I’ve known Holly and Rob for years now. Since Holly and I worked together on Nick News. She was one of my first clients and one of my most loyal. Just before the holidays, I photographed her family pictures. She mentioned specifically that she wanted an “Anthropologie” look with the outside shots. I knew JUST what she meant. I had in my head the color palate, the croppings, the compositions. It’s quite similar to my favorite stylings as well and I couldn’t WAIT to start the shoot. Since it was winter, we did begin inside in the studio. Ellie is just now starting to sort of remember who I am and that I see her yearly. And I soon came to learn there were two things about my apartment (which I turn into a studio for indoor shoots) that absolutely fascinated her. 1) My dogs. and 2) My fridge.

Kids are funny little things. She wanted to see my dogs SO BADLY. She kept asking for them, so during breaks, I would bring out Bebop. Typically chihuahua’s have a bad rep for not being good with kids–Bebop is the anomaly. She is GREAT with kids. Even friends who bring their newborns over, she will simply smother them with kisses. Now, Red on the other hand isn’t BAD with kids necessarily…he just doesn’t understand them. I think they freak him out a little. He gets very focused on them and trying to understand what this little human is doing walking around his house. So, I always feel more comfortable keeping Red away from kids. But NO! Ellie wanted to see the big dog! He was her favorite! However, she didn’t want to touch him. She just wanted to look at him. While being held by her mother.

As I mentioned, she also really wanted to see my refrigerator. No problem. There’s hardly anything in there anyway. I opened it up and showed her. Inside I had laughing cow cheese, half and half, some turkey, a pickle (yes, just one), and beer. She found this hilarious. “What do you eat!?” She asked with her shoulders raised to her ears.

“Do you want to see my recipe book?’

She nodded emphatically. From the top of the fridge, I pulled down 30 take-out menus. “This is the extent of my cooking.” She slapped her hand to her forehead and started laughing the deepest belly-laugh I ever heard from a 3 year old.

When I have one (someday many moons from now), I hope she’s just like Ellie.

This here is Sam. Big Man Sam as I like to call him. Which is funny because he is actually a very small guy for his age. He was all smiles for me, though while playing in the leaves! His mom, Kara, and I used to work together for Nick News. He’s 9 months old and his favorite thing in the whole world is standing. If he’s not standing, he’s not happy! He completely bypassed the crawling stage and went right to standing. He’s not walking yet, but he definitely looked like he was about to take his first steps at any moment!