Rainy Sunday.

I don't know what it was about today, but as I lay in bed here, trying to get sleepy enough to actually go to sleep, I just feel like it was so wonderful.

Chris and I stayed in bed until noon, sleeping and cuddling, kicking the cats out for getting wild, then letting them back in when they started mewing pathetically outside the door.

Eating two meals at our kitchen table, instead of in the office over work. First was lunch, where Chris made us giant sandwiches, and second was a collaborative effort for dinner, where Chris made egg drop soup and I steamed some asparagus stir fry.

Getting a bag of veggies and fruits from Sprouts and planning out the week's meals. Thai chicken lemon soup is something we're looking forward to...

The smell of the crockpot cooking chicken for the week.

Enjoying rain from the comfort of our home. Holing up in the office with our space heater while the rest of the house froze. Being delighted with the sound of sporadic hail throughout the day. (Waking up suddenly at 3am to the deafening sound and trying to figure out why we could only hear it on one side of our house; it was beating sideways against our sliding glass door in the living room and sounded like we lived under a waterfall.)

Working alongside Chris in the office. Paying off a big chunk of our car payment and getting rid of other bills. Talking about our next vacation. Giggling and kissing whenever he said something funny.

Watching him edit a maternity shoot with so much love. Seriously. He loves his job as a photographer.

Getting an email from a potential wedding client that she wanted Next to Me Studios and was so bummed we were already booked on her wedding date.

This is our little life. Sometimes it's nice to have those sweet little stuck-at-home days to really remember how awesome it is.

March the second

Today was ridiculously productive. Somehow having a good four hour chunk of time, along with four backed up episodes of Grey's Anatomy on sidereal does wonders for productivity. I finished most of the most recent book interior I've been working on for awhile. With the completion of my research paper last night, that's two of my big projects done. Woo-hoo! And my next big projects are photo editing families, which is just so much more fun than research papers and book design.

Since Chris worked late tonight, I even managed to get to some much needed chores. The kitchen is once again clean and the sink is clear. Our floor is vacuumed. I've got more clean clothes than I had at the start of the day. It's good to clean.

Another big productive thing that happened today was that I finally figured out where all the hair ties I give Jack end up going. Jack loves hair ties. He will amuse himself for hours with a single one. But inevitably, he loses them, within 24 hours. It had gotten to the point where I had to go buy new packs at Target because I no longer had any for myself. So he had gone through three in the last day alone, so I began searching again, even though I've looked in every nook and cranny of our little condo already. They're really aren't many places these things could go. I was searching behind the TV stand, in all the cords from the TV, DVD player, Wii, etc., and I noticed, in the glass of the stand, the reflection of black and brown circles. Jackpot. It still took me a bit of time to figure out where the reflection was reflecting from, and after moving some of the consoles on the bottom shelf, I finally found them. They'd been sliding under the glass and getting stuck under the stand. So glad to finally have that mystery taken care of. And Jack was overjoyed to have ten hair ties all at once. Though he's probably got them all stuck under there again.

Here's the whole setup. Can you spot the hidden hair ties? ;)

Photography blog and branding update!

The latest blog post for our little photography studio is up tonight. This one was the most adorable family shoot, where I walked away in love with three little boys. True story. They were so adorable. Check them out, along with the rest of the fam, at our photography blog. 

In other news, we're making progress to getting our new website and brand down! Cody sent us our first sneak peeks last night (right in the middle of our watching Monday night's How I Met Your Mother- I saw the tweet and then had to keep my mouth shut for the last ten minutes so we could get through the rest of the episode!) We are so excited about the looks Cody's got going for us. I can't wait for us to get our brand spanking new, professional and design-y website and blog going!

We discussed branding with Ben & Jerry, of course.

And this is us (and Sawyer, who wanted to be in on the snugglefest) being so stinking excited about the new look!