the perreault family

shrimp boil 2012

Published on May 9, 2012 by kristenperreault1 Comment

I am not sure how many years now the annual Shrimp Boil has been going on… I would venture a guess that Jamie has been hosting it with his Dad for a good 10 years and then George probably hosted it on his own prior to that for another 10. This is my fourth year of joining the festivities and I must say I look forward to it EVERY year! I mean what is not to like- good food, good drink and good people. What more could you ask for on a sunny Saturday afternoon?

Since having the kiddos I find myself not as “free” to shoot as much of these events as I would like (putting sleeping babies down, getting not sleeping big brothers up, etc can really eat up some time). However, I did manage to grab a few photos of the day… although none of the pouring and unfortunately very few of anyone other than family… Either way, documented or not, there were family, many great friends and a wonderful assortment of colleagues that joined us in bellying up to the table. Thanks to all that came, it was great seeing you, and for those of you who couldn’t make it- you were missed but there is always next year ;)

pretty flowers compliments of Publix… I really do love me a mason jar ;)

banana pudding bites, check out a recipe here

Pepere and Charlie- prepping the water ;)

I was trying to get a photo of me and Jay but he was way too distracted with all of the people in the backyard to smile… not even tickling really worked

Charlie hanging on the blanket

enjoying some delicious corn- purchasing it fresh was definitely the way to go!

Aunt Jamie- silly girl

Uncle Mark

Josh- by the way Jay adores him and rightfully so… he is wonderful to him, they are ‘briends’

three cheers for the chef

more cheers for more chefs…

grub

YUM

enjoying the shade

couldn’t resist posting this one of little miss Avery- check out those baby blues!!

banana pudding bites

Published on May 8, 2012 by kristenperreault3 Comments

My mission- a delicious dessert, that wasn’t cookies, that was easy to make/eat and didn’t require utensils… the result Banana Pudding Bites!

I landed on banana pudding when I was searching through recipes to make for the shrimp boil we hosted on Saturday (more photos of the shin dig coming soon); it was simple enough and would compliment the spicy shrimp perfectly, besides you can’t go wrong with a classic. The only problem was I didn’t want to serve something that needed bowls and utensils and I needed something that would withstand being in the heat for the better part of the afternoon. So what do you do with this kind of dilemma you make it cute, you make it bite sized. Honestly, I must say that I am rather impressed on how fantastic these little guys turned out, I was fully prepared for my experiment to be a disaster. However, this is defienetly a ‘recipe’ that I will store in my make again soon (real soon) file and if you like banana pudding you should too!

Here’s the gist…

I used this delicious banana pudding recipe from Paula Deen (and no there isn’t tons of butter in the pudding- but it is the best banana pudding recipe I have EVER come across and I have tried a few) and instead of arranging the chessmen cookies and sliced bananas in a 9×13 like recipe calls for I piped the pudding on to individual cookies using a disposable pipping bag and my jumbo closed star tip and topped each of them with a thick slice of banana. Call it deconstructed banana pudding if you will ;)

Oh, and in case you want to try it… let me give you two suggestions- 1. buy 3 bags of chessmen cookies, the banana pudding in the piping bag goes a long way and 2. if you mix your pudding early and leave it in the fridge make sure to leave the pipping bag out for a few minutes before pipping your cookies. The pudding is really thick and was difficult to pipe while cold.

outtakes

Published on May 7, 2012 by kristenperreault2 Comments

So photographing a 5 1/2 month old along side his 27 month old brother on my own is NO easy feat, let me tell you! I was happy to get the few that I did but I just couldn’t resist sharing a few of the outtakes- happy Monday to you!

Oh and in case you are worried- although it doesn’t always appear this way Charlie was loving all of the snuggles and attention from his big brother :)

outtake — he was trying to turn Charlie's head to give him a kiss... and Charlie was really okay with it all and didn't fuss.

ears! — Jay was pointing out Charlie's ears in this one- again no fussing

door hangings

Published on May 6, 2012 by kristenperreaultLeave a comment

I have finally been able to complete a few of our house projects to the point of wanting to share them with you on here. However, I need to get my act together enough to actually take photos of them so that I can share! Until that happens I will show you these cute little name plates that I made for the boys doors. Jay loves having his name on his door and well I love them too- they are just cute in my opinion.

I would offer up a tutorial on how to make little gems… however, step by step instructions is not really my thing and it would end up going something like this…

1. have husband make random comment about how we should put signs on the boys doors so people can tell which is the bathroom and which rooms are theirs

2. think on it- decide that embroidered name things (yes that is a technical name) would work perfectly for this

3. doodle some simple line drawings until you have a design that you like (a Jay Bird and a Charlie Tuna in our case)

4. look up how to embroider- stitches, transferring said “patterns” to fabric, etc

5. purchase the necessary fabric (this was the only thing I needed- yes, I had embroidery floss and a hoop and I haven’t ever done any stitching until now…)

6. do all of the pattern transferring

7. stitch it all up

8. iron out the creases in the fabric that were made from the hoop

9. spray paint some simple wooden frames to match the rooms/ embroidery

10. rig up the frame so it would hold the embroidery

And, since I am pretty sure those kind of instructions won’t be helpful… I won’t give you any more than that ;) Just know that I enjoyed making them and that if you give it a whirl you might too.

Also, just so you don’t think that I have the luxury of time here’s a photo to keep it real for you…

Yes, that is me ironing on a towel in the kitchen while a sweet kiddo (if you look closely you can see his sweet little red head over the top of the couch in the first picture) plays with duplo and very large trucks!

thing one and thing two

Published on May 4, 2012 by kristenperreault3 Comments

The other day I was trying to get some photos of Jay and Charlie in their thing one and thing two shirts… We don’t have many of the two boys together in photos right now so I am trying to make a more conscious effort to take some. I wouldn’t exactly call the said “photo shoot” extremely successful- you can’t really tell what the shirts say and I am not wild about the back lighting in the photos. That being said, I will most certainly try again for a ‘brothers’ shoot soon and there are a few cute ones of my fellas that I had to share… enjoy and happy Friday to you!!!

the next two of Charlie are really similar but I couldn’t decide on which one I liked best so you get to see them both. Isn’t he getting so big!?!

lunch

Published on April 28, 2012 by kristenperreault7 Comments

One of the perks of Jamie working from home is that we get to have lunch with Grandpa when he does. We all look forward to it- Piper nearly knocks over everyone in her path once she sees us getting ready for lunch (putting the place-mats out and getting a towel for her to have her kong treat on) and Jay bounds around the house saying “Grandpa, Grandpa” in a sweet sing-songy voice when he sees him pull up or hears the front gate open announcing his arrival. I know it’s only a little bit before Charlie joins in on the Grandpa’s-here-dance too because he loves every bit of our visits as much as the rest of us. I am so glad that I was able to grab a few photos from the highlight of our week; Charlie shared some adorable smiles and the few that I got of Grandpa reading to Jay (which is probably Jay’s favorite part of our lunch routine) make my heart smile. Enjoy the photos and enjoy the next few days of your weekend ;)

mama said

Published on April 23, 2012 by kristenperreault1 Comment

there’ll be days like this, there’ll be days like this my mama said…

These photos were from a while back, we haven’t used the highchair in quite some time, but in hindsight his little dramatic- self cracks me up every time!!

Happy Monday to you!

happy earth day!

Published on April 22, 2012 by kristenperreault1 Comment

About a month ago Jamie tackled a large project from our to-do list- moving the second (and last) of our raised gardens. We put in the garden a while back, originally placing it on the North side of our backyard, and while things grew there and did moderately well it was apparent that in order for it to thrive it needed to be moved so it could get more sun light.

He was able to wrangle some “help” to move it; although, our help mostly enjoyed wheel barrow rides and relocating the dirt that was being put back into the garden rather than anything actually productive. I guess you get what you pay for ;) It was no small feat but it is done now and we are so happy that we moved it- things are starting to look wonderful! Our black thumbs are getting greener and we are learning as we go… looking forward to enjoying some of our bounty soon ;)

outside charlie — Charlie and I supervised ;)

Happy Earth Day to you!!

Thank you

Published on April 20, 2012 by oboesax5 Comments

Just a quick note to say “Thank You” to our vets at Tuskawilla Oaks Animal Hospital and the veterinary specialists at AVS for helping us provide Dolce with the care he needed to live 6 more months with us. We wish his time hadn’t been cut so short, but we are thankful for the time that we had. (Except for the first few weeks of recovery, you wouldn’t have known that he had been through major surgery.) The compassion shown by both offices is very much appreciated.

Dolce cared for us long before we had to care for him. When Kristen was pregnant with Jay (August 2009), Dolce made sure she took it easy and stayed warm

And later, when both Jamie and Jay were sick (June 2011), Dolce was there to make sure we got better

When Dolce returned from the Vet (September 2011), he had a little sweater on to hold a feeding tube in place, but he still wanted to be where everyone was, a part of the action

And even though he wasn’t back to 100% himself, he kept Jay company when Jay wasn’t feeling well, cuddling up next to him while Jay watched a movie

Curious Dolce

Published on April 19, 2012 by oboesax1 Comment

Over the past couple weeks, we have been looking through our old pictures, remembering Dolce. We hope you enjoy this and a few currently-under-development posts that will appear over the next few weeks. As Dolce was one of our original “kids”, we have plenty of photos by which to remember him.

Like all good cats, Dolce was very curious. He participated in numerous furniture assembly projects and new-purchase unboxings. Always wanting to be where the action was, he was an integral part of our lives through all events, large and small.