Home Tour by Zac & Kaitlin Photography

A HUGE thank you to the amazing Zac & Kaitlin Photography for these images.. if you're in the DFW area and need a photographer, these guys are AWESOME.

Earlier today our Everygirl feature went live.... hooray! Long story short, this journey started a year ago when we shot the following images with the intention of submitting them to the website. Once the Everygirl so kindly agreed to feature us, they shared that they use photographers working under their guidelines, and wanted to shoot again. In the end they decided to use images from both this October 2013 shoot with Z&K, and an April 2014 shoot with Amanda Marie Lackey. So if you look closely, there are images of the same room in two totally different colors. That same room is now another color. (Monkey with hands over eyes emoji!) So now you know. :) It's funny how much has changed in our home since both of these shoots, and I can't wait to now share everything that we've done!

Notable:

Since this shoot we have gotten a mantle installed, completely renovated our kitchen, and of course, painted the dining room twice.  :)

Doormat: Pottery Barn 

I Heart Texas Pillow: The Dime Store, Denton, TX

Texas Pillow: Cat Studio (similar)

Entryway

Print: Juliet Grace Design

Mirror: Home Goods

Console: Target

Shell Frame: Anthropologie

Chalk Jar: gift

Dining Room

Chairs: Overstock 

Dishes: Anthropologie 

Table Runner: Pottery Barn

Kitchen

Office

Hallway

Watercolors: Cavely

Jar: Target (old)

Bedroom

Master Bath 

Vase: Home Goods

Cup: Anthropologie 

Living Room

Misc. Wonderful photos of us and our Pup:

And let's end this bad boy with a photo of taking some delicious chicken pot pie out of the oven!

The Everygirl

Hello, friends! I am honored to say that our home is featured on The Everygirl today, with images by Zac and Kaitlin Photography and Amanda Marie Lackey. Find it, here.

If you're stopping by because of that feature, HELLO! Welcome! Stay awhile. :)

I'll be sharing all of the images from both shoots and sourcing things later today, so if you have a specific question go ahead and leave me a comment so I can make sure to get that for you! XO

Straders in Europe: Last Day in London, Travel Day, First Day in Paris

We began our last day in London on the London Eye. Yes, it's pricey. But SO worth it. We paid for the fast track and scheduled for the first ride of the day at 10 am which I would suggest to anyone and everyone. Getting there for the first ride cut down on the crowd craziness and made it that much more enjoyable for us!

We then spent the rest of the day walking down the Thames river to get to the Tower of London. No photos of that are included because we didn't really like it, haha! It was good to see I suppose, but it was like so many other things we had already seen! 

Hello, gorgeous Paris apartment! After a ride on the Eurostar (which was so incredibly easy and enjoyable!) we arrived in Paris. This is when our trip had its first hectic moment. We were locked out of our airbnb apartment with no way to contact our host, and right when we got in we realized our camera was lost. I can say honestly that I was a total diva about all of the above and thought that the sky was falling. I do not understand how Ben was just like "whatever" but he was! I married a very gracious man. We soon discovered that I had left the camera in our hotel lobby and that it was safe and sound (praise God!) I was a little sad (a lot) about not having the camera for Paris, but it also allowed us to really be in the moment, and I knew we would have our portraits from Stacy to cherish for a lifetime! 

Our first night in Paris we just slept off the stress, but the next morning we hit the ground running. I miss Paris just thinking about it. We stayed about a mile from Notre Dame so for the first day or so that was our frame of reference for figuring out our way around the city. 

We hopped on an open top tour bus and rode all around, soaking up all of the sights and just getting a feel for everything. People watching was out of control. 

By this point in the trip I was really homesick for our pup.. hence the photo above!

We decided to hop off and spend the rest of our day exploring. We started on the Champs de Elysses, and looked at all of the shops! Ben got a few things from H&M and my only purchase was Laduree macarons, which I would buy more of in a heartbeat. #yum

We then decided we would walk all the way back to our apartment from where we were which was like 4 miles. Benjamin Luke hustled me around that city. 

We rewarded our efforts with Nutella crepes, which again #yum.

On Friday nights the Lourve is open late, so we changed into fresh clothes and decided to head there. I imagined us exploring the place in the darkness but Paris stays light until like 11 pm, or at least it did while we were there. 

At this point in our Lourve journey.. Ben made the above facial expression and we decided to high tail it outta there. Something we loved about this trip is that because it was just us, we weren't shy to say we wanted to leave somewhere and weren't stuck waiting on others to look at things we weren't really interested in. It was jolly!

We had our cab driver take us from the Lourve to Notre Dame, closer to where we were staying. It was so fun to walk home in the Parisian night from there, stopping to watch all the street performers. We watched some rollerbladers for like 20 minutes. :)