New 52 | Week 3 | Newborn Photo Session

Okay, so. Ice skating has been held off again! Still on the list but...the weather was still pretty yucky and some other things were on the calendar. I'm learning that with this project, as with life itself, we gotta just go with the flow sometimes!

Since I really have no idea who ends up reading this (although I know it's more than just my mom by the blog stats!) I'll give a quick background for context. Trevor and I started a photography business last year. We discovered a common interest and ran with it! So in July 2012, we founded tandem51 photography.

In the first several months, we did a lot of sessions, mostly families. We also did a couple of seniors, a 1st birthday party, a large charity event, and lots of pics at home. One genre that had eluded us was the newborn. A beautiful new life with their tiny fingers and toes, cute as a button ears and nose, the sweetest little lips. I wanted to get a baby in front of the camera! But...no dice.

That is, until Henry came along.

We photographed the Wolfgang family back in November. It was a combination family session, 2 year pics, and a few maternity shots mixed in as well since mom (also Sarah) was due in January. So you can imagine my excitement when Sarah let me know that they wanted to use us when their new addition joined the world!

While we waited to hear of the baby's arrival, we prepped our gear and read up on newborn photography safety. And then she emailed me; it's a boy! (They didn't know the gender beforehand.) We headed to their house on a bright Saturday morning. I was full of excitement and nerves!!

I'm bummed we didn't get a behind the scenes pic because it was pretty cool. Backdrop, softbox on a stand, reflector, and a bean bag. All of this was crammed into his adorable nursery that was flooded with beautiful morning light.

And this is the result:



So, so sweet.

This was an awesome new experience!

~STELR

A little behind...

Sooo...with a super crazy last two weeks, I've gotten a little behind on our blog. The good news is that we haven't gotten behind in the actual project itself! Stay tuned and this week we'll bring you a newborn and a movie!

Other new things in our world that deserve honorable mention:
Luke mastered snapping his fingers.
Elissa mastered climbing out of her crib...still working on mastering the bedtime routine in a toddler bed.
Trevor bought some power tools (table saw and jig saw) in preparation for some woodworking projects.
Sarah spoke in front of the School Board in opposition to a proposal to close the middle school Luke is slated to attend next year.

Throw in a baby shower, an extended family photo session, and a extra dose of busy at my day job.

See?! I told you it's been crazy!

~STELR

New52 | Week 2 | Making Soup

BRRR, did it get cold this week or what?! Luke and I had planned to go ice skating for week 2 and while that is a definitely a cold weather activity, the temp/wind chill was just too low today. So, I opted for a new recipe instead.

Have you ever watched The Pioneer Woman on Food Network? Oh my, does she make some fantastic looking food! If you're not familiar, you should definitely check out her website. Last week I made this Chicken Spaghetti Casserole (with some tweaks) which the whole family liked. There was another recipe I'd seen on her site that looked really good called Sausage, Potato, Kale soup. She likened it to one of the soups you find at Olive Garden so that piqued my interest.

Luckily, I went to the store this morning and made sure to get the ingredients for this. (By the way, my trip to the store is when I made the 'ice skating another week' decision because I was completely frozen just getting groceries into the car) Another random thought about my trip to the store - thank goodness for technology!! I was able to look up the recipe real quick to make sure I wasn't forgetting anything.

Ok back to the project.

If you know Luke, you might know that he doesn't like potatoes. So, I knew that making this recipe would be more my project than his. But he did help with some prep...I'll get to that in a minute.

First things first, I wanted to get a shot of the main ingredients before I lost all the light for the day.

I had Luke do the Kale. He needed to pull the leaves from the stem and then tear them into bite size pieces.

At one point he asked if he could try the kale (raw). I said, "Sure!" He gave this face...

I think it's safe to say he won't be asking for a side of kale any time soon.

As Luke was prepping the kale, I was slicing potatoes, chopping an onion, and browning the Italian turkey sausage. Once he finished with the kale, he did another super big helpful thing, and that was to keep his no-nap-havin little sister entertained while mommy was in the kitchen. Daddy and Luke had to work together to keep her busy!

In the end, the soup turned out pretty good. It was hearty, 1/2 healthy (turkey sausage, kale, and potatoes = good; using whole milk AND half & half as the cream base = not so good) and almost a 1 pot meal.

Luke did try the soup even though 1) he doesn't like potatoes and 2) he was hesitant about the kale....but he did NOT care for it. He ended up with PB&J (2/3 healthy with whole grain bread and protein from the PB!) Trevor had the soup and his verdict was that it was "good" but that the kale didn't really "fit". He thought it was a good new recipe to try though. As for me, I liked it. It wasn't my favorite soup but it was still good.

The soundtrack for this week was hearing my kiddos laughing and playing in the next room. :)

A few other new things worth mentioning from this week:

1)Prometheus: Sci-fi movie; Sarah and Trevor rated it "just ok"

2)Toddler bed for E: results yet to be determined. E climbed out of her crib stealth style at nap time today. She was fussing and not going down for her nap. It got quiet and I thought she was settling down. So you can imagine my SHOCK when she appeared in the doorway of our bedroom. We didn't even hear her get out of the crib. So, there was no other choice but to transition to the toddler bed. She never did nap today....we're praying that she sleeps through the night and doesn't notice that she's not in a crib.

So that's a wrap for week 2! I'll be back mid week for an onion chopping tutorial (in case there are any beginner cooks out there) and then we hope to get our ice skating in for week 3, as long as the weather cooperates!

~STELR

New 52 I Week 1 I Sushi

So since we were working with a short week due to the holiday, Luke and I decided that we needed to do something new this week that required little to no prep. I threw out a couple of ideas like a new recipe or restaurant. I asked him if there was any particular kind of food he wanted to try. He excitedly said "Sushi!" Bingo; week 1 was decided.

We happen to have an inside track on a great place for sushi. I've always loved seafood and in landlocked Iowa, the place for that is Waterfront Seafood. It's a locally owned family restaurant and they fly fresh fish in daily. Bonus: my brother/Luke's uncle works there! We decided to go for Saturday lunch.

We headed to Waterfront for a late lunch, arriving at about 1:15. It was packed but we were able to find two seats at the sushi bar! My brother's girlfriend had suggested the Godzilla roll and that's what we went with. It's made with: Shrimp Tempura, Crab, Cream Cheese & Garlic then Deep Fried & topped with Eel Sauce, Sriracha, Scallions & Tempura Flake. We also got a cup of clam chowder each (almost exactly like what I had at the Beantown Pub in 'Bahstan' last year) and I got a salad.

When we got the sushi roll from Leo the Sushi Chef, it was beautiful! Before digging in, we took a couple minutes to take it in with our senses:
It was colorful; Luke said, "the sauce kind of looks like jelly". He also thought the ginger looked like gum :)
"Kinda smells like Chinese food" and "Smells good".
We both felt a little nervous because it was a new thing to try.
Then we tasted it.....
Luke said "It's really good! Next time we come here, I'm getting this!" He also tried the ginger and the wasabi! This mom was super proud! (I tried the ginger too but couldn't bring myself to do the wasabi.) And as it turns out, Luke's favorite part was the seaweed!

Between the salad and the chowder and the sushi, we only ate about half of the Godzilla roll. We took the rest to go and Trevor was able to try it once we got home (he liked it too). We had a great time on week 1 of our New 52 project and are looking forward to next week!

Soundtrack for this week's activity was Toby Mac's Eye On It. Our favorite tracks are Me Without You and Forgiveness. Check it out!

~STELR

Our First Post

Hello there and welcome to our corner of the web! STELR stands for Sarah, Trevor, Elissa, Luke Roeder. Here on our blog we will share about our New 52 Project and other random happenings in our family. New 52 is a project where you do one new thing per week for a whole year. Sarah heard about this while listening to her favorite podcast, The Digi Show. One of the regulars on the show (Peppermint) shared that her and a friend did this project in 2011. If you want to check out what she did, you can find that here. Luke and I have begun to brainstorm a list of new things we want to do, places we'd like to go, movies we'd like to see, and recipes we haven't tried. Check back each week to see what we've been up to. Thanks for stopping by; and Happy New Year! ~STELR