She wants to play. All the time. Play play play play play. Her favorite toy is a wand with a clump of feathers and a little bell on the end, but she’ll play with whatever is close – her toys, your feet, your hair, your hands. It’s a charming habit until she sinks her claws into your leg and uses you as a jungle gym.

Some photographers crawl through the mud, traverse the desert, or withstand monsoon conditions to get the shot. I let a five pound cat play “mountaineer” on my leg. Don’t ever tell me that pet photography is an easy profession. I also narrowly escaped with all my fingers intact. She’s a fast little bugger.

After about an hour of exhaustive playtime, she was finished. She wasn’t shy about letting me know, either.

I received this rug as a birthday present from Jodi and Kevin, friends of the family, this weekend, and I was tickled pink when I opened it up. I love the colors, I love how it’s just a little bit soft and squishy under my toes, and I love how it reminds me so much of my baby Jake (that’s a sad link in an otherwise happy post. Consider yourself warned).

All of the other rugs in our apartment hail from Tar-jay, so it’s really great to have something a little bit fancier and of higher quality in our lives. We’ve been keeping a close eye on Tigger to make sure that he doesn’t use it as a scratching pad. “This is why we can’t have nice things,” I tell him, but he just waves his tail in the air and saunters over to knock things off the bookshelf.

ANYway.

Jodi and her husband Kevin have a brick-and-mortar store in Andover, NH, as well as an online shop that can be found here. I didn’t see this particular rug in the shop, but there are tons of other really beautiful ones, so I highly suggest checking them out.

I love mine. It makes me happy.

Please note: this is not a sponsored post. I was not asked to write a review; I just really like my birthday present!

Will and I had the following conversation in the grocery store last week regarding what kind of cake I wanted for my birthday (which, amazingly enough, happens to be today. Quelle coincidence!):

Will: [Reaches for the funfetti cake] I’m assuming you want this one?
Me: Umm…hold on. [Studies cake selection for about two minutes. Tentatively reaches for the funfetti. Hesitates.]
Will: Pick one.
Me: Umm…ok…[Picks up box of funfetti cake. Puts it back on the shelf and takes a box of rainbow chip cake]. This one.
Will: You sure about that?
Me: I think so? Let me look again. Hold on. [Studies cake selection again] Yeah ok, that one.
Will: Ok, now the frosting. White frosting?
Me: No, I want something PINK!
Will: [shakes head]
Me: PINK! [Picks up can of strawberry frosting]
Will: You don’t want this one? It’s pink but it tastes like vanilla.
Me: What’s the point of buying pink frosting if it doesn’t taste like strawberries?
Will: More people like vanilla.
Me: IT’S MY CAKE. I want strawberry. [smiles sweetly]
Will: [Sighs. Puts strawberry frosting in the cart.] I feel like I’m going to a birthday party for a five-year-old.

Uniform: Maybe a little too big.

Cape: NO CAPES. (skip ahead to 2:08)

(if you’re reading this on facebook or in a feed reader, click through to my blog to see the embedded video clip!)

First up: more blogging! I can commit to one post per week, BARE MINIMUM. Hopefully more, but I know I can write at least one. I’m making that official, so feel free to call me out on it if you don’t here from me for more than a week! I know I don’t have a huge audience (hi, Mom!) but I owe it to all of you who do me the honor of stopping by once in a while to give you something new to entertain you!

Secondly: take more pictures! Um, hello Alexis, you’re a photographer, are you not? Isn’t that kind of, like, your job or something to take pictures? Yes, that’s true, but like many photographers, I’m guilty of shelving the camera in between jobs and not doing nearly enough personal photography projects and just shooting for fun. The quickest way to start producing stale images for my amaaazing clients is to ignore my own creative development, so I think it’s super important to have fun, keep learning, and experiment with my camera.

And my third public resolution: more running! I’ve been lazy lately. Really lazy. As with my blogging resolution, I’m committing to a number that I know is totally manageable: 10 miles per week. Will I run more than that? Some weeks, most definitely. But lately I’ve been going for weeks without running a mile, and I really miss it. I find that exercise is really important in keeping me on an even keel – too long between going to the gym or running, and I get crabby. Really crabby (Will is sitting beside me nodding vigorously. I’d take his word for it). I owe it to myself, to him, and everyone else around me to stay happy and healthy – so 10 miles a week it is!

So that’s all for my main resolutions. Sure, there’s lots of other little things I want to accomplish (as well as some big plans), but those are really all the ones you need to know about, you little snoops

I hope you all had a safe New Year’s Eve that was exciting as you wanted it to be. In keeping with my apparent tradition (which I swear will be broken next year – I’m not too fond of it) I got hit hard with a bad cold and went to bed at 9:30pm. Oh, were you looking for the life of the par-tay? She’s right here, passed out from the Nyquil.

Tigger wishes all of you the very best in the coming year. Making resolutions is so tiring.

We’re a big fan of games around here – cards, dice, board games, word games, you name it. Boggle is easy enough to learn – there are 16 cubes with letters on them, and you have to find words that can be made from the letters that are touching each other. Easy, right? Here, let me show you.

Hmm, that’s not very clear now, is it? Here, let’s try this.

Oh, my.

Is that…wait…seriously?

[cue hyperventilation and crying]

Yes, it’s real!

And so is this:

So now it’s official! Will cheats at boggle! Wait, I mean, it’s official – we’re engaged!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go stare at my ring some more. Is there such a thing as a sparkle coma?

And what better way to take a break on a lovely fall afternoon than to make apple pie! Mmm. I found a recipe for a single serving pie in a jar over on ourbestbites.com. It’s a fantastic cooking site, and I highly recommend checking them out for fun food ideas.

This is kind of reinventing the wheel, since they have a picture tutorial on their site, but I thought I’d share mine so you can see that even someone who is severely challenged in the kitchen can pull these off.

You can make them with just about any filling, but I did apple. You’ll need some 8 oz mason jars (don’t go with the tall ones I used – I found out the hard way there’s a reason why you’re supposed to go with the shorter, wide-mouthed jars), and some apples.

You’ll also need these:

And some pie crust, not pictured and I expect you to respect its privacy, thank-you-very-much. If you’re really motivated, you can make your own. I bought some pre-made crust at Shaw’s. I found that one pie crust and two apples made the perfect amount for three pies. Two for me and one for you! That’s some good math right there.

I’m not going to give you any measurements, because I didn’t measure anything. I’m guessing I had about a half teaspoon of the spices, a couple teaspoons of flour, sugar splenda, and brown sugar, and a dash of vanilla and lemon juice. My rule of thumb was to just keep adding things until it smelled so good I wanted to stick my face in the bowl. When you reach that point, you know it’s good.

Take your frozen lovingly hand-crafted pie crust and cut out circles for the top of each pie, using the mason jar lid as a cookie cutter. Then take the rest of the pie crust and line the jars with it. It doesn’t have to be perfect, just make sure it goes allllllmost all the way up to the top. Remember, you’re getting points for deliciousness, not neatness. Oh, this is the first time I realized why I needed the shorter jars. One, my tiny little fingers couldn’t reach all the way down to the bottom, so I had to use a spoon and mash the pie crust down. The second is that it takes more crust to line the taller jar. I personally like it that way, but if you prefer more filling you’d probably be better off with the wide-mouth jars.

Add the filling. Pretty pretty! Put a tiny dollop of butter on top (about 1/4 teaspoon).

And then put your cut out dough circles on top, making sure to pinch the edges together with the crust that you lined the side of the jar with. If you’re really trying to make these look nice, you can use a cookie cutter to cut a pretty shape out of the top. Or you can just rip it open. Either way, make sure there’s a vent in the top. Here you can see the official Alexis Hall Photo pie in a jar. Coming soon to a supermarket near you. The recipe suggests brushing the crust with butter after you do this, and I’m sure that’s a lovely idea, but I just forgot. Oops.

At this point, you can either put the lids back on and pop them in the freezer to enjoy at a later date, or you can put them in the oven and have them NOW. I’m not sure why you would ever make these and not enjoy at least one right away. Go ahead. You’ve earned it. Preheat the oven to 375, and bake for about 45 minutes.

Unfortunately they’ll have to sit for a little while before you can eat them, unless you don’t mind scalding all the taste buds right off your tongue. If that’s ok with you, dive in. If you’d like to still have some sensation in your mouth, I recommend waiting a little while. You can photograph your pie while you wait!

And wait…

…and wait some more….

Ready go! Ah, that was some good pie. But you don’t have to take my word for it.

A picture is worth a thousand noms.

There were sooooo many cute pups there. Some of them ran the race, and some of them were there to support their humans.

The runners anxiously awaited the starting gun, and after a wonderful rendition of the national anthem by Daniel Clark (who, incidentally, also sings at the start of the Boston Marathon!)….

….they were off!

A good time was most definitely had by all.

Especially these two, who would like to remind you that sharing is caring. Even if the person doing the sharing is doing it unintentionally.

To see all the photos from the event, click here!

Tigger came to us as the result of me pestering Will unmercifully to get a pet. We weren’t in a place where we could have a dog, which is what I really wanted, so I figured a cat would be just as great. A sweet cat who would sit on my lap – that’s all I wanted. We did a lot of research about adopting a shelter cat, talked about it a lot, and crunched some numbers to make sure we could afford to take on a pet. One fateful weekend in October two years ago, I persuaded Will to come with me to the Quincy Animal Shelter – just to look.

Ha.

Taking me to a shelter “just to look” at the animals is pretty much on par with taking me to a bakery just to smell the pastries. Riiiight. Not gonna happen.

We took a tour of the shelter and met many lovely cats. They were all adorable, and they all needed homes. But, we were “just looking”…couldn’t take all of them home. Then we turned around…and there was Tigger. He was in kind of rough shape. He was just under a year old, and had been brought to the shelter by a couple that who had gotten him when he was a kitten and then broken up – neither wanted to keep him. He had just been neutered and had minor surgery done on his mouth, so he was wearing one of those awful cones of shame to keep him from licking himself. He had a big bald spot on his side and on his leg from where they’d had to shave him. Plus, those eyes, ahh! He didn’t stop staring at us the whole time we were there. We looked at each other, and knew we were lost. We had to take him home.

We filled out the application, assured Tigger we’d be back in just a few days to pick him up, then called our landlord the minute we walked out of the shelter to make sure it was ok that we got a cat. Oops. It was a little backwards, but it was all ok!

When we got Tigger home, he was everything that I’d hoped for. He was so incredibly affectionate – always headbutting us, crawling up into our laps, and purring so loudly his whole body vibrated. After a week, he got comfortable, and then the cone came off.

And THEN the Tigger we know and love and occasionally want to smack upside his furry little head really blossomed. Cat’s got personality, I tell you what. He does what he wants, when he wants. He does not sit on our laps, he stalks our feet, and he is convinced that 4am is absolutely the best time to run laps around the apartment.

But you know what? I wouldn’t trade him for anything. Even so…I can’t help but smile when I look at these pictures from the first week he was with us.

Back before we knew what we were getting ourselves into.

This is Otis, the tiniest Boston Terrier puppy I’ve ever seen. And he would like you to know that it would be fine and dandy by him if you snuggled up next to him by the fireplace.