It is so crazy to think we only met these guys a few years ago when they were planning their wedding. Then we usurped them as our friends, they bought a house near us, we all gained about twenty pounds worth of the nearby frozen yogurt, and then they had their first kid. We are so happy and proud to call Michele and Jonathan our friends, and so thrilled to finally meet Eli, a very wide-awake bundle of joy who enjoys being awake, not sleeping, being alert as possible, and doing a strange yet almost constant hand motion that looks like he’s summoning either good or evil forces from other dimensions (or perhaps just working on his Jedi skills, as Jonathan would want it). We love these guys, and now we love Eli too. He hasn’t yet seen his father’s or his Uncle Geoff’s Star Wars toy collections yet, but when he does, we’re sure he’ll be impressed.
We are whole heartedly embedded into Abby and Aaron’s family whether they like it or not at this point. We photographed their engagement session when we didn’t know them at all, but we instantly fell in love with their dog Casey (and Abby and Aaron too). We then photographed their wedding when we knew them much better after bonding over their dog as well as our mutual love of Halloween. Since then they’ve become some of our really fantastic friends. They live in our neighborhood and we go to the pool (with donut and pretzel shaped flotation devices like adults), celebrate Halloween together (Abby has had a spooky grand design for the front of our house for a couple of years and is disappointed when each year I manage to not find time to act on her vision), and we had the good fortune of getting to spend a lot more time with Casey as he got older. Now they have a baby whose name is Logan, and we’re excited to spend time with the whole family unit. Logan, however, didn’t seem terribly fond of us (there was a lot of crying, which Abby’s father assured me was payback for their newborn session of Abby where she cried through the whole thing). But we’ll win him over when he’s approximately five and discovers our extensive collection of Legos. :)
Rachel and Kevin had the super good fortune of not only giving birth to a beautiful baby girl, but also having her a few days before we sent our camera equipment away for a couple weeks to Canon for yearly maintenance. ;) We were hoping Evelyn Grace made her appearance on her due date, Jan 31st, and she thankfully made a timely arrival on February 1st. This enabled us to meet and photograph her in the adorable curled-up baby stage before they start throwing their limbs around all over the place. :)
We met the new parents at their home where they introduced us to Evelyn, who is a big fan of sleeping, napping, swaddling, sleeping, eating, and avoiding facing the camera at all times (don’t worry, babies are slow, so I was able to photograph her several times facing me before she caught on and turned the other direction). She is freaking adorable, with a little head full of hair and really adorable baby clothes and baby things. When my sister and I were little we had a babydoll we called Baby Evelyn, so I was even partial to her name. ;)
We were also introduced to Shirley, a tuxedo cat who has that amazing cat ability to sense when a door is suddenly opened into a room they’re not normally allowed to go in, enabling them to make a run for it, go into the “forbidden room”, and jump into the newborn’s crib to cuddle up with a stuffed elephant. Bandit, their tabby cat, also has that exact same the-door-is-open-to-the-forbidden-room-quick-lets-go-in-it cat sense, and hides under the crib. Clearly, it’s just a giant cat bed. Nora, their hound, who seemed like she was much more interested in cheese than her new baby sister, did not get in the crib.
Rachel and Kevin were just as much of a joy to work with as all the smaller creatures in their house, and it was such an honor to come into their home and photograph their little ones. :)