Meet Hans

Our little boy is growing up so fast, and there's nothing I can do about it!  Sam and I might have a new profession of dog portraits at our hands if we continue with our weekly photos : )

Oh my goodness he was a cutie around 8 weeks, weighing about 10 lbs.  The first day we got him his left ear stood up all day and his right ear flopped over.  I was sad to see his floppy ears go.  

At 9 weeks, Hans is sporting the "teepee ears."  I seriously do not know how he grew so much in one week!  He weighed in at 15 or 16 lbs at 9 weeks.

The difference between weeks 9 and 10 aren't as noticeable (thank goodness, he's breaking my heart by growing up so fast!).  His ears are growing at a faster rate than his body right now. 

I'll keep you posted with Hans updates!  

Dreaming of Warm Weather

As I sit on the couch in my long johns with my warmest blanket on top of me and soak in the heat my laptop is giving off to me, I'm dreaming of Florida.  Temperatures in the 70's and 80's, humid ocean air, and the beach...aaahhh.  Why Florida?  Well this lovely couple will be getting married there in April!  I'm looking forward to joining them to photograph their wedding!  

Kelly and Dave live in Pennsylvania, so I know they will be ready for a warm vacation as well.  Now you're asking how did I meet a couple living in Pennsylvania who is getting married in Florida....  Well, Kelly's stepmom, Anne, watched me grow up in my old childhood neighborhood of Coulwood (in Charlotte).  Coulwood is where I have memories of winning the 4th of July Parade's Best Festive Outfit/Bicycle Decorations and one year I even won the "get the greasy watermelon out of the pool the fastest" (also a 4th of July game).  The Coulwood pool holds most of my childhood memories from that neighborhood, and Anne her family lived right beside the pool.  I was thrilled when Anne recommended me to Kelly. 

I actually met Kelly and Dave in Asheville for their engagement session.  We went to the North Carolina Arboretum, a beautiful spot in Asheville.  I hope to spend more time there this year!  Kelly and Dave were fun to work with, easy-going, funny, and smitten with each other.  What more could I ask for?!

These two were so "head over heels" for each other! 

I love this picture!  The softness of the long grass, the changing color of the leaves, and the sunlight are all gorgeous.  And then you have Kelly and Dave just completely comfortable and wrapped up in each other's arms who are also beautiful!

We then hit the Blue Ridge Parkway, which has an entrance right by the NC Arboretum.  

And we'll end with a kiss!

We're Getting a Puppy!

Ashley you win!  Sam and I are counting down the days til we get our puppy!

4 Days, 13 hours to go!

Meet the puppy (no name yet, so feel free to leave a suggestion in the comment section).  It's a German Shepherd, and it's a boy!

Contest: What's Missing in this Picture?

I really enjoyed the last contest I did on the blog (here).  This is a personal post, so I don't have any client pictures to share (but don't worry, I'll do another client contest).  So here's the contest:

What's missing from the picture below?  Leave your answer in the comment section of this blog post.  The first person to guess the right answer wins!  The prize will be 2 free 8x10's from your photography session/event.  I personally like blog contests where my comment could be the winning answer compared to randomly drawing a winner from a list of people who left comments.  So put your thinking caps on and figure out what's missing in this picture :)  

Sorry this picture was in my last post as well.  Friends and family, I'm sorry, but you're not eligible for this contest.

Merry Christmas from our house to yours!

We stepped it up a bit this year and added wreaths and a Moravian star to our house (well the star was a Christmas gift from Sam's parents last year).  When I put that star together the other week, this thought kept running through my head, "oh, if I was on Survivor I would be losing this puzzle challenge right now!" Haha, yes, Sam and I still watch Survivor and LOVE it.

We acquired 2 nutcrackers this year from Sam's mom as well.  She didn't want them anymore.  

Okay so there are no Christmas decorations in this picture, but I wanted to show you our new to us lamp that only cost us $15.  This lamp came from Nanny and Papa's house.  It sat in this spot for about 2 months without a lamp shade (we didn't use the dated lampshade with fringe that was on it at my Nanny and Papa's house).  Finally I found a lamp shade from Lowe's that fit it correctly.  The lamp is sitting on 2 books to give this side of the room more height.  The tall floor lamp that is to the right of the Christmas tree is on the other side of the living room.  My mother-in-law-in-law (My sister-in-law Rachel's mother-in-law) who could be a great interior decorator, gave me that tip.  The untitled book is actually my proof book of our wedding pictures, and the book titled Love, was our guest book that we had people sign at our wedding.

And we have new pillows on our couch!  They were made by my friend's mom, and I love that she had the creative thought to give these pillow the thick cording.  The back side of these pillows match our newly recovered chair (you can see that here).

 Merry Christmas from Mer and Sam!

The Espinosa Family

Oh how I love this sweet family.  Emily is the sweetest person on this earth.  She is my old co-worker from CHEERSPORT, and she is my old teammate from Teal.  I met her family on a chilly November morning after Thanksgiving (much colder than it is now that we are a 2 days from Christmas).  You just never know what temperature you will get on a sunny winter day in Charlotte.  Will it be 32 or 62?  Emily and Luis prepped their 3 year old son, Ben, for family pictures as well.  They worked on teaching him my name (which is a very hard name for any young child to say).  I lived with a family friends right out of college when I started my banking job (luckily it only took me a 1 1/2 years to discover that wasn't the right career path for me - but that's the type of job I got out of college as a finance major).  Anyways, I had about 3 - 4 weeks in Greenville, SC where the job was based before I went to Atlanta for 6 weeks of training.  To prevent paying rent for an apartment when I wouldn't be living in it, this family graciously allowed me to stay with them.  At the time their 3 year old could not say Meredith, it came out like "Mer-Da."  It was cute hearing him try to say my name.  

Back to the Espinosa family, Ben was all ready for pictures in the car ride over to the park with his parents, but he was really shy as soon as we started taking pictures.  You never know what children will do during family pictures, but it's okay if they are not "perfect" the day of a photo shoot.  Their personalities still manage to shine through.  Although Ben was acting shy that day, I eventually was able to capture his sweet smile.

Merry Christmas from the Espinosa Family

Sometimes it takes a little bit of tickling to get those real smiles :)

This is a hint of shyness. 

Perfectly cute!

This is the "oh my gosh, Santa Claus is coming!" face

What a handsome little fella!  Merry Christmas Ben, Emily, and Luis! 

Cookie and Camera

You've met Ella before for her 1 year old birthday shoot (2 posts, here and here).  Here she is all dolled up for Christmas looking adorable!  Ella's parents, Elizabeth and Marc had her very prepared for the photo shoot.  The first thing she said to me when she got out of the car was "camera."  How awesome is that!

There is a great back story to the picture above and below.  We are at this nice park in Spartanburg right besides Wofford's campus (go Terriers! - I have to add that in whenever I can).  I'm actually sitting on the other side of this small stream that runs through the park.  Ella has had swim lessons and loves the water.  We thought it would be a good idea to take her to the water and let her be near it, but all she wanted to do was get in the water.  Sounds cute, right?  But it was so dangerous along the water's edge because it was lined with jagged rocks, and Ella had this "I want to dive in head first to that water" look on her face.  She got pretty upset when we didn't let her get in the water, so we had to move on and distract her from the stream.   

Enjoying a ride in her red wagon

Her grandparents had Ella laughing and smiling and making scary faces.  This shoot took place 1 day before Halloween, and Ella had a pretty darn cute "monster face."  

I have to tell one more story about Ella.  She had such a cute little personality.  We took a break from pictures (or rather a break from Meredith chasing after Ella as she explored this park with a full on run).  Her parents offered a snack (I believe it was cheerios or some little snack food like that).  She told her parents that she did not want that snack they brought with them, she wanted a cookie.  Now that is a girl after my own heart, already loving the desserts.