Home Away From Home

How often have you heard the saying "home is where the heart is"? It might be somewhat sappy, and even overused, but it is entirely true. This past weekend Kyle and I were on vacation with Dablet and several of our family members; I think we had 19 people there at one point! I've talked about the importance of vacation, and the significance of Bald Head Island to our family before, but this trip was a turnaround for me on so many levels. I'm not entirely sure I'm ready to divulge some of the inner realizations just yet, but I can share the eye candy from the trip with you!!!

This is Laurie's Loft, and it was our home for the week! I've stayed in larger houses on the island, but when they say that great things come in small(er) packages, they were talking about this house! Its upside down floor plan was perfect for our dogs, and as we spent most of our time on the beach and around the island easy access to our bedrooms for naps was fabulous!
A prior house we have stayed in (and the other half of my family rented this week) is Chirico pictured here:

 Yes, that's me, Kyle, and Dablet "walking off into the sunset". This house will always hold a special place in my heart because I stayed there when I got married, and we were married on the beach in front of it.
OK, so I suppose I can't hide the eye candy any longer (as you can clearly see we had a professional photographer come play with us!) Matt McGraw  was our wedding photographer and I love when I have a chance to work with him! We asked Matt to come "play with us" and get some family photos, as well as some "we've been married for two years and still like each other" photos! Photography is an ESSENTIAL part of my style, always lean to photo journalistic, and it is my favorite element for decorating my walls! Given all of that, I think showing you some photos of my family will help open the door to my "at home style"! Here we go!

This is some of my family! My sister-in-law, my brother, my younger nephew, aunt, dad, me, Dablet, and Kyle! These people are the ones who make vacations worth taking no matter where we may go!

 Can you say happy baby? Dablet is a total ham and loves to be photographed!

I have always been amazed by how Matt silhouettes people against amazing skies! This is a wall piece to be sure!

I LOVE BABY FEET!!! I will put them up on my wall any time, any way, and I will make them work in ANY room!

This is the kind of photo I would put above my dresser in my bedroom so that every morning when I'm getting ready I can remember this amazing moment that will always make me smile!

OK, so you've seen the family, the second half of the shoot was just me and Kyle. We took our golf cart around the island at night and got some fun shots!

This next one is a little more PG-13 but I LOVE the European style phone booth and this was the only teaser shot Matt has shown me so far, so I had to share!

The lighting on the tree behind us was provided by Matt's fabulous lighting "assistant" for the evening (who also happens to be his fiance and an amazing photographer in her own right! You can find her at Bella Rose Photography) Other than that, it was pitch black out. Matt is a lighting master, and I can attest that this is what it looked like in his camera when he took it. 

I cannot wait to see the rest of the pictures and share with all of you where they end up in my house!

I hope everyone had a fabulous Memorial Day weekend, and I am so excited to be back to the blog after some time full of inspiration!!

Until next time!

Dabble

Birthday Thoughts

No, I'm not planning a party for me, my birthday isn't until October. I've been thinking about ideas for Abby's first birthday. Yup, it's early I know because she doesn't turn one until September. In fact, Kyle's birthday is the next one in the household and it's in August, but I don't think he really wants this type of party! I have been pinning a lot lately, at least over the last two days, and I've found some pretty great things! Check out the Dabble in Pinterest here for ideas for your home, self, spirit, little ones, and of course food!!
Here are some of my favorite details from the past couple of days. For a favor, what's better than bubbles!

For instructions on how to make these favors, visit this blog!

These cupcakes are so delicate and vintage. Maybe not "just right" for Abby's first...but maybe for my next big birthday!

No celebration is complete without photos! I'm sure my favorite photographers would agree, and I thought this tile of shots was too cute! I especially loved the lettering separation rather than trying to lay out three letters all in one shot!



Just a little inspiration for now! Dablet and I are going to Southpoint later today with Kyle, Courtney (our fantabulous nanny) and her man for dinner and some Loft "browsing". You can't blame me, they're having a 40% off sale and Courtney wants to take advantage of the combined 40%+15% discount when she opens a new card! Girl after my own heart!

Until Next time!

Dabble

Snapshots

As anyone knows, life is full of those little candid moments you want to remember forever. This is the main reason I LOVE photography. My main item on my Christmas wish list is a camera upgrade especially now that we have an amazing little girl that we want to capture every moment with. I also have snapshots in my brain, like the moment Kyle proposed, or when I saw those two lines on the pregnancy test. For other moments in life we turn to our favorite photographers.
For our wedding we had the mastermind of Mr. Matt McGraw (out of Wilmington North Carolina). What I loved about him was that he captured his light in the camera versus in photoshop. Frequently he'll post "before and after" shots on facebook showing people how you can use the craziest of lighting and make what you want out of them. Here's an example:

This was taken after our wedding at about 4pm in the afternoon, full sunlight on the beach of Bald Head Island, NC. If i had taken this picture it would have been washed out, and the guys wouldn't be silhouetted at all. I saw this photo in the camera...this is how it looked, this is the look of photographic genius!
We love Matt, and hope he will forgive us for ease of scheduling, and yes I'll admit a little bit of cost effectiveness, we've brought another photographer into our list of favorites.
Britten Berry went to high school with Kyle and did my maternity pictures. Both of these photographers make me feel completely comfortable in my own skin, and whatever I may be wearing whether it be my wedding dress in freezing rain and wind for my bridal shoot in Boston with Matt, or draped fabric with a large 32(ish) week pregnant belly bare and exposed. This is central to any good photographer in my opinion.
Common to both of these photographers is the photojournalistic quality. I don't want overly posed pictures on our walls, we want our life on our walls the way we'd live it. Sure, some moments are staged to look natural, especially dealing with infants (that's always fun). Here are a few of my favorites from my maternity shoot:

We recently had Britten come back to take photos of Abby and get some for our Christmas card and I got the slide show preview yesterday...SO excited!! Eventually, our house's walls will be covered in pictures of snapshots of our lives, and I'll get to mix those in with the snapshots I hold so dear in my mind.
If you'd like more information on either photographer, check out their websites (tell them I sent you, and for all my fellow Red Sox fans, forgive Matt's Yankees hat!)
http://www.mattmcgrawphotography.com/
http://www.brittenberryphotography.com/


Until next time....

Dabble