Now that we’re finished with our last 2007 wedding we are greatly looking forward to the holidays as well as to relaxing a bit, having fun, and seeing our friends who haven’t seen us in ages since we’re always busy on the weekends.

But we wouldn’t want our blog readers to think that these winter months will be spent just in leisure: we’ll be finishing the designs and printing of your albums, shooting lots of engagement sessions, and networking with our favorite vendors. We also have fresh new ideas and projects which we’ve been keeping in our heads throughout the busy summer that we couldn’t yet share with you guys.

Now that we have more time we are eager to start working on all of this so stay tuned for exciting announcements soon!

Mike and Natasha

We spent last Sunday afternoon walking in Rancho San Antonio with Alex, Mike’s brother, and his little son Ender. Mike and I usually come here to hike during the week when it’s not crowded. This Sunday, however, it was rather unusual to see so many people running, hiking, biking, and walking with their kids. We love hiking in this park because it has incredibly beautiful trails which disappear into the hills and there’s also a great variety of animals. The deer are almost part of the permanent landscape of the park and we’ve also seen bobcats, rabbits and turkeys.

Ender is Mike’s 1.5 years old adorable nephew. Unfortunately, we don’t see him nearly as often enough as we would like to because we’re all so busy! I hope this will change in the upcoming holiday season! :)

On this day, however, Ender was sleepy almost the entire walk. He wasn’t as much in the mood for walking as he was for sitting in the stroller. Only when we came close to the animal farm did he jump out of the stroller and run towards the animals yelling and pointing his fingers. :)

Here are some favorites:

Behind the scenes:

It was a fun afternoon guys! Let’s do it again soon.

Natasha

When I met Dasha she was 1.5 months old and I left on her 2 months anniversary. My mom had been dutifully sending me lots of Dasha’s pictures since her birth, and I was pretty sure that I knew how she looked from almost every possible angle.

I was so wrong! When I first saw her sleeping in the crib she was soo tiny, so much smaller that I could’ve ever imagined her to be! I was seriously afraid to hold her the first couple of days, but when my fear disappeared I just couldn’t let her go. Dasha looks so much like my sister when she was a baby that I was constantly referring to her by my sister’s name “Ira”.
It’s really interesting how this new addition to the family, this tiny human changes everything in the life of a family. It’s still weird to me that my still-very-young parents are suddenly called “grandparents” and my little sister, who still sleeps with stuffed toys of her, has now become a mother.

I could really notice the baby’s growth during my time in Russia: she gained weight, started to smile and also to “talk” much more. In fact, I already see a much more grown up baby in the most recent photos my mom sent to me since I came back. The changes at that age are happening so incredibly quick! Although parents usually want their small babies to grow up fast, it’s impossible to turn back the time later on and at some point they are probably going to regret that they tried to rush the time.

So here are some of my favorites I took of Dasha:

My sister & her baby:

It was so incredibly hard to select just a few pictures from hundreds I was taking of Dasha! If you’d like to see more, check out the whole slideshow!

Auntie Natasha

As many of you probably already know I left Mike alone in the beginning of October to go visit my family back in Russia. The main reason for this trip was that I was just dying to see my baby niece.

Having lived in St. Petersburg for most of my life, I knew perfectly well that the weather is going to be nasty in October. Living in sunny California now I forgot what that nasty and cold really means. It was freezing! My warmest coat wasn’t even close to being enough and I ended up wearing a few sweaters, one on top of another. I didn’t care any more about being the least bit fashionable, I just cared for my warmth :)

My family and I would spent long hours every day walking with the stroller in the nearby parks. This time I didn’t desire to go sight seeing to downtown or to go out, I was just truly enjoying every minute spent with my family. The rain was drizzling often, but nevertheless the fall colors of the trees were just amazing! I loved the already forgotten scents of autumn - the fallen leaves on the damp ground, mushrooms, berries and wilted flowers. It also felt a bit surreal to be walking with Dasha’s stroller at the same park where 20 years ago we were walking with my sister’s stroller. It seems that it was just yesterday! Time flies so incredibly quickly…

I feel that during this trip I really didn’t stop taking photos for a second and the camera was always right next to me. During the long walks I would crawl on the ground trying to capture everything I saw around me, the trees and fallen leafs. When we would come home after the walk my attention would shift to baby Dasha. I fell in love with her from first sight and in these two weeks she probably became the most photographed two months old baby ever! I’ll write more about Dasha in my next blog post when her pictures are going to be ready.

My sis:

… and mom having fun in the park:

The whole family on a walk:

My niece Dasha & I:

Stay tuned for more photos!
Natasha