Fall Foliage

At this time of year, people tend to tout the beauty of the East Coast, the Northwest, and other parts of the country that get that gorgeous fall foliage. They tend to look down on California a bit... I mean, we have our fantastic year-round weather, and for that we sacrifice fall color. Right?

Wrong.

At least when you're talking about the Central Coast. Because our surrounding vineyards afford us a good stretch of magnificent color in the fall. And wouldn't you know, Thanksgiving weekend turned out to be one of our postcard weather weekends. So we got the benefit of the famous California weather and the colorful backdrop people usually associate with colder climates. Lucky us.

This great family got to take advantage of it all, and they got some pretty special images to boot. Unrelated side note: I predict that these kids are going to grow up to be absolute stunners in the looks department.

Because It Makes Me Laugh

every.time.I.look.at.it.

Our Thanksgiving

Here are some snapshots from our mellow, fun, delicious Thanksgiving. Not documented: Brian and me after running the 8-mile Turkey Trot (thank goodness), our post-run Bloody Marys with good friends (bummer).

Hope everyone had a good turkey day. :)

Fresh Air

It has been awhile since I've shared work on the blog, so I'm posting a few from a recent maternity session.

This mama is a lovely, mellow woman who already has one lovely, mellow daughter. I'm betting that the new little guy is going to be one chill dude.













I think that this family is in for some very special and happy holidays this year!

My Boys & Their Dogs

Our new addition has fit into the family quite seemlessly. Crunch tosses me the occasional look as if to say, "Did you not realize that I am very old and want only to snooze peacefully in a corner without being pounced on by THIS THING?" Other than that, though, it has been pretty smooth sailing. She sleeps through the night and gets up when we do. She's even down to about one potty accident a day. Good stuff.

My boys have actually surprised me with their attentiveness to both dogs since bringing the puppy into the fold. Noah, in particular, is very careful about giving both dogs equal attention. Tonight he spent a long time on the floor with a hand on each resting dog, talking to them and telling them that they were good and sweet. He finally turned to me and very sincerely said that he thinks he might like Crunch just a little bit better. He clearly doesn't want to risk making the old guy to feel like yesterday's news.

Here are a few snaps of my lovely boys and their dogs.









Crunch has taken over the bed we bought for Stella, which she enjoyed for the first few days we had her. Not a big deal, since she will probably grow out of it before too long. It's funny, though... She doesn't want to be on his old bed (which is just a few feet away), but rather nestled up to the side of him. I love how her front leg is even hooked over the side. :)



Here are a few other quick snaps of the new girl:

More Dogs

I was feeling bad about not including Crunch in the last post, and I managed to grab a reasonable shot while he sat and watched his new baby sister scamper around the room. Here's the old man himself:



And on the topic of dogs, here's Foxy's latest crafty creation (I swear, this girl generates projects at the rate of several an hour). Obviously, she was inspired by the theme of the weekend.



:)

Meet Stella

Call us crazy (and people have), but the Clausen family decided that it was time to add a new puppy to our family. You know, because we're always sitting around, twiddling our thumbs and wondering how in the world to spend our time. ;) After research and debate we settled on a bulldog, and then after more research... and more research... we found a breeder that we felt was a good match.

Since the breeder was in Riverside County, though, we had to ask a lot of questions and make our final decision as a leap of faith. We didn't actually meet Stella until she was delivered to us by my parents -- aka the puppy storks -- yesterday afternoon.

Good thing we like her.

A LOT.







I did try to take some photos of Crunch, too, but he was all wound up and wouldn't sit still for anything. Try telling that dog he's about 84 in people years. The dude thinks he's still a puppy most of the time...

Halloween 2011

As I mentioned in the previous post, Foxy opted for pretty when it came to Halloween this year (as anyone who knows her might imagine). The boys, however, went with silly.

Here is my goofy crew before they headed out to eat a quick dinner with friends and then trick or treat. :)















Fun stuff!