Hi, I'm Betsy, of Betsy & John photography. I'm wife to John, mother to Miles (and the sweetest two pugs you'll ever meet) and photographer to the lovely people that invite me to capture them. This is my cozy little place I come to share what's going on in my world. You'll find sneak peeks from my latest shoots, photos of my son and our little family, and sometimes whatever crazy thing I feel the need to share. If you would like to see my latest work, just keep on surfing the recent archives of this blog. More of my photography and details on booking a shoot can be found by clicking the website link above. Thanks so much for visiting my blog. Come back often and feel free to leave a comment and say hello. I love hearing from you!
Tonight, as I was squeezing my little guy, his precious little face looked like a “monkey mook” to me. I can’t explain it, he just did. I’m weird like that. I named my dogs, “Whisper” and “Stamp” so weird names come to me often. (Though I have to say that Andy totally helped me name those dogs. I thought Whisper was a dumb name, but who is going to deny a guy with cancer the right to name his dog? Thank goodness, because that name totally fits her. But I digress….) Anyway, so I’m telling Miles he is a “Monkey Mook” and he is laughing and laughing and thinks it’s hilarious. As I was reading a story to him, out of nowhere he says in his little chipmunk voice, “Monkey mook!” and cracks up laughing. Oh how I love my little guy! I had to force myself to put him in bed instead of keeping him up to selfishly play with him in his sleepy slap happy state.
So here’s some monkey mooking around in our lightless cave of a nursery.
Anybody notice that Miles’ smile is EXACTLY like John’s?
Let’s head out of the nursery down to our freshly painted kitchen.
Behold, a peek into a very rare thing in the King household: a finished project!
I’m a sucker for vintage kitchen canisters. I just found that tea pot at a garage sale downtown last month. We were driving down Jefferson and I spotted it on a table on the sidewalk and I said, “Stop the car!” My sweetie of a husband hit the brakes and I jumped out to get it. I love that he is always game for whatever I throw out next. (Like starting a photography business….)
Here is THE ONLY plant that thrives in my presence. It’s like a mini palm tree and is very wispy and dramatic. When I first got it, I assumed it would just die so I was going to glue google eyes and a nose on it (since it has that crazy hair like foliage on top.) I had a feeling it might be around a while, so I spared it the humiliation. I think my thanks for not doing that to it is that it has the will to live.
So here’s our kitchen. That stupid cable box kills me. Dang it, watching Dharma & Greg when I do the dishes at 11 AM and the music channels are what makes it ok to have that god awful thing on my counter top. Yes, I could mount it all to my cabinets, but I’ll still have black cable spaghetti all over the place.
Look at that big ‘ol blank wall. I have some ideas brewing…
Nighty night everybody. It’s almost midnight and I’m going to bed early! No 3 AM night of working for me!!
Keep on scrolling, I just posted Shelby’s slideshow tonight.
Miss Shelby’s senior photos are complete and so is her slideshow, geared for those with the attention span of a hamster (like me.)
Her online proofs are up as well, just click on the shopping cart to check them out. As Kayla at Matilda Jane would say, “Oh girl, you are FANCY now!!” The password is Shelby’s last name.
In other news, Miles says “Bless you” now. I am blown away daily by his sweet little innocence. More on him later….
This isn’t only Bella’s movie premier, it’s also the premier of my new snazzy kind of slideshow I’ll be creating and posting for every shoot. The blog just got a little more interactive. Oh, new toys are fun! I’m also well aware that I’m not the only one out there with a super short attention span that’s not always excited about watching slideshows, so I assure you the videos are short and sweeet. My favorite part of this slideshow software is how I can time the slides to the beat of the music. Told you it was snazzy!
Bella is such a beautiful, sweet and happy little baby. Renee & Ed, she is just perfect and oh so precious. We couldn’t be happier for you!
Ok, I’ll shush and let you get back to baby gazing.
We were going to go to Ann Arbor this weekend for a little family get away, but instead, we stayed home and painted our kitchen.
Are we stupid?
Perhaps…but our kitchen looks AWESOME!
I’m sending a shout out to the smart ladies at Ream Steckbeck (sp?) for helping us pick “barley” as our new kitchen color. It’s a nice buttery yellow and we love it. However, there is nothing like testing the strength of your marriage like painting your kitchen together. This was actually going to be my project that I took on myself, but John, who JUST bought a huge new computer and something called a “reverb,” left it to sit unused in his studio alllllll weekend to help me paint. He is amazing. When I said, “Honey, I wasn’t expecting you to help me paint the kitchen.” He said, “I know sweetie. Either was I.” Ha! He’s awesome. When we were all done John said, “I wonder how far you would be if I hadn’t helped you.” My answer was, “I would be crying in the corner.”
We take FOREVER to paint because we do a tape procedure where you seal the paint before you start painting with your wall color and even though it takes a bit longer, you come out with PERFECT lines. Check out that perfect paint line! Ka pow! Me likey. (I then pulled off the rest of the tape to see I leaked yellow in the corner. Oops, spoke too soon! It’s 99% effective, at least.)
We need to send a HUGE shout out to my Mom who came both days this weekend to entertain Miles while we worked and even brought us lunch both days. She was a life saver! John was having a HUGE LBSFO yesterday and my mom’s Subway run saved him from circling the drain. Thanks Mom!!
So woo wee! Betsy & John finished a house project. It’s a miracle! (We work on our computers so much that our house gets very ignored, so this is a big deal.) I literally had an end goal for this project of Jan. 1, 2009, so I’m ahead of schedule! (Now, I still have to choose and frame art for the room, so I still have more to do, but we are happy for now.)
If you were tuning into see Miles then I’m sure you were sorely disappointed to see my kitchen wall. To make up for that, here are some latest Miles antics.
In other news, Miles went to his first non-Miles birthday party celebrating his buddy Preston’s one year birthday last weekend. We had a blast and Miles jumped right in to help Preston play with his toys and cheered him on as Preston had his first piece of cake. Miles even got to show off some of his baby pool moves as well. It was a GREAT afternoon! We love the Erb’s so much that we wanted to get creative with their gift and since Preston is just learning how to walk, our gift had a little “man on the move” theme. So we whipped up some custom onesies with a little time in photoshop and some of those iron on transfers. We even came up with a new family motto for them, “You can’t curb an erb.”
Oh and here’s one I snapped of Preston last month when we were hanging out at the lake. So here’s your shout out, a week late little P!
Speaking of shout outs, I totally forgot to blog about when Miles’ other best buddy, Evan, came over last month. (I got a little busy with client work and got bad about blogging about my own life!) Evan’s mom, Jen, and I go wayyyyyy back to when we were their age so it’s been wonderful to see our boys grow together. They are from out of state so our time together is that much more precious. Here are a couple of highlights from our afternoon together.
This fish was a gift from our buddy Chris when Miles was still in the hospital. As you can see, Miles LOVES it. I suppose you could say the boys were “playing together.” Miles was at least standing in the box of blocks that Evan was playing with. Otherwise, they were in their own world. Maybe next time they see each other they will take notice of the other one.
Here is my very best friend, Amy Conner (You have to say her first and last name. That’s just the way it is.) with her dreamy boyfriend Jon. These two are so incredibly precious to me. (Jon, I know I have only met you once, and I was totally busy shooting Cassie’s wedding, but I got a great feeling from you and anybody who loves Amy, I love and anybody who Amy loves, I love!) So I’m not just randomly posting these two to state my undying love, I wanted to send a shout out to Jon for completing his ordination exam on Saturday. Woot Woot!!! Plus, they are big blog stalkers and I LOVE them for that. I hear that they, including Jon, tune into to see Miles as much as they can. Awwwwww! We love you guys and CAN’T wait to see you soon! Miles JUST learned how to give kisses today and I can’t wait for him to melt your heart with one of his sweet little pucker ups as soon as you come home for a visit.
Back to Miles: I’m sending out a huge shout out to him as Friday evening he entertained us by naming all the items on these flashcards.
Another shout out goes to Jammer & Ellie’s mom for giving us these cards so we can, once again, be amazed by what a little smartie he is.
Ok, one more shout out to Matilda Jane Clothing for getting their new fall line (the sack lunch line at least, more to come!) up on the net and for choosing a bunch of my photos to showcase it! I’m scattered around the site alongside these two fabulous ladies: Untamed Hearth Photography and Madison Ave. Photography. (I can’t believe I didn’t steal those leg warmers for myself on the day of the shoot! I’m sure I could squeeze my ankles in those, right?)
I hope this post was sufficiently random for you. I’m heading to bed as I have a lot of work to do this week. Thanks for tuning in and keeping up with all the crazy subject changes in this blog and have a great week!
He’s the cute new little friend Miles has and has been pulling around the house this afternoon. The little dog bobs up and down while Miles pulls him along. You can’t help but smile watching the two of them together. The ears are made of felt and I love how they stick straight up. If you are a cat family, you can get it in a cat version too.
He just came in the mail today and was a little surprise I threw in for Miles from an online order I placed recently. I don’t get to buy Miles toys very often, so it was a little fun treat for me.
Gotta get to bed, just wanted to swing by and say hi for a minute. Have a great weekend everybody!
Oh, one more thing. I have a confession to make. Today at the grocery store I caved into a craving that I have been having for months but so far have resisted the urge. I had John along with me and he hardly ever indulges in junk food (the man eats carrots as his afternoon snack. He’s perfect. Darn him.) and I think I sensed that he was having an LBSFO because he was totally game for buying a box of Little Debbie Star Crunch snacks. Um, hello 8th grade! STAR CRUNCH! (Good gracious they are GOOOOD!) I’ve eaten two so far and it’s very possible I have had three. Oh, and so far, Miles has NO idea what a star crunch is, so it won’t be long that I’ll be able to hide these nutritional transgressions from him. I know this is a totally random thing to confess on my blog, but they say admitting you have a problem is the first step and if I just make my confession here, hopefully that will negate the 600 extra calories and 40 grams of HFCS that I free based this afternoon.
If anybody feels like making me feel better I would LOVE it if you would post me a recent junk food indulgence. There’s safety in numbers, right?
I would lay in bed, exhausted, but wide awake. (I would not look this cute! That’s left to baby Bella.)
John and I just got back from a photographer shin dig in Indy and it was one of those zoom out of town and zoom back kinda deals, but I am feeling very inspired and have lots of ideas swirling around my head!
By the way, while in Indy I got to meet a few people who are regular blog “stalkers” and are the very best kind of blog stalkers, the kind who comment!!! So here they are! Check them out and comment them like crazy. We photographers love comments.
Maya, was sitting RIGHT behind me and first recognized John. The crazzzy thing is, she originally found me through my BFF Erin! Such a small world.
Then there is the gorgeous Jess who is sweet as can be and honestly, we have so much in common, it’s not even funny! Other than being part of a hubby and wife photog team, she’s a mother of four (ok, I’m only a mom of 1) but she’s been cloth diapering wayyyyy before it was cool to be green and is very approachable and laid back. I always hope I come off the same way.
It was also neat to meet April who has been commenting as well. (Cute shoes girl! They were Zebra print!)
Oh, and of course, David Jay is absolutely adorable and was a pleasure to listen to. John and I chatted the whole way home about how we can put his guidance to good use. Thanks to his words of wisdom, I should be offering some cool new stuff pretty soon. Though I am going to be starting my kitchen painting project this weekend, so we’ll see how soon new stuff happens around here. One of the things I learned was to stop being a slave to my computer. I kind of sit here wayyyyy too much.
Thanks to Grandma for some major babysitting today while we were gone and to our good friend Chris for taking on the second shift so Grandma could get home to bed. (We didn’t’ get home until past midnight.)
So John’s best friend, Chris, who is a bachelor and does not have kids, has been an amazing help to us with babysitting this year. Are you kidding me? I NEVER babysat my friend’s babies because I didn’t have a CLUE what to do with them before Miles was born. (Along those same lines, I was never asked and I don’t blame them!) (It’s AMAZING how your parental instinct kicks in when you have your own. Thank God for that!) So we think Chris is superman. (John had never even held a baby until someone brought a baby to our baby shower. So he’s equally amazed.) Even though tonight Chris just had to be at our house while Miles slept to basically just get him if the house catches on fire, But he has also babysat Miles for half a day before back when he was just a year old. You rock Chris!!! We love you!
Oh, and yes, he’s single and available! (He’s going to KILL ME for adding that!!) This photo does ZERO justice to how much Miles loves Chris. This was one of those moments where I wanted to take a photo and duh, Miles wanted to play with the ball. Chris can do that popping sound with his finger and his cheek and Miles tries to impress new people with that move all the time. Nobody gets what he’s doing, but I totally know he’s trying to crack people up the same way Chris cracks him up.
Alright, it’s 2:02 AM. I’m going to bed!!!! Nighty night!!!!
PS I just realized I used two different black and white processes in this blog post. Yea, I do that depending on the mood of the shoot. For teeny babies I prefer a more clean and traditional black and white. For the rest of my shoots or babies that are a bit older and have more control over their expressions, I prefer my “warmer” black and white. So it’s not an oversight, I have a reason for choosing the different looks.
Ok, now it’s 2:12. Man, if I was a kid I would grab John and say, “Let’s go TP somebody!” Isn’t that totally random? I remember being a kid and waiting and waiting for it to be late enough to go TP. But we were so lame we would either fall asleep waiting for it to be late (or actually early) enough or be so impatient that we TP at like 11:45 PM and totally get caught because there was always a dad still up watching Letterman.
As you know I have a little guy that likes to run and run, steal people’s shoes and explore EVERYTHING. I love it, but I also love going to friend’s houses and having coffee with them and chilling. If even just for fifteen minutes. So, I had to share this little invention, the Tiechair, which has actually made that possible on more than one occasion.
I spotted this brand spankin new product on a photographer’s blog who did the marketing photography for it and I thought, “I need that!” I figured it was one of the many things I wasn’t in the know about, but it had JUST come out on the market. (That’s the cool thing about being a photographer, sometimes you get sneak peeks of the coolest stuff and get to be the first to know.)
So back to me, Miles and my quest for for a coffee break with friends. The last time I met a friend for coffee at the Mocha Lounge, Miles ended up running behind the counter. (Embarrassing!) He’s a curious little guy and moves much faster than I do. So having a portable high chair that can tuck into my diaper bag (not to mention can be washed just as easily) seemed like an instant fix to that situation. It has come in handy many times when I want to feed Miles at a friend’s house where there isn’t a spare high chair and most recently at a birthday party when he was covered in chocolate cake and we were thrilled to not have a gooey boy squirming on our lap or worst yet, running through the house with chocolatey hands. (Man, anybody craving cake right now?)
So check out my latest find. Here’s a couple shots I snagged at Melissa & Sophia’s house. He looks all wrapped up like a little present! I can just imagine the emails I’ll get from my family when they see this. Yes, it’s safe!! It’s very well designed.
He grew tired of our coffee talk and opted for some more interesting material.
Baby sophia looked on from the floor as we hung out. We asked Miles if he wanted a baby in our family and he replied, “No!” I think he’s the only one who can resist those cute little pigtails. I don’t get my camera out often when I’m hanging out with friends because I’m not the best conversation when I have my camera up to my face and I have kind of a one track mind when I shoot, but again, I had a cutie little baby girl in pig tails, which never happens around my house, so I had some fun before I put the camera away to just chill.
One rainy morning Miles and I headed over to Erin & Preston’s house for coffee and a bagel and Miles was content to chill while we chatted…and chatted…and chatted. (Preston napped for three hours that day! So no little P in these photos.)
Miles was so comfy, that without a tray to impede him, he decided to kick up his feet and stay a while.
Of course, here’s a close up of those cheeks full of a bagel.
So go check these out! Let me know which pattern you end up ordering! I changed my mind three times before deciding. The patterns are so cute!
I gotta run, I have laundry and 8 million photos to edit to edit. If you haven’t been to the blog in a while I posted a few different series of sneak peaks over the weekend, so keep on scrolling.
Ok, has anybody noticed that my blog has been a photo-spittin machine lately? I have a weakness and that is if I have photos that are complete and sitting in a blogging folder, I don’t have enough restraint to let a couple days go between posts to give them their full glory. I’m just too excited to release them. Maybe someday if I become a big rock start photographer (you know who you are!) I can have some restraint and not blog photos everrrry single day.
Until, then, here’s some more of my cutie Shelby. I have known this girl since she was like 5 or 6 years old. (Is that even possible?) She’s my best friend Diane’s daughter and honestly, I feel like this girl is a hybrid between the little sister I never had and the daughter that I would love to say I’m too young to have. (We could be a Gilmore Girl’s mom and daughter, so yea, I’m technically old enough.) She’s been in both of my weddings and like her mother, has been along the roller coaster that has been my life.
She Love, love, LOVED Andy and they were unbelievably close. (Bonding over a shared affinity for armpit farts on their first encounter, Shelby and Andy were bonded for life.) When Andy was in hospice, Shelby wouldn’t leave. She stayed by his side, and let me tell you, there were grown adults that weren’t strong enough to come. She really has such an inner maturity and beauty. When John came along, our relationship was not easy for everybody (me keeping him a secret for a few months didn’t help…But I was a widow! I was totally freaked about dating again and what people would think! That’s a whole other blog post though.) So when Shelby met John, she said to her mom, “Darn it, he’s really nice.” Bless her, she didn’t have to do what I did, and open my heart to love again, but right along side me, Shelby and Diane did and accepted John with open arms. Just one of the many reasons I love Shelby.
So needless to say, John and I had a blast shooting her. I’ll start out with something a little different.
Work it girl!
This photo will give you a hint of whether we had a hard time ending the shoot. We chased the sun as long as we could!
Ready to see a little sneak peak of the cutest little family of three? It’s Debbie & Mike with Logan as their exclamation mark. This family has CHARISMA! I love these guys. Seriously. I go wayyyyy back with Mike & Debbie, but more on that later. Let’s just get to their pics.
See what I mean? Logan is GORGEOUS and has the bluest eyes since a little guy named Miles. (Remember him? He’ll be back, I promise.) Seriously, they are that blue. We were flipping out. I kept trying to get him in the best light to really show them off, but he’s six and well, six year olds do what they want. Amazing light or not, they couldn’t help but shine.
Logan was going for an extreme close up here.
Feeling inspired by a shoot Bobbi + Mike did for us last year. Bed with white linens plus a big window = happy photographers.
All right gang, that’s enough for now. I have a zillion more, but this should tied you over for now. Don’t worry, I’ll do plenty of black and whites for you guys, but I do love my color too. (How could I not with your eyes?!?)
I have to say before I go, a very big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Miles’ best friend, Preston. We love you!!!
I Taught myself how to knit years ago when my late husband Andy was undergoing his stem cell transplant. We had moved to Minneapolis for a while for his treatment, and we were living on the U of M campus. As horrible as it was to have to pick up and leave our house and pugs behind, I ended up LOVING MN and met some of the most precious people I have ever met. Once Andy was through the roughest part of his treatment, I attended a class at an awesome little yarn store that you would expect to find on a cool college campus. The women there, from all walks of life, were so friendly, fascinating and warm. Minneapolis people, seemed to me, to be very laid back, very casual (you would go to a nice restaurant and people would be North Face fleeces) and oh so nice. Going to that yarn store during that freezing cold winter, felt so warm and snuggly. It was something I knew I would miss when we returned home.
Since then, I had tried one of the shops in Fort Wayne, but was dismayed when the ladies there were cold and not inviting. I still tried to take one of their classes, only to be told that I had taught myself out to knit in the wrong way and that when people learn bad habits, they can’t fix them. Okayyyyyy.
Well, needless to say, my knitting hobby took a pretty long sabbatical.
Last week we were out and about and came across the cutest little yarn store on Anthony Blvd. It’s bright, cheery, has super friendly people milling about and their sample pieces were hip and adorable. Oh my gosh I’m DYING to knit again! I have zero time to knit as photography takes up allll of any time I would consider free, but I might just have to make time. I think I’ll just start over, take a beginner’s class and re-learn over my crappy technique. Despite what the mean lady at the other store said!
So, back to the title of this post. You should so go! It’s across the street from one of my favorite coffee shops, the Firefly coffee house and in the same strip mall as our friend Jim’s hair salon, Full Circle Hair Design. (He’s the one that does Miles’ awesome choppy cut.)
No photos of the yarn shop, though it’s up there in my places that I would love to photograph. (Who knows, maybe they need some new photos….)
Keep on scrolling. There were a couple sneak peeks published this weekend that you may have missed. I had a HUGE Shoot last night and I’m loading cards right now. Goooood gracious, I’ve got a lot to go through! I was shooting a SUPER CUTE six year old and his parents and I thought Miles moved fast!!! We hung around and had some wine with them afterwards, which we all needed after the shoot!!! Can’t wait to blog about them. Soon, but next up is Shelby, I promise!!!
