Sunkissed Morning

Our dog Lulu is getting old. She is only 6 years old, but arthritis has set in and her joints are way crackety. Seeing that puppy behind those eyes is kind of deceiving. We used to let her up on our bed alot before Ella was born. But after Ella was born, we didn't want her jumping on the bed anymore in fear that she would smoother Ella one day. She is still quite a spunky dog, but pays for it usually later in the day.

Recently, she has started jumping up on our bed and napping again. When I go to look for her and peek in my room to see if she is under the bed or in her kennel and find her on my bed, I cant help but feel bad for her. I just know that her little arthritic legs had to have hurt jumping up there and she must have really wanted to get comfy on our bed to feel the pain. (To hear more about what she did with those arthritic legs click here). So I usually walk in there, pet her for a minute, give her a kiss on the bridge of her nose (my favorite place to kiss her) and tell her what a good dog she is.



I've probably mentioned before, Ella LOVES Lulu. She is ultimately her playmate at home. Available to her at all times. Completely submissive enough to play hide and seek under a sleeping bag with her. Calm enough to let Ella hang like a monkey around her neck. And humble enough to let Ella treat her jowls like rubber.

Sometimes you can look at a moment and know if it is going to look good through a camera lens or not. On this morning, I could not resist taking pictures of Ella and Lulu. Up crawls Ella with her blanket (tag in hand) and gently cuddles with her. Lulu didn't move. I also knew that I had just downloaded Pioneer Woman's new set of PS actions, which included a sunshine action.





I could have shown every single one of these shots by using the sunshine action. This series was just too perfect not to take advantage of that. But I thought it might have been a tad much to make a whole post using the one action....So I mixed it up with a few b&w shots too (which by the way, I have been feeling very b&w lately with my processing over Christmas for some odd reason).




This last shot has to be one of my favorites of all time of Ella. The sunshine effect and the milky, hazy, sleepy feel it has just melts my heart.