Cuties.

We've been doing a lot of kid shoots lately until our "wedding season" starts in September. And for a long time, we only had families with boys coming to us for photos. These boys were generally in the 2-3 year old range, and while completely adorable, they were a little hard to get to sit still for some modeling. Sigh. 

So I was excited when a friend of Sarah and Kristen's (and I think she used to work with Chris back in his Long's college days?) asked us to photograph her two girls! Older sister was completely up for a little modeling session, and baby sister, while a little cantankerous throughout the shoot, did break through with a few grand smiles everyone once in a while. We also did an entire family session with the girls, their parents, favorite aunt, and grandparents, and I absolutely love the color scheme mom picked out for the whole group- purples, pinks, and blues look amazing for a family shoot!

We actually just did a second shoot for them, to celebrate big sister's fifth birthday, and I've been working on those edits for the past week or so- part of the reason I wanted to go back and look at these first shots. I'm logging off to finish those edits now, and then tomorrow Chris and I are off to Redlands again for another big family shoot with the Cowens!

This is a scratch free zone.

We finally got the Soft Paws from Amazon. I waited two days for the kittens to be sufficiently asleep before attempting to get them on. Jack wasn't too thrilled when he woke up when we were half way through with one paw. Sawyer could've cared less while we put them on; actually, Chris did Sawyer's all by himself. 

And we've been scratch free over here ever since.

And eventually they'll forgive us for the whole thing, right?

Next to Me Studios

So this evening (as my husband and I sit on the couches with our laptops, watching Netflixed shows, in our previously mentioned date night in), I did some research and used some of my internet skillz to figure out the whole blog button conundrum. The result? Two brand spanking new blog buttons, right over there on that sidebar. They link to our main website and to our blog (which ain't nothing fancy yet, but soon). So if you're a reader of this blog and didn't know that my hot husband and I have a photography business, well today's your lucky day. Please check us out, and if you want, you can even leave us a comment about how much you love us. You know, if you want. ;)

And if anyone's wondering where we got our name from, Next to Me was derived, after many months of not coming up with anything good, when I told Chris to listen to his vast collection of music for some inspiration. Check out Sleeping at Last, I told him. We played a lot of their stuff at our wedding, and they're quite poetic and romantic and whimsical. So he did. And the next thing I knew, he was leaning in and whispering in my ear, "Next to Me," and I heard the line sung right at that moment. It was love at first listen.

Next to Me means a couple of things to us. It's symbolic of the photos we take, the bride and groom who are standing next to each other in front of their friends and family, and the families standing next to each other making funny faces and loving on their kids. And it's pretty specific to us, as we are pretty much always next to each other, on our laptops usually, working on editing or homework or researching or just being creative in some way. So it fit in all these ways that we realized right away.

Our business has really taken off in the last couple of months. We've begun booking weddings frequently. We've got two engagement sessions this weekend alone. We generally have 2-3 photo sessions on our editing list at any given time. It's great fun, something we both love doing together, and we're excited to see what the coming year will bring us with our little studio.

So please check us out if you haven't already. And like I said, don't be shy about leaving us a little love note!

It's no secret.

I really, really, really, really love this guy. He's my favorite for sure.

Looking forward to spending a Friday night at home with him. I'm hoping tonight we can watch a Netflix while we work side by side on our photo edits. It's our version of date night in. :)

Tuckered out.

Me too, guys. Me too.

Just do it.

Guys, let's be real. Life's scary sometimes. I happen to be feeling quite anxious now that I can actually see the light at the end of my teaching credentialing tunnel. Sometimes? I just want to curl up in a ball under a fluffy blanket on my bed and shut the world out. There are things I think I can't do.

But then I remember this conversation we had once with Chris' dad. I think this was the day before our wedding. We were talking about buying a house and having kids and all that good grown-up stuff. Chris asked him how he did it, because let's be honest, that stuff is daunting. And his dad said you never feel ready. You never think you can do those things. But you just do it. And somehow you end up on the other side just fine.

So just do it.

Picasa for the win!

I think I found an awesome way to put up grids of photos- Picasa! Guys, blogger is the WORST for trying to format pictures. The. Worst. So I went a-looking online to see if people had found any workarounds, other than our default of creating a grid in Photoshop. And Picasa scores big. I did this collage in like two seconds. 

Love love love.

(Please don't judge that I take disgustingly cutesy pictures with my kittens. I've just discovered Mac's Photobooth program, and my husband doesn't want to sit still for pictures. These are my only semi-willing victims.)