chelsey paul photography

Food for Photos {Minnesota Family Photographer}

It's always great when opportunities arise to swap talent for talent, I know Amy through classes we have taken with our children and was delighted to be able to work up a deal with her. Amy is the mom known for the best goodies when she is up for snack day so I had this great idea, food for photos. Things get pretty busy around here, besides the photography I am in school four nights a week from 6-11 p.m., so if I can help lighten load of duties in our everyday life, it's fantastic. So today I picked up our frozen meals from Amy, and boy am I excited! Not only will this make life a little easier on super busy days, but Amy typed up the items, ingredients and cooking instructions to go along with the frozen dishes that were carefully packaged! Amy also hosts this great cooking blog that host great recipes and tips...check her out!

Here is our menu of items...try not to drool:

Roasted Eggplant and Tomato with Goat Cheese Stuffed Shells

Greek Stuffed Peppers

Cranberry Chicken

Pumpkin Muffins

YUM YUM YUM!

I am always up for barter/trade suggestions so if you have a talent you like to swap email me.

Here's a preview of the photos I took for them: 

     

Batman and Robin {Minneasota children's photographer}

This was an absolute blast!  I have a great location that is a children's wooden castle if there are any little princesses or knights that would want a fun session! To see the rest of this gorgeous family's photos become a fan of chelsey paul photography on Facebook!

Photographing your own children...

Can be great, believe me I have great shots of the kids. But right now, at this age it's never of them together, at least if it's planned anyway. So today I attempted (alone) to get our Holiday card photo. I gave up 15 min later and will re-attempt tomorrow. I will get this Holiday card!!! Here's a taste of what that 15 min was like ...

Apparently he was "pushing her?" 
These are super cute, but not really what I was looking for. After today I style her a little bit more to compliment him.

OY!

At least they attempted to be 'artsty.'

Holiday Session Giveaway WINNER!

Holiday Giveaway WINNER! 

Thank you to everyone who submitted a nomination! I teared up reading almost all of them and am excited to be able to give a family this gift! So.....THE WINNER, chosen by a random number generator is:

For my good friend, Amanda, and her husband Liam. They've been married for several years, but had no ceremony or reception as Liam was in the army & the wedding was hastened for their send off from MN. In the five years they've been married, Liam has been deployed the majority of this time - including the pregnancy of their first child & much of his first year of life (he was home for 2 weeks at the birth... and returned again not long before his first birthday) They have one boy (1.5 years) and another baby on the way (due in January)... I think a photo session would be great for this family who is adjusting to life as one family in the same house (and not in separate countries). Plus, a great gift to have professional photographs for a couple/family who have never had this joyful experience... 
Thanks much!
bethany

Congratulations! Bethany, please email me information to get connected with this very deserving family!

Thank you again to all who submitted nominations! Stay tuned for the next giveaway!

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Tis the season for preparing for the Holiday season of family Holiday cards, gatherings and giving. This season I want to help you give back to someone who may deserve the gift of a family photo session. From now until October 31, 2009 I will be accepting email submissions of your nominations for a family. 

The family will receive a photography session that will include the edited photos on a disk and thirty holiday cards of their choice and one framed 11x14 photo for their home. A value of over $350.00. 

Please include why you feel they are deserving of this session and their information!

If you would like to purchase this package outside of the giveaway to give to a family in need please email me. 

*Please note this is a special promotion designed to give to others!

Please submit to: chelseypaulphotography@yahoo.com

HAPPY GIVING!

K Family {Minneapolis/St. Paul family photographer}

Fall in Minnesota has been short lived with very few days of color...but thankfully we picked a day that was brisk but had color to work with before the snowstorm yesterday. I am always thankful for families that come back to me, it's so fun to see the children grow!     

Baby 'T' (Minneapolis Newborn/Infant photographer)

Sweet little baby 'T' was such a delight to be around! She stayed wide awake for the two hours I was at her home and even is lifting her neck to look around...hard to believe she was just born a little less than two weeks ago!

Simple

I found this today while 'cleaning up' my iphoto library. It made me smile and reminds me how much I love being a mother to my beautiful children.

What's Cooking Wednesdays: Wheat Bread, Hodge Podge and Jam

Guess what folks today is the first Wednesday of "What's Cooking Wednesdays!" (Insert game show giveaway voice). 

I wanted to try something new.... I know, where I am going to get the time for this? Well simple, I am only going to make things that I have time for. For instance, the deliciousness that is about to unveil is in the oven as we speak, talk about multi-tasking! Then after I click save on this post I will gather my books and head to school for the evening. We have "quite the schedule" around here so anything I post I swear you can do because hey, if a 24 year old mother of two (3.5 and 1.5) can attend school (M-TH, 5-11), have a photography business, sometimes get stuff done around the home and can browse facebook religiously, then you too can cook....or at least follow along to see if I loose my head along the way...

(Like with a random picture of a flower perhaps?)

Back to today, I needed something that would be easy to throw in the oven and would provide good left overs for lunch tomorrow. No, sorry no box meals here. Not that I am against them...okay I am against them. Honestly in the time it took me to throw this together your box noodle surprise would barely be boiling. So dinner tonight for Prince and the kids is just a collaboration of vegetables thrown together with some seasoning...has no name, if you've got one...name it. To start I just gathered the vegetables had in the fridge from our CSA farm share , I will post tomorrow on our choices for this and food choices in general.

We had onions, garlic, potatoes, carrots and asparagus. I cut them into large pieces, because small pieces tend to get mushy really fast. Layered everything in, tucked chicken breast among the asparagus. Drizzled olive oil, sprinkled on sea salt, pepper and dried rosemary. 

Covered with foil and put in preheated oven of 350 degrees. Done. Wham. Dinner in less than 10 min to prep, I am sure it will bake for a good 30-40 min. Perhaps Prince will post an after picture since when it done I will be on my way downtown for class. But super easy and leaves tons of great leftovers. The stoneware I used was from here, and I absolutely love majority of their products, it was 9x13.

To go with dinner tonight I made homemade 'honey wheat oat bread,' whew that's a mouth full. I got it from the fabulous 'Salty Spoon' . I just used honey versus brown sugar. Again, really easy...I promise and when you break down the cost of ingredients versus store bought bread...I am sure it is much cheaper, I am horrible with math. Plus! I can promise it is also much healthier.

Yesterday my Mom was in town to help me out after along weekend of being ill and unable to be productive in the home and at school. She and Riah made raspberry jam with fresh raspberries from their patch! Riah loved it and this was the result:

A few of these. If you have wonderful neighbors, which I hope you do, that help out in time of need by distracting busy toddlers when your sick then, please, reward them. Mine are getting this:

*sigh, yes that is painter tape....somehow I never have scotch when needed.

Makes a great snack too! Well, unless of course you would have much rather preferred peanut butter to the jelly:

Have a great dinner tonight and if your caught up on what to make in the meantime head over to Very Culinary! Amy is all about the food!

August, really? Could have swore it was June.

Hi. It's me, the one who fails at updating the blog. Pretty sure I woke up this morning and realized that it was August 9....wait AUGUST 9th!!! That means I have had my three week break from school and am already into my 5th week of the summer quarter. I would like to know where my time has gone and how I go about retrieving it. 

We spent a good part of my break in Osakis lounging on the farm, taking things slow, I enjoyed having a good friend back from Italy to spend my evenings with while my Mom watched the kids, even got a great bike ride in. Now I am back into the hustle and bustle of school, photography, life, kids, laundry and family. Struggling to juggle it all. This quarter is my last quarter of Advertising classes, but I still have a quarter of generals to finish and then I am done! Woot woot! It has only taken me 7 years but hey...a lot has been accomplished.

The kids are great, Riah is full of life and imagination and upon meeting new people she introduces herself, gets your name and then asks you what your favorite number is. No reason, she just likes to know. She also on any given day is a multiple of different things such as a purple striped cat or black penguin, she'll correct if your wrong too. Thaddaeus is 18 months and refusing to walk, he'll do it I am sure but in the mean time just wears a hole in each pair of pants he wears on the left leg. Yep, he's got a mean scoot shuffle which means he uses his right leg to move and the left one drags. He'll even put a shoe on the right foot, just the right though :-) His vocabulary is coming a long and he is just my busy little man that is full of silliness and struggles. He's a Momma's boy but boy does he test me...

 

but those eyes...how can one say no to those eyes? He'll be a lady killer I am already sure of it. He flirts with the best of them and will shyly cock his head and bat his eyes when a lady approaches to tell him how cute he is and how she just "loves his hair!" *which I am not letting Prince cut again, I love the curls to much*

He sucks his tongue.

She is so gorgeous and growing so much I cannot keep up!

Family Photos, Alexandria and Minneapolis/St.Paul family, toddler, baby photographer

I had a great weekend photographing great clients from my hometown area, this next family graduated highschool with me and I was best friends with Des from the early age of six! Thanks for trusting me with your family photos! I hope you love them!

Bella! (minneapolis, st.paul, alexandria children, toddler photographer)