Do all things with love.

If you have a dog, then I'm certain you know what it feels like to come home from a stressful day at work, have no idea what to make for dinner, find that your trash can lid is missing, and open the front door to a friend whose wagging tail and wet kisses make you forget all of those annoyances in an instant.  Dogs really are man's best friend.  And since our boy loves us unconditionally, we like to shower him with matching affection.  He likes to run, loves to dig, and favors things that stink.  With that said, we find that the open terrain, endless sandbox, and countless salty oyster shells of the beach are a perfect match for his preferences.  So on a temperate Saturday in March, we showed our pup some love and loaded him up in the Jeep for a beach excursion.  Here are some of the highlight photos from our care-free beach hour with the Roon.

Sugar Plum Babies

I'm entirely aware that this is a slightly biased statement, but these kiddos may be the sweetest little babes ever to grace the earth.  My relationship with their mother involves a very tangled web of "by-marriage" connections, but I call her my sister because, well, she exceeds all of the requirements involved with claiming the title.  And because she's my sister, I'm lucky enough to call these two cuties my niece and nephew.  So when I feel the need to exercise some photographic creativity, these two are my go-two guinea pigs for obvious reasons.

I had an itch to create a holiday card-worthy photo, using simple white Christmas lights as a sparkly backdrop.  So much of an itch, that I annoyed the living day-lights out of my husband by spending the better part of an hour (or two?) to create my backdrop.  Surprisingly, the task was more difficult than you'd think.  The festive intensive labor was totally worth it, and resulted in some of my most favorite photos to date. 

Instead of babbling on about how dang precious these kids are, scroll through the photos and gander for yourself.  Could I have asked for a better outcome?  Absolutely not. With that said, here are the results of my sparkly-card brain child photo session with Baby J and sweet Baby Girl...

Roon Bug's Birthday

July 18th, 2011, the approximate day that my puppy was born.  A year ago today, he was a squishy little ball of wrinkles with a mama and some siblings.  I wouldn't meet his sweet furry face for another four months -- it's weird to think that he existed that long without me.  I love my little booger probably more than a dog can be loved, and today I made sure he especially knew it. 

For some reason I really wanted a picture of my hound in an old school paper birthday hat.  I convinced myself that I could make it happen, even though I sort of knew he'd rip the hat off of his head and shred it with pleasure.  Somehow I captured this shot.  And by "somehow", I mean that I dangled a plastic fork-full of peanut butter in front of his face to distract him from the embarassing celebratory cap atop his furry bean.  Thank goodness it worked, because I was able to capture this photo.  I cannot begin to describe how much I love this photo, so I won't.

Happy Birthday, Rooney! <3

Lisa & Christian's Engagement Photos

September 1, 2011.  It's exactly one year prior to my rapidly approaching wedding date.  It's also the exact day that Lisa, Christian, and I ventured out into our small town's backyard with the mission of taking their engagement photos. 

Before every photo session I always deal with nerves.  In this case I probably should've been more at ease considering how close I am with the couple, but to be honest, I wasn't.  As my future sister-in-law and one of my very best friends, I simply didn't want to let Lisa down.  I needed to keep my style of photography, but still give Lisa the pictures she'd been conjuring in her head for months (or years?) -- a challenge that churned my stomach a smidge.   I knew she wanted vintage, "The Notebook"-esque style photos, so I wanted to deliver her Rachael McAdams and Ryan Gosling on a silver screen platter.  So I did my usual prep work and sketched out my famous unflattering stick figures in shots that I deemed "Notebook-worthy".

Lisa did her fare share of prep work as well by outfitting her and her Fiance to fit the vintage role.  On the day of the photo session, she showed up in a sweet ivory lace frock and her trademark country curls.  Christian looked quite dapper himself, sporting an ensemble reminiscent of a time where iPads were replaced with back-country fishing adventures.  They looked good.  That makes my job a little easier.  But all of my anxiety melted away when I started shooting and realized that the photographer in me was going to pull through.  As the future Habersacks led me through their territory of the Gunpowder State Park, I effortlessly snapped away -- it was easy considering these beautiful people fit right into their element.  They shared stories about how they used to climb the rusty green bridge in high school, and how they'd fish while their hound dog Blue carelessly splashed around in the creek bed.  I felt like I was seeing a lovey-dovey side of them that most people don't get to, and that made the photos more "special" to me.

The happy couple has since entered wedded bliss on May 12th of this year, but it's never too late to share a few photos.  Obviously these photos are some of my personal favorites since my new bro and sis are near and dear to my heart, but I also appreciate these snip-its in time because, to me at least, they represent both Lisa and Christian as I know and love them.  With that said, meet Mr. & Mrs. Habersack:

A personal favorite.

This one made the cover of their Save the Date card!

A rare shot of the Blue-weasel.

This truck served as their guest book at their wedding!

And as an additional wedding treat, I went back and re-edited some of their photos.  Here ya go: