Monthly Archives: January 2010

Places I love – Ford’s Real Hamburgers

Sunday, January 31, 2010 9:41 am Posted in food, places i love No comments

In addition to the new “blogs I love” section of my blog, I thought it might be nice to highlight some of the places that I love as well.  These are in no particular order but usually dependent on whether I was being lazy or not and felt like dragging my camera around.  On this particular day, I was testing out my new Panasonic Lumix L3.  Not bad, huh?

Back to Ford’s… my good friend Jenny introduced me to Ford’s and I cannot thank her enough for it.  When you first pull into the parking lot, you sort of wonder because it is, well, let’s say, a little dumpy.  There I said it.  Dumpy.  But I trust Jenny.  She would not steer me wrong.  We go in, and walk up to the window and order.  We go outside, find a table and wait for our name to be called.  Then the most delicious chicken sandwich and french fries were placed before me.  The chicken sandwich is plain but perfect.  Lots of good, real cheddar cheese.  (I have a serious problem with fake cheese.)  The bun crusty and brown.  Shredded lettuce and one bite and I am in love.  I hear that the hamburgers are great, but you will never get me to sway from the chicken sandwich.  Then I move on the fries.  The fries.  In my Top5 of best french fries.  Crisp and brown and crunchy and now I am craving them.  They are what I think of when I have to describe the perfect fry.

My husband says that this is one of the last places on Earth that you would expect to find Bree Hester in unless you had already eaten there before.  Look past the way this places looks.  It is delicious.  Trust me.

Ford’s Real Hamburgers

1948 Sutterville Road, Sacramento, CA (right near the Zoo)

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Jammie Day

Saturday, January 30, 2010 9:41 am Posted in 365, mine, natural light 1 comment

Ava could not have been more excited to wear her jammies to school.  She talked about it all week.  I wish that I could wear my jammies all day.  When she got to school, she and her friends made pancakes, scrambled eggs, orange juice and toast.  How cute is that?

A quick blog post this morning… off to Sonoma for the weekend.  I’ll take some pictures.

Gorgeous light + cute outfits = one uncooperative toddler

Friday, January 29, 2010 5:55 pm Posted in 365, mine, natural light 1 comment

All I wanted to was to get outside and get a cute picture for my Valentine’s Day card.  The weather was finally nice and I had a perfect spot in mind.  All of the clothes that I wanted them to wear were clean (a miracle in and of itself), and aside from Clay (he always has something on his face), no huge hard to Photoshop bruises or cuts on faces.  A bribe in place.  “If you are just good for some pictures, mommy will take you to Big Spoon on the way home.”  I get to my spot and the light is delicious.  Perfect even.  The cosmos have come together and we are in business.  We get out of the car, hair brushed, shoes tied, and wouldn’t you know it, Clay was not having it at all.  AT ALL.  Really, I just needed one good one.  Is that so much to ask????

So I thought that I would share what a photo shoot with my own children looks like.  People ask me all the time, how do I get all 3 of them to cooperate and take a picture?  The honest truth, it is pure 100% luck.  It is so much easier to take pictures of other people’s children.  I am sort of a novelty to them.  They usually listen to me.  My kids are so over me it is ridiculous.  Usually my husband is with me to wrangle them too which played a big part in the nightmare that was yesterday.  By the time I got all three where I wanted them, one would run away or start picking their nose, or annoying the one standing next to them.  After a few minutes, Clay decided that he needed to be held.  I put him down to get a few of Will and huge tears poured down his little cheeks.  That is when I knew, my moment was gone.  This is all I got.

When I got home and downloaded them (after a strong Lemon Drop), I realized that these are the pictures of them that I love the most.  I tell clients all the time, these pictures are of who your children are today.  On this day, my kids were a pain in my a$$, but how beautiful are they?  How cute are they when they are laughing at each other?  Those boots.  It was worth all of the trouble.

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Crazy good

Thursday, January 28, 2010 1:00 pm Posted in 365, food, natural light, real life 5 comments

Yesterday I had an unexpected day off.  I was supposed to travel for a shoot and it was canceled at the last minute.  Wes had already taken the day off of work to watch the kids so we decided to enjoy the day.  He took Clay to the gym for awhile in the morning and while they were gone I decided to make them a little snack for when they got home.  I found this recipe on the bakerella site the other day and knew that I had to try them.  Pancakes and muffins are about the only things that everyone in my house will eat so the idea of a hybrid of the two was intriguing to me.  I did adapt the recipe a bit adding what I normally would add to pancakes, vanilla and cinnamon and it top it from really, really good to perfect.  The original recipe says to slather them in some butter and dip them in syrup.  That sounds good, but I decided to take it a step further and make a maple glaze for these babies.  Jackpot.

Fast forward to the muffins made, cooled and glazed.  Two hungry boys come into the house from the gym.  The muffins (all 24 of them) lasted all of 10 minutes.  My husband, who normally is not a big sweet fan, (what is wrong with him?) declared that these were the best things that I have ever made.  Clay agreed.  It is not hard to impress him as that kid will eat anything.  But I knew that they were good when I went back into the kitchen a bit later and found a pretty empty plate with bites taken out of the tops of the remaining morsels of muffin.  I guess that this recipe is a keeper.  Will and Ava were incredibly disappointed that they missed out so I will be making them again this afternoon.

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download full size recipe card here

A fleeting moment of sweetness

Tuesday, January 26, 2010 7:14 pm Posted in 365, flash, mine 2 comments

My friend Sonja issued a challenge to do a 365 project.   I have done one before and in all honesty it is what made me really push myself as a photographer and I really loved the process.  Did I take a picture every single day?  No.  But I did more often than I probably would have had I not been part of a challenge.  It can be about anything you want or about nothing at all.  This year, I am pushing myself to play with flash.  I am going to admit something freely here.  I am afraid of my flash.  I love my studio lights, but I have never truly embraced the on camera flash.  I do not mean the one that pops up on top of your camera (I really cannot think of a time that I would use that, unless it meant not getting a moment at all) but the one that fits in the hot shoe bracket.  Like this.  Have a mentioned that I have not seen the sun in many, many days?  A perfect opportunity to practice using my flash!  While I have a lot to learn, my two oldest gave me a moment that I love.  No fighting, no yelling, just brother and sister love.

If you have any good tips for using a flash, let me know.  I have a hard time nailing my focus using my flash.  I could use all of the help that I can get.

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