I love taking homemade dishes to get togethers. My homemade macaroni and cheese and homemade salsa are always a hit! There is something about homemade food that store bought just can’t compare to. Not to mention it’s a lot healthier for you. I was down in South Florida recently and while there my mom told me about a fabulous homemade potato salad and I wanted to share it with my blog readers. It’s really simple, but so delicious! So be the belle of your barbecue and let your friends tell you how fab you are by bringing this as your side dish.

5 lbs of red potatoes
7-8 boiled eggs
2 celery stalks
2-3 oz chopped green onions
2 cups of miracle whip
big squirt of mustard
salt and pepper to taste

So go boil your potatoes, I like to leave the skins on. I have had too many peeler cuts to even count so I like to avoid the peeler any chance I can. I hope I am not the only dork who gets cut by the peeler Also start to boil your eggs. I like my potato salad on the egg-y side so I put in 7 or 8. While that is boiling start your veggie chopping. When I was down south, I didn’t have a very good knife and it took me for.ev.er to chop. It is amazing how much a good knife saves you time. Oh Henkel knives, how I love you! I personally really like green onions so I go a little generous on those. And I am not a huge fan of celery so I go a little light on those. So the above amounts are to my tastes. Once your potatoes and eggs are done, chop those as well. Then throw everything into a big bowl together and mix well.

Chill in the fridge for a couple of hours and voila! You will be the hit of your next get together

I hope everyone has a fabulous Labor Day weekend! Goodbye summer!

See what I mean??? Total future heartbreaker for sure!

So much more coming from this session!!

This one just makes me smile! Tickles from mom and dad= an adorable smile

*sigh*

Isn’t she just darling!?!

*fanning self* Hot mama alert!

And I just loved the looks on their faces here! The anticipation, the joy… the love <3

Last week my kids and I were on vacation down in the Ft. Myers/ Naples area. One day my mom, Katie, and I went shopping at the Waterside shops. For those of you not familiar with that shopping center, it’s one of those shopping meccas that houses designers like Tiffany, Gucci, Burberry, Louis Vuitton, and Cartier. I about died when we saw there was an Anthropologie there. That store is me all over it! Like if I were a store, I’d BE Anthropologie Unfortunately, we were pressed for time and I think I came close to breaking a world record for changing in and out of about 20 different outfits. I hate cold weather but I am always in love with fall fashion. The textures make my heart pound! And I am super in love with a-line skirts. They are fabulous for Florida ladies because they can easily be transformed into fall/winter wear with some awesome tights underneath.

I am so glad I saw this in person at the store and got to try it on because the picture they have online of this skirt isn’t doing much for me. But it is so fab on! I couldn’t find a top in store to go under the cardigan I bought, but found the BCBG tank I already had was a great match. SCORE!

Here is another outfit I got and I just fell in love with! And it goes perfect with one of my favorite pair of shoes I already own

Speaking of shoes, I am totally in love with Toms. If you aren’t familiar with Toms, when you buy a pair of shoes another pair of shoes is given to a person in need. How fabulous is that??? They recently came out with wedges and these had my name all over them!

If you want to learn more about Toms, you can go to their website here. I am lusting after their Saffron Cords- perfect for fall with jeans!

Well, that’s all for this Fab Friday. I will have more fabulous-ness for ya’ll soon

Here is their full session

This family is amazingly sweet and every time I am around them,  I enjoy them so much!   Let’s start with the adorable baby boy.  He had been through a lot bless his heart   But he is now healthy and just perfect!

This was one of my favorites from the session

*sigh*

He is so beautiful!

And gosh his big sister is just gorgeous!  I loved her so much!  In between shots, she would run up to me and give me hugs and kisses

Isn’t she a DOLL?!?

And here were some of my favorites with their parents

That’s not even half the session!  It was super hard for me to pick which ones to display on here.  If you want to see all of the pictures from this session click on the slideshow   The song on the slideshow I found awhile back and have hung onto it for this family.  It brings tears to my eyes and I hope ya’ll love it too!

Back to Faith… how pretty is this little girl?

Her mama and I talked a lot about her session and came up with the idea of hanging stars on a tree. Seven stars= a seven year old beauty!

Lots more to come from this session!

Well, obviously not really. I am just way behind in getting these up here!

This past 4th of july my family went camping with my aunt and her family. My aunt is only 3 years older than me and she was always more of a cousin to the rest of us cousins. And being an only child, my cousins are the closet thing I will ever have to siblings and I love them a ton!  Our trip was great and it was fab to see everyone.  I had it in my head to do an Americana themed shoot and thankfully they went along with it. My cousin Monica and another aunt, Sam, came down for the day and brought her kids. So all off the little cousins were together! We took 15 minutes before dinner and I am pretty happy with what we got

Here are all of the little girls!  From left there is Morgan, Dylan, and then my Katie.  I have more I need to edit from this set up- they were being so cheeky with each other!

Isn’t Dylan a beauty? She *loved* having her picture taken which didn’t surprise me at all. I swear you will be seeing this face in big things one day! She is extremely theatrical in the most adorable way

And this is Dylan’s brother Braden. He is about to start kindergarten which makes me feel super old! I loved this soulful look he gave me

Them together <3

Here is Braden with my David. They get along super well! As far as boys go, they are pretty calm and they both *love* cars!

This is one of my favorites of the day!

This is Morgan, one of the toughest little girls I have ever known. She gets herself so banged up and just goes right about right business like nothing ever happened! She is a firecracker and super sweet! And adorable too

Here is my Peyton who is getting older much faster than I ever dreamed would be possible She got the brilliant idea that grooming eyebrows must mean shaving them and lopped off the sides of each brow. Nice, right?? Thank goodness a month later they are looking so much better! Peyton is getting braces shortly and can’t wait! She wants to sport colored bands, orange and blue for her of course, to all of the home games this season

And my baby Katie She is looking like a hot mess here! This was taken at the very end of the shoot after they had played ring around the rosey a gazillion times. Once she saw Dylan hamming it up for me, she decided she would sit and have her picture taken. After I fixed her hair, she was over it!

Here they are when they started playing ring around the rosie.  Katie was being a sour puss and didn’t want to join in.

When she started to see how much fun they were having she finally decided to join in

Taking the group shot was not very fun. Katie didn’t want to participate (see the recurring theme here?), there were fights over pinwheels, pinwheels fell apart, fights over flags, lots of talk about how to share flags, and finally something halfway decent.  Anyway, Happy Birthday America

And here are 2 snapshots I have to share with everyone from our trip that weekend…

Morgan and the cutest wedgie I think I have ever seen

Katie, super happy to score a water gun

Hope your 4th was fab!

Their oldest daughter lost her first tooth shortly after their family pictures were taken.  And now this family has a portrait of their little girl with all of her baby teeth to treasure always…

And their youngest daughter decided on the day of our shoot that walking holding onto anything she could was *the* thing to do!  She had the best time walking around and gave us all so many smilies because she was so proud of herself   And now they have those pictures that her grand  children will look upon with great love…

As a mom of 3 kiddos myself, with my oldest being 11 (yikes, when did THAT happen?!?) I know all too well how fast those moments go.  But this family had this day time capsuled in a bottle they can always look back on and treasure.   Gosh, I feel super lucky to be a part of that!

And I really love when parents decide to get a couple of themselves as well.  Just think of how much their children will love seeing their parents like this!

Aren’t they just an absolutely beautiful family?  If you want to see more, click play on their slideshow and see all of their fabulousness!