Conflicted.

My husband and I are celebrating our 1 year wedding anniversary in less than 2 months. All year all I've wanted to do is an anniversary photo shoot in our wedding attire. The reason being that somehow we ended up with like 1 photo we even remotely liked of us from our wedding photographer and it was taken at the end of the night (you know after the hair fell out, got rained on, danced for hours, etc)... shown.

We also have these 2 which are odd...I don't really like this one with me holding his face. It's nice but weird.

Now we really like this one but it's not a portrait of us it's more like artwork since we are so teeny tiny.

My boss happened to also be floating around taking photos at our wedding sort of as an added bonus for us. He caught these 2 photos which we love. Sadly though they are from behind but they are the photos we have framed.

In addition, there are no photos of me in my gown, glamor-style, you know? I paid for this gown and there are photos that show it off at all.

OK! So on to my dilemma... all year I've wanted new photos but all year randomly I have days where I feel like I'm being petty about it. So do I want new photos or not? I love photos. I take photos for others and the fact that I've been so sad with the lack of photos we got only fuels my fire. I ALWAYS take way more photos then even necessary. No bride will ever be photoless on my watch! :)

I've bugged my husband about this potential shoot for months and now he's giving me the photographer options and pricing (our anniversary is -afterall- less than 2 months away)... why do I all of a sudden feel petty? Like "Lauren... you should just let it go." Of course I want the photos. Maybe I'm scared I won't look as the nice the second time around. My makeup artist was super expensive... but so worth it for my wedding day! Maybe I don't want to spend the money when it's not our actual wedding day? Our photographer did apologize to us, after the fact, knowing what happened and he did send us a small refund out of the blue one day.

Help!

This world needs God.

I had started writing a post about my love of handbags but this is what is really on my mind right now.

On Saturday night we came home exhausted and went to bed around 11ish. Although, with daylight savings and how tired we were "ish" seems pretty accurate. Around midnight we heard a knock at the door. It was a neighbor who noticed that the window of our white car had been shot out. That's when my heart dropped and my husband called the police immediately. They said we were victim #11 just that night, they think it could have been a BB gun, and that it was probably bored neighborhood kids. Sadly they basically told us there was nothing they could do.

That night we were up pretty late a little shaken from the whole thing. My husband was up looking at apartments and condos we could move into. We own the house but the area has just gotten worse and worse. Since we got married last year we've been plotting our escape anyway, we just have way more motivation now.

Thankfully, we found a window to replace mine (white car) for only $35—sweet, and we know a guy who works on cars who offered to install it for only $25—awesome. Safelite quoted us $270 to replace the window so we saved about $200.

So last night we had it installed and it only took half an hour—great. Then we stopped at my hubs gram+paps house to clean out any extra broken glass (they have the best tools and car stuff). Pulling into the driveway my husband accidentally backed into their mailbox - 4 new scratches on my bumper. Although I truly didn't even care at that point.

Fastward an hour or so to about 10pm... as we pulled up to our house I heard my hubs yell and when we got closer I saw that now our other car (his car) had a window shot out... same damage, same side of the car... nothing stolen at all (not that we keep anything in our cars anyway). Ugh. We tried to find a replacement window ourselves (again) but his car is so new that unfortunately we are probably going to have to pay Safelite $300 (their quote) to fix it.

There are not words for how I feel right now about all this.

Thank you to my brother+sister-in-law for letting us put both cars in their garage when we needed it and for lending us their spare vehicle... little red!

For the Love of Handbags

I have a habit of falling in love with a handbag by a specific designer or company and then needing like a bizillian of them! The big ones being Littlearth, K.Lianna, Vera Bradley, Fossil, and of course Coach. So I guess you could say I like unique styles or things that tend to be not your typical leather all-purpose handbag.

If I had to guess I'd say I have 25+ littlearth bags. Although, since I worked for them as a Designer and Tradeshow Coordinator for a few years after college I guess that makes sense (also where I met my hubby).

At one point my household had about 50 K.Lianna bags. Now that I am married and live with my husband there are probably 20ish in my possession (the others are divided up between my sister and mother). I love LOVE K.Lianna bags. Katherine, a close friend of mine, started this line in college after winning West Virginia University's annual Business Plan Competition. Her bags incorporated luxurious leathers with creative collages (again LOVE them)! Littlearth picked up her line in 2006 for 1 year.

{K.Lianna + I at an event}

She is currently taking a break form fashion to enjoy motherhood! :)

Photo Love • 3.7.11

I was unaware that it was going to snow yesterday and woke up to over an inch on the ground. It just snowed all day, but kind of a wet snow since the temperature stayed around 32. I don't think it knew whether to freeze or melt.

I don't know about anyone else but I'm so ready for spring!

Photo Love • 3.4.11

It is on very special occasions {like this} that I become truly thankful for where I work!

Today, I had the pleasure of joining my boss on an Amur Tiger photo shoot. Back in Sept (2010) we had 3 cubs born at the Zoo. Tragically, 1 of them (a female) at only 7 weeks old began showing signs that something was very wrong. The keepers kept a close eye on the cub and gave her round-the-clock care until miraculously - thanks to the extraordinary vet staff - she began to improve! Now, she is thriving in the Amur Tiger habitat with her brother, sister, and mother.

{The mother with cubs in the background.}

{The cub decided she wanted to play with mommy.}

www.laurenarmstrong.com

When Pigs Fly!

Recently a client approached me about designing the save-the-dates for her wedding. My husband and I are shooting her wedding in August of 2011. Amber, the bride, and I worked together at the mall while I was going to school for graphic design so she knew I'd be interested. Since she had been with her now-fiance for almost a decade she wanted a "When Pigs Fly" theme, I love it! Amber was quite happy with the design of the postcards :)

www.laurenarmstrong.com