The Youngrens | San Diego Photographers

Currently Viewing : Casa de Youngren

Feb 03 2012

Yankee Candle Comment Winner Announced!

Thanks to everyone that submitted their comments for my Yankee Candle cozy giveaway this week! I love y’all so much that it brings out my inner southern belle. I feel like inviting’ y’all in for sweet tea and bridge club. (I just finished listening to The Help audiobook, and I think that I have THE BEST southern accent. Some would disagree though. Like everybody.) Every morning this week, I would wrap myself up in my heated blanket with a Chai latte and read through your cozy comments. Some of my favorites were: From Cassie: Omg, my all time favorite cozy place is…

View full post »

Feb 02 2012

Submit Your Favorite Dutch Oven Recipe!

After posting that amazing Braised Short Rib, Stout, and Potato Pot Pie on Recipe Sunday last weekend, I’ve been craving a dutch oven meal. But the tragedy of our kitchen is that we’ve never owned a dutch oven. I know. Our kitchen has just never been complete. But then a little package plopped on our doorstep yesterday. My dear sweet hubby had been researching dutch ovens for months and found the perfect one. In the midst of my gleeful squeals, I realized that my hubby is such a charmer. Yes, he does everything in his power to make me smile,…

View full post »

Jan 29 2012

Braised Short Rib, Stout, and Potato Pot Pie

There is no other food that defines comfort food like a pot pie. In fact, a pot pie is to the dinner world as a cinnamon roll is to the pastry world – hot, sticky, creamy, gooey, and simply comfor-licious. That’s right. It’s so good I made up a new word and that doesn’t happen everyday. Only every other day. So when I found this fancy gourmet Dutch oven take on the age old pot pie concept, I couldn’t resist borrowing my friends fancy cookware to fancy-up dinnertime. The gooey innards of this recipe are short ribs with cipollini onions and…

View full post »

Jan 27 2012

‘Tis the Season to Be Cozy
A Yankee Candle Giveaway!

January gets a bum rap. It’s a month of coming down off of the holiday season high PLUS the OMG-its-a-new-year month and the I-didn’t-do-nearly-enough-last-year month. Mix that with the smack middle of winter and you’ve got a deadly combination for the winter blues. But one thing that I love about January is that it’s the season of COZY. Jeff says that I say the word ‘cozy’ a lot. In fact, he insists that it’s my number one descriptor of things that I love. “I like this restaurant – it’s so cozy.” “Oooooh, this sweater feels cozy!” “That Starbucks stinks. It’s…

View full post »

Jan 20 2012

Henri Nowen on The Greatest Trap in Our Lives

“Over the years, I have come to realize that the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection. Success, popularity, and power can indeed present a great temptation, but their seductive quality often comes from the way they are part of the much larger temptation to self-rejection. When we have come to believe in the voices that call us worthless and unlovable, then success, popularity, and power are easily perceived as attractive solutions. The real trap, however, is self-rejection. As soon as someone accuses me or criticizes me, as soon as I am rejected, left…

View full post »

Jan 18 2012

They Steal Your Leather Boots Don’t They?

I’m a nester. A mole. I love to burrow into my comfortable, safe spaces that I create around me, knowing that I’m in control. Because when I’m in control, things will always be the same. And same is safe. But Jeff … well… Jeff has the confidence of a Honey Badger. He just don’t care. He has this relentless ocean of self-assurance that makes what little confidence I have look like one of those smelly puddles on the street next to the sidewalk – everybody avoids it and nobody wants to talk about what’s in it. We got these free…

View full post »

Jan 16 2012

I’m a Bit Spoiled

Tags: daily life

Jeff and I were walking past Union Square in San Francisco the other day and I was checking my Instagram feed only to see a photo of our past bride and groom, Lizzy and Ipp, flying off to Manhattan to live for two months. I blurted out, “I wish we could live in New York for two months! That would be so cool…” Jeff stopped, gave me his “seriously?” look, and hopped on the cable car next to us so we could spend the day working from a Starbucks down in Fisherman’s Wharf. We’re in San Francisco for two weeks…

View full post »

Tags: daily life

Jan 15 2012

Green Onion Biscuit Blossoms

The best thing about food is it’s ability to take you back. I mean waaaaaay back. I mean back to your grocery shopping around the kitchen with your mini-toy shopping cart and your Cabbage Patch doll days. Those were the days when the kitchen counters felt a mile high, and I could only reach Mom’s baking stuff in the bottom cabinets – namely the shortening, the flour, and the hand mixer. So I would sneak whatever I could find into my shopping cart, and then go upstairs to my mini-kitchen play set to mix flour and water to make a dough for…

View full post »

Jan 13 2012

A Year of Instagram

Tags: daily life

STOP THE PRESSES. I posted my first photo on Instagram on December 16, 2010. And I just found out that Jeff posted his first Instagram on December 3o, 2010. I’m must document this moment, because this just may be the first time EVER that I’ve seen, adopted, posted, viewed, or downloaded anything before Jeff. I mean this is big time people. Me: ‘OMG this video is hilarious! And it only has 10,000 views – come watch!’ Jeff: ‘Oh yeah, I saw that two hours ago when it only had 300 views…” Story of my life. Anyhoo, we both realized today…

View full post »

Tags: daily life

Older posts »