THESE GUYS! We have become fast friends with this family through our mutual love of horror movies and rock music and cats and fun clothes and cheese and skeletons and 28 Days Later. We love them very much. Their children are A TOTAL BALL OF ENERGETIC FUN that could probably power a small country if someone could figure out a way to plug them into the power grid. They’re fast. They’re wild. They like Andrew WK dance parties and they’re obsessed with the movie Labyrinth. There has never been anyone in my entire life that’s ever been more excited to see me than Oz. Spoiler alert to my own self-esteem: I think maybe Oz is excited to see everyone, but I’m going to keep pretending that he likes me the most.

Both Vera and Oz launch straight into 10 minute overlapping monologues when I see them, and then once I’ve been whirlwind updated and usually assigned a pair of sunglasses or a specific spot that they’d like me to sit, they will usually take turns sitting with me and telling me about Pokemon or Peppa the Pig until they go to bed. They are absolute sweethearts and totally wild and I hope they never change. The entire family, like myself, loves what Christie calls “aggressively patterned” colorful clothes, and I think this is the best description ever. There are also 2 cats: Eggroll, who is my best friend forever orange boy, and Jayne, who is a beautiful white cat who also likes me but really also loves her sleeping spot in the closet. There are also 2 dogs: Butters and Klaus, both Corgis, both love eating hot dogs that Vera accidentally drops on the floor. I love them all and want to scoop up this entire family and give them a giant hug or live with them forever in a bounce house.

I do believe that this blog post calls for a wonderful celebratory dance as it marks the 7th time I’ve photographed Amy & Ben! Which means I’ve also photographed Lucy & Elaine (adorable cats!) at least four times, and Nathan three times (four times there as well if you count in utero). This is, however, my very first time photographing Avi, and my first time photographing the DeLorean (very important). We had a great time! Last time I saw Nathan, he was pretty young and not yet a NASA engineer/astronaut. Now he’s 5 and definitely a NASA engineer/astronaut. This kid knows more about the scientific and robotic aspects of rockets than any adult I know. I couldn’t follow the science or math of anything he said because I’ve always been more of an English class sort of girl, but it sounded official, and he had many books that he referenced to back him up. I have zero doubt that he will one day go to space. Avi is cool with space and everything, but he’s much more interested in becoming my protege or having any job that requires him to press a lot of buttons. He liked my camera. A lot. He liked taking selfies and he liked pressing the shutter button and he tried multiple times to press the format button and also to take video. Maybe a photographer, maybe a director — definitely in the film industry or at a control switch with the most buttons ever. Oh oh, we could potentially have a brother NASA duo on our hands, and Avi could control the giant switchboard that launches the rockets. There has to be one enormous button to push to launch the rocket, right? I don’t know the answer to that, but I’m sure Nathan does. Love these folks and their brilliant kids and beautiful felines!

It’s only been a few months since I photographed these dear friends of ours, but a lot has happened since November! Jen, Jon, Declan and family doggo extraordinaire SamSam welcomed baby Rhett into the family in April! He is adorable and a very good baby indeed. He stayed awake most of the time I was there; Jen and I presumed it was because he recognized my voice from all of our themed horror movie nights that involve good snacks, and figured good snacks would be involved. SamSam, doggo extraordinaire, knew good snacks would be involved (at least for her), and she was right. Declan wasn’t sure if there would be snacks or not, but he took great delight in alternatively watching big trucks on their road doing construction and running up and down the hallway calling Jon by his first name after he heard me say it. When he wasn’t doing those two things, he was being a phenomenal older brother to Rhett, whom he loves dearly. Declan is genuinely excited to have Rhett around and his spirits aren’t dampened one bit (I’m assuming because Rhett doesn’t know how to operate Declan’s mini Target shopping cart yet). I’m so happy for this new family of 5 and can’t wait to get to know Rhett!