"Foto" Friday: Headshots

Gotta love that moment when you finish editing a set of photos and you get to share them. I've been wanted to get into portrait photography, so my coworker was a gracious model and let me practice doing head shots. I realized that the editing process is more intensive for photos, but it's also a lot of fun! Here are just a few pictures from our shoot, check out my PASS album to see the rest!

 <3 Laurynn Elise

TBT: Snow Trip

Two winters ago, we decided to take the pups up north to see snow for the first time. They're complete desert dwelling dogs who won't go past the first step of the pool, so we had no idea how they would react to wet, freezing snow. As any good dog mamma would, my parents, Andy and I packed the pooches up in the back of the car and set off to explore. Apparently, my dog LOVES snow. She loves running through it, playing in it, eating it, and burrowing tunnels while pulling me at 20mph through it. Here are some pictures of our day!

<3 Laurynn Elise

Tutorial Tuesday: Clean Eating Chocolate

Today I'm going to show you a quick recipe/tutorial on how to make homemade chocolate to fit a clean-eating diet. Clean eating revolves around unprocessed food and not consuming random chemicals in food. Inspired by this site, I decided to try my hand at handmade chocolate. I'm tweaking proportions in this recipe, my chocolate pieces were a bit oily and a bit bitter, so hopefully yours will look and taste a bit better. But other than that I think this is a great way to have your chocolate - and eat it too!

 Ingredients:
Raw cocoa, coconut oil, raspberries, oats, sweetener of choice (I used vanilla extract and honey, but you can use stevia, agave, or cane sugar - your choice).

 Step 1 - Smash your raspberries. I used frozen berries, so I set the glass bowl in a few inches of warm water to thaw them out. Use the back of your spoon to mash them up.

 Step 2: Stir in 4 tablespoons of coconut oil. Note: my raspberries were still cold, so it hardened the oil a bit. Just watch out for that.

 Step 3: Add 5 tablespoons of cocoa powder. Stir until it's completely dissolved into your mixture. (This might take a minute.)

 Step 4: Add in your remaining ingredients. I used oats and the sweetener. In place of oats you can use nuts, or a little bit of flour. The cocoa is bitter, so use 2-3 tablespoons of your sweetener.

 Step 5: Spoon your mixture onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. You can use a chocolate mold or and ice cube tray if you want them to look prettier.

 

Step 6: Stick in the freezer for a few minutes until they're all set. Enjoy one a day as a treat that will help you lose weight in the process!

While you're waiting, check out the health benefits of raw cocoa powder and coconut oil!

Let me know if you all try this, and what you think!

<3 Laurynn Elise

The Best Question: Proposal Story (Part 3)

Ready for a ton of cute photos? I wasn't, and you can read about the best surprise of my life in part 1 and part 2. As a part of our amazing weekend in Flagstaff, our friend Rennai from ten22studio took an amazement post-proposal shoot for us. Go check out her site and see all of her amazing photos! Now, enjoy a ton of pictures of my handsome man and I. :)

<3 Laurynn Elise