed oil
-1 tsp salt (kosher if you've got it)
-1 tsp creole or cajun seasoning salt
-1 tsp dried or fresh oregano
-1 tsp dried or fresh basil
*I actually eyeball the oil and spices so I tried to approximate quantities here, add or take away based on your own preferences. 
-garlic, 2-5 fresh cloves minced or garlic salt
-sweet onion, halved or quartered and chopped (at least 1)
-bell pepper, cleaned out, quartered and chopped (at least 1, we use all types)

Extras: pick 2-5
-hatch peppers (when in season)
-zucchini, halved or quartered and sliced
-yellow squash, halved or quartered and sliced
-mushrooms, sliced
-asparagus, roughly chopped
-red onion, halved and sliced
-cooked red potatoes, cubed* (2-5 depending on size, how many you intend to feed and how many leftovers you want)
-cooked sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed* (1-2)
-pineapple, fresh cubed or canned tidbits (drained)

*important to note: for both red and sweet potatoes make sure you "BAKE" them first in the microwave, I wash and poke them then roll them up in a paper towel and cook for 5-7 minutes in the microwave, you want them to be pretty soft to the touch.

Instructions:

1. Chop all the veggies you've chosen to add to your mix, like I said before, cook the potatoes before you cube them.
Put all your ingredients into a big mixing bowl.

2. Add olive or grapeseed oil and spices/salts and mix, you want all the veggies to have a bit of a coating of oil so they don't burn on the grill.

3. Put your veggies into a grilling tray, grill, stirring occasionally to keep any section of it from charring too much and to make sure all the veggies cook evenly. Taste one of the slower veggies to cook (like squash) to make sure they aren't too crisp and uncooked.

4. Dish up and serve, we most often use our veggies as a side to grilled chicken or fish, or as the filling for grilled fajitas, etc...

I don't have a picture post grilling this time, we ate it up too quickly... but here is a phone pic from another batch. (I wasn't kidding when I said we eat it a lot)

Hope y'all enjoy as much as we do.

sunsets and fireworks: part two

Evenings at dusk and late-r night strolls (let's be real, late night doesn't even appeal to me anymore: old and un-cool alert...ha) on the beach were some of my favorite times on our vacation.

classic, classic drew face.

The temperatures were perfect and the views were, of course, gorgeous. There were even fireworks (for some unknown reason) our first night over the pier.

a couple shots kevin got on one of those late-r night strolls sans kids.

beach vibes. part one

Since we've moved down south we've talked about taking a trip to Florida to experience the emerald water and white sand everyone raves about. We both grew up with California coasts and a couple Hawaii trips.
Well, a couple weeks ago we finally made it happen when we met Kevin's parents in the Destin area of NW Florida.
It was everything people said it was.  We had nearly perfect weather the entire time and our location was perfectly suited to allow us to be able to play and relax with our kids all day e'ry day. :)
(a bit later in this post I talk a bit about why we loved our location)

Some of the reasons we loved it;

We stayed in the less crowded area so that meant less crowed beaches, no high rises and less people in general.
We stayed in a condo (with a couple bedrooms, bathrooms, living room and full kitchen) with pools and a spa right on the beach: private beach access, no shoes necessary, no driving to the beach, a couple showers between the beach and the pool.
Our place also included a big beach umbrella and a couple chairs that they set up for you every morning and took down every night.
Also because we were so close and it was so easy to clean up (thank you showers and pools) we went to the beach a couple times a day. (before and after naps, after dinner, etc...)
It also had a BBQ area we will utilize A TON more when we go back.
And it's not so far out of town that we didn't have quick access to everything we needed like a full grocery store and lots of restaurants.