Kim and I have been trying to set up a magical photography date since 2017 but the stars just would not align. Then this year I finally got to photographer her and her beautiful family! And in one of the strangest coincidences of my professional life, it turns out that Kim and Peter had been frequent visitors of our house before we owned it! I just mentioned that we live in a contemporary in a certain neighborhood, and they mentioned their friends’ names who also used to live in a contemporary in that neighborhood. But the previous owner had kind of a unique first name, so I recognized it and was like WAIT A MINUTE, I THINK THAT’S OUR HOUSE. And BAM! Same house. Small, crazy world. It was a small chance of it coming up, a smaller chance of names being exchanged and remembered, and an even itty, bittier chance of it being the same house. Whoa!

Anyway, besides having a Twilight Zone connection with me now, Kim and Peter have a fantastic family consisting of 3 kids (Luke, Thomas, and Ellen), 3 dogs, 1 cat, fish, and chickens. All creatures and children were extremely friendly. The kids are outgoing, funny, and like to talk to me about what Star Wars video games we have in common. While this age group is not overly eager to have their pictures taken, eight and ten year olds DO tend to make a lot of ridiculous faces at the camera on purpose which I personally enjoy. They’re also excited and willing to attack their parents in pictures, and enjoy decorating Christmas cookies in a variety of hilarious ways. Ellen and Kim did take great care in decorating theirs, but I think Luke and Thomas had a competition of who could make theirs the weirdest, and they turned out like wonderful Christmas monsters covered in ooze and with google eyes scattered about. A game of Memory at the end was won by the children (as Peter pointed out, they had him and Kim beat with numbers and youth), which won them additional video game time. They were very excited to explain Fortnite to me before zoning out completely. I had a joyful afternoon spent with this crew and was happy to finally meet and photograph them!

These guyyyys! First of all, everyone in this family has a great name. Everyone. Including the dog. Second of all, I’m going to steal all of their furniture, wallpaper, and paint colors. Third of all, Flossie and I have the same cat-head pillow. I showed her proof on my phone, which is how I finally won over her trust. Once she knew that we shared the same cat-head pillow, but that we also have and like cats, then Flossie figured we must be trust-worthy adults, and proceeded with the session instead of hiding behind her mom. Obviously, we share the same method of determining whether or not people should be liked. While I was working the Flossie angle, Geoff showed Linus his Boba Fett tattoo in order to gain Star Wars street cred, and then we were golden. After that, we systematically destroyed their living room by turning it into a fort, and made pancakes that involved a lot of free-floating flour that got on the clothes, faces, and hair of everyone (including Vegas the long-haired wiener dog of my dreams), and then slowwwwly backed out the door with our hands up, ran into our car, and sped away… leaving them with the wreckage of their formally very clean house.  But not before a lot of basketball was played, fingernails were painted, and dance parties were had. These kids are adorable (Linus is also rocking the same haircut as Geoff, and if I were two feet shorter I’d be coming back to steal all of Flossie’s outfits) and their parents are awesome, and a great time was had by all.