The Tree Swing and Photography Questions

One of the things I think I will miss the most about Moose Mountain (what we started off jokingly calling my parents house years ago and it stuck) will be this tree swing. It has always been a favorite spot of ours and was even where Josh proposed to Jamie several years ago!  Fortunately we have lots and lots of photos of the tree swing, including Jamie and Josh's engagment shots and some of Jamie on her wedding day with us bridesmaids. I wanted to take one final set of photos here before my parents moved and was excited that this year Lillie was actually able to swing on it all by herself! 

Let me apologize in advance for the VERY picture heavy post! =) 

If you have any photography questions just scroll to the bottom!

 

Okay, enough pictures, Mom!

And what was Lola doing all this time? Just filling her stroller with rocks and dirt!

I took all of these using my new camera. My next post is going to be a Q and A type photography one based on the questions we regularly get asked in e-mails. If you have any photography related questions feel free to ask them in the comment section of this post. I may not directly answer them in the comment section (although I normally do) but will try my best to answer them all in the next post as best I can.

How to "Fake" A Fancy Dessert

I don't know about you, but I love dessert and I like for it to look pretty (if possible), but I really don't like to spend hours and hours in the kitchen. Well, last week Jamie and I were craving another dessert but didn't have time to make it. It requires several steps and we were looking for something quick and here is what we came up with:

I had seen several links on Pinterest for making chocolate bowls using balloons that were dipped in melted chocolate. After reading quite a few stories on how some of the balloons burst and chocolate went everywhere I got a little nervous to try them. If I were back in VA I would have given it a try but seeing how we are still at my parents house, I was pretty sure my dad would die if he walked in to find balloons bursting with melted chocolate spraying all over his kitchen! I had seen somewhere where a person had made a chocolate bowl with cupcake liners so I figured I would play around with that and give that a try. Well, they were a lot of fun and super easy!

First we got one of those bags of chocolate candy that you can find pretty much anywhere. We got ours at Michael's. I am pretty sure you could just melt chocolate chips too, though if you wanted. We just put ours in a bowl and popped it in the microwave for about 25 seconds then stirred it, then 25 more seconds, then stirred, and so on until it was nicely melted.

 (Yes, that is a paint brush next to the spoon - I will explain that in a minute.)

   

Now plop a nice big spoonful into the cupcake liner.

Now use the brush and kind of tilt the cupcake liner to the side and "paint" the sides. You want it to be pretty thick. And don't worry - this isn't a yucky old paintbrush! =) I bought this little brush in the baking aisle at Michael's.

Now set them in a muffin/cupcake tin and pop them in the freezer.

After about 30 minutes or so you can pull them out and just peel off the paper.

Now for the mousse! I just used a mix - I told you this was easy!

I followed the directions on the box and mixed it up.

Now you could just spoon it like that into the chocolate bowls but I wanted to have a little fun with mine. Seeing how I had purchased this little set for the chocolate rosette cake I made I figured I might as well use it for this as well!

I added the mousse to the bag and then just piped it into the chocolate bowl (with some help from Lillie so it's not perfect!) =) and then added a few chocolate shavings and that was it!

We made a few with whipped cream on top too! Not exactly the most nutritious treat, but it was easy and sure was yummy!

I hope you all are having a great week so far!

Happy Weekend!

I just got a new camera last week and finally got a chance to start playing around with it. I am working on a post with lots of photos I took using it for later this week but thought I would pop in with a few "outtakes" and wish you all a happy weekend! I'll be back tomorrow evening with a full post on how to cheat and make a fancy looking dessert without all the work! I have all of the photos done and loaded I just need to add the text. I also am working on two photography posts - one that answers the questions we get the most e-mails about and the other a photoshop tutorial and I've also got some decorating ones in the works.  Hopefully I can get back on track with blogging this week! =)

A Little Tour through Southern New Hampshire

I have shown you some of my favorite places up here in NH before, like Burdick's, the farmstand (here, here, and here), and an antique shop (that has since moved, although we just went to Peterborough earlier this week and there are several other fabulous places to shop). Today I thought I would show you a handful of the beautiful old homes I love driving and walking by every time we are up here. I loved living here as a girl and dream of someday owning a home up here.

 This house has always been one of my favorites:

 

 I am not sure if I have the right number of greats  (I might be short one), but this house was built by my great, great, great, great, great grandfather and has been passed down each generation.

 

Those are just a handful of ones I love. There are plenty others, including my all-time favorite that I couldn't take a photo of the other day, but maybe will get one at some point this summer.

Here are a few of the other pretty buildings up here. This is the church my great-grandparents attended.

 

And this is the church Jon and I got married in, and so did one of my sisters, cousins, my parents and my grandparents!

And here is the Town Hall where we had our wedding reception:

This is the original Meeting House.

And this is the Meeting House in the next town over.

I don't know about you, but I just love old architecture! The quality, beauty and attention to detail just amazes me.

If you like viewing New England I recommend reading this post by Joan who writes one of my favorite blogs, For the Love of a House. I have been in her home and it is absolutely stunning. You have to head on over and see her kitchen! Anyway, she wrote a post back in May that gave her readers a little tour of Grafton, VT and I know you will enjoy it (and her whole blog!)

I hope you all have a fabulous Thursday!