weekly winners

Weekly Winners-The Three Six Five Edition

March 27, 2010 By Heather 11 Comments

I have been taking photos.

I have been uploading said photos to my computer.

Getting them out of Lightroom and elsewhere on my computer is a totally different story.

I hope you enjoy this peek into my life this week-for more weekly winner love head over to Lotus’s place.

Seriously, you won’t regret it.

Jeff’s glove now belongs to Jeremy

Malley’s Chocolates are Delicious and Distinctive. I only wish there were more of them in my house.

Watching her play catch with him made my heart soar.

A New Experience waiting to be had by me this afternoon. I can’t wait.

An Art Project Completed

A sleepover isn’t a sleepover unless you have 7 girls and a disco ball take over your living room

A new friend is made and he is oh so nomable.

Filed Under: a day in my life, photography, snippets captured, weekly winners

Weekly Winners-My baby sister is engaged Edition

March 7, 2010 By Heather 10 Comments

My little sister and her fiance are getting married in October.

Saturday we met up to shoot her engagement shots for the paper & the save the date cards, and well….because
engagement shoots are fun, especially when they agree to go tromping through the snow for my amusement.

I love this one, it really shows her personality.

I love that she started laughing in this one.

She is so happy and I love how it shows.

They were so fun, I don’t know that all of my clients would go tromping through the snow.

You can see her joy

You can see his happiness

And you can just feel their love.

I look forward to shooting these moments for the rest of their lives.

For more photo goodness go over and check out I Am Lotus for Weekly Winners.

Filed Under: engagement photos, fun in the snow, heather durdil photography, my baby sister is getting married, weekly winners

Weekly Winners-Shots of our daily life Edition

February 28, 2010 By Heather 11 Comments

I haven’t been taking a lot of photos this week, but I did get my photo a day in.

I am so happy about that, it has been hard and sometimes I nearly forget, but I do it.

Hope you enjoy peeking into our last week of February of 2010

We went out & celebrated National Pancake Day & gave to a good cause.

Don’t ask me how they were, because pancakes make me gag.

Also don’t ask Giggles if she was happy with the pancakes because

she really wanted the $7 fruit cup

I rarely take photos of myself, partly because

I stink at it and partly because of the many chins.

I needed a photo for Wednesday, I was at

Wally World, so I steered my cart over to the mirror aisle.

It isn’t a pretty shot, it isn’t even something I wanted to take.

But its real, its me and I kind of love it.

Thursday had me at a Girls Nite Out with my good

friend Shannon, only I forgot it was girls nite until she

got to my house. Thankfully my best friend didn’t take up

the offer I made to make her & the kids tacos or I

don’t know what I would have done. Dinner was great,

the company excellent, and I LOVED these lights

The Cat is waiting for her treat. The Dog gets one after he goes outside

(something I never stopped after he was house broken).

Sometimes he goes outside, turns a circle and comes back

in with hopes he will get his cookie. The Cat normally waits at

the door for him and they run up the kitchen together, but earlier in

the day I sort of shut her in between the doors and so for

the rest of the day she didn’t go near the side door, but she did

come to the kitchen for her treats. How could I say no to a face like that.

And the snow….oh, the snow.

I could fill up albums with the photos of the snow I could take.

It is pretty, but its nearly March and I am so done with it.

The snow we had this weekend was sticky and wet

so it stuck to everything. Including our basketball hoop.

(also that’s not noise in the photo, its snowing)

I wish that it wasn’t hip deep in parts of my yard,

but what am I going to do?

If you want to check out more photo treasures be sure to

head over to Loter’s place and check out the linky love.

Filed Under: my life, photography, weekly winners

Weekly Winners-The Cheryl & Co Edition plus a giveaway!

December 13, 2009 By Heather 13 Comments

Congrats to Greis on winning the Cheryl & Co Giveaway! Don’t fret…I will have another giveaway coming up real soon!

This past Tuesday I was one of many Ohio bloggers invited to come to Columbus to tour Cheryl & Co’s facilities and learn all about the way they make their famous cookies and now brownies for National Brownie Day.

Now I will admit up until this past June I did not even know that Cheryl & Co existed at all, if it wasn’t for a trip to the mall in Columbus with my friend, Christina, taking me into one of their retail locations and encouraging me to sample some of their famous buttercream. I had the Orange Spice Buttercream and oh my tasty goodness! Let’s just say I am glad that I don’t live closer to a Cheryl & Co retail location for I have no self control when it comes to those little beauties.

So Tuesday morning, I got up and traveled the 2 hours and 20 minutes down to Cheryl & Co to learn all about the cookie making process. I was not disapointed.

All photos were taken using my Canon Rebel xsi and my 50 mm 1.8 lens
To view more weekly winners please go to Sarcastic Mom’s site
To view more photos from this day and others please view my flickr stream

The day started with us checking in & signing release forms so that they could film & photograph us during the event

After a lovely lunch and some presentations by the executives of Cheryl & Co and 1800 Flowers we doned our aprons and put on our hair nets to ~~channel our inner lunch lady~~ take a tour of the production area of Cheryl & Co.
Here is Jenna with her requested green hair net.

Most of the cookies that they make have a very short shelf life, but these variety of crispy cookies last up to six months once packaged up.

Did you know that they frost all their cookies by hand?!!? A machine puts a squirt of frosting on each cookie but there were a couple ladies that just spread frosting all day long.

The sprinkles, however, were done by machine.

After the tour we were whisked off to the test kitchen (sorry couldn’t resist the pun there) to see some of the tasty treats Elisabeth had whipped up to show us

Elisabeth explained to us the test kitchen process and encouraged us to decorate the brownies with some buttercream frosting. Sadly not the buttercream frosting.
Here is Christina decorating her brownie.

While this would probably be frowned upon on the main kitchen floor, we were encouraged to sample the treats in whatever way we saw fit……right Jenna?

All in all it was a GREAT day! I learned so much about what goes into making the cookies and many other treats at Cheryl & Co. I learned that Cheryl & Co gives back to the local community by donating cookies to the Mid Ohio Food Bank. I also learned that Cheryl & Co wants to give to YOU too!

I have one Cheryl & Co Ultimate Brownie Assortment up for grabs. This includes 18 individually wrapped Cheryl & Co brownies including their NEW buttercream frosted peanut butter, classic vanilla and hot fudge. There is also some customer favorites included like the toffee crunch, classic fudge, blondie and oatmeal scotchie varieties included.

What you need to do to enter (And guess what Canadians….you are INCLUDED in this one they ship to all of North America) go to the Cheryl & Co website and tell me what your favorite treat is.

For additional entries you can
1. Follow me on twitter @DExtraordinaire and leave a comment letting me know that you are doing so
2. Follow Cheryl & Co on twitter (@Cherylandco) and leave me another comment letting me know you are following them
3. You can tweet about this giveaway, just copy & paste this to your twitter stream and come back and leave me the URL of your tweet in another comment
I want some win some brownies from @cherylandco and @DExtraordinaire do you? Head here http://ow.ly/Lxrw to enter
4. Write a blog post about this giveaway and leave me another comment with the link.

I will post the winner by random drawing in next week’s weekly winner’s post, but if you can’t wait that long to get your brownies you can always go to Cheryl & Co and use the coupon code BRN10 until 1-31-10 for $10 off any purchase.

FTC Disclosure-I was not paid for this post. I was only provided with a really great day with some friends touring a cookie factory, although I don’t think the lunch was made by the said cookie company but it was FAB! I did receive some treats for my family as a thank you for driving the 2 plus hours down to tour said cookie company.

Filed Under: blogging friends, cookies, did I mention yummy cookies, fun things I get to do because I have a blog, weekly winners

Weekly Winners-Photos that make me Smile Edition

December 7, 2009 By Heather 3 Comments

This past week left me taking few photos again, due mostly to not getting out too much.

Shorter days equals less time driving for me. I still get out and drive at night, but I not as much as I used to.

This week’s shots are not many, but they do make me smile….so enjoy!

This shot is straight out of the camera.

A full moon lured me down this side road,

but these colors nearly took my breath away.

The moon across the street from the above shot-it was so full and bright.

My only regret was that I only had my 50mm with me.

Enjoying the many voices singing to her for her birthday.

Another friend’s baby-she is so sweet and I just love her in stripes!

To view more of my photos check out my flickr stream.

To view more weekly winner greatness check out Lotus’s place.

Filed Under: photographry, weekly winners

Weekly Winners-Shots from the Week Edition

November 22, 2009 By Heather Leave a Comment

This week’s Weekly Winners is different shots I took during the week.

A shot from Sunday

A shot from the doctor’s office

A shot from the corner of 4th and Middle

A shot of a tree planted by Chicken and now it grows

For more weekly winners head over to Sarcastic Mom.
To see more photos from me check out my flickr stream.

Filed Under: NaBloPoMo, stuff that I shot with a camera, weekly winners

Weekly Winners-The Pole Climbing Edition

November 15, 2009 By Heather 15 Comments

This week my hubby was sent to pole climbing class for his job. A friend of his went a few weeks ago and took a photo of another friend at the top of the pole. We got to talking, then he got to talking with the trainers and next thing I knew I was getting invited out there to take some shots on Thursday morning.

Looking through these photos, to see how confident Jeremy is about his job, makes me happy. Its hard enough watching him walk out the door sometimes six days a week to support us, but to see that he enjoys what he’s doing, well, that just makes my heart smile.

Many thanks to the trainers and class who let me take their photos. I do hope you enjoy them.

The gear that keeps them safe

Weathered and Watching

Climbing over the obstruction

The safety of my love

Tools of the Trade

Do vests help you climb better?

Peace from up high

Happiness in climbing

Trusting your equipment

Kicking back & relaxing atop a 18′ pole

To view more photos from that day please view my flickr stream

To check out more weekly winners please check out Lotus’s site.

Filed Under: NaBloPoMo, the things my husband does for fun and gets paid for it, weekly winners

Weekly Winners-The World Series of Wine Edition

November 8, 2009 By Heather 7 Comments

Yesterday I had the great honor of being asked by WVIZ to be the still shot photographer for their annual event The World Series of Wine.

I had honestly never heard of the event, and we actually do watch PBS, so I was surprised.

Whether I am shooting the event or buying my own tickets, I will surely be back next year. It was so much fun, especially the behind the sceens stuff.

Enjoy!

To see the rest of the photos from that night (that are edited check out my flickr stream)

For more weekly winners-that are totally worth seeing-check out Lotus’ place.

Filed Under: fun things I got to do because I have mad skillz with the camera, heather durdil photography, NaBloPoMo, weekly winners

Weekly Winners-The Parade Edition

November 1, 2009 By Heather 19 Comments

Each year at ~~the girls’~~ our local elementary school they have a Halloween parade around the neighborhood. It is lead by our high school marching band (which happens to be the best damn band in the land-its true…ask any local) The event is huge for here, people bring out the lawn chairs and little kiddies look forward to the time that they can march along their friends in the parade. I am so thankful for one little vampire & her momma (who happens to be one of my best friends) for letting me tag along and enjoy walking in the parade one more year.

STOP! and watch the Parade.