you know how you can still remember the phone number of your closest friends from middle school?? aaron johnson’s number is one of two that i can still remember. which came in pretty handy a few years back. mindy and i were driving on lakeshore drive and i thought to myself, “i wonder if aaron is still living in chicago?!” i hadn’t seen him in AGES!! so i called his home number from middle school just in case his mom still lived there so i could get his number. lo and behold, mimi answered and we hooked up with aaron that weekend.

and the rest is history! we’ve gotten to know and to LOVE his wife, sarah. and then just recently, we’ve had the distinct pleasure of getting to know their beautiful daughter, zoe!!! sure they gave her the room that mindy and i used to sleep in!! but we’ll manage

it has meant the world to me to reconnect with aaron not only as long lost friends, but now as our family friend. our kids love aaron and sarah (and of course elliott, their beagle). and the johnson home has come to feel like a home away from home for mindy and i when we’re in chicago.

aaron. sarah. we love you. we love zoe. and thanks for letting us capture images of your family!!!

the wall family. jim. krissy. connor. fin.
oh how we love thee

the wall family was our first ever photoshoot in connecticut! and this was our third time shooting them. in fact, a trip to connecticut wouldn’t be a trip to connecticut without them!! although this time we didn’t have our kids with us so keegan and carter missed out on tearing up the wall basement with connor and fin. next time for sure!!

and while we LOVE every chance we get to connect with jim and krissy, this time was different. it was better.

it started a monthish or so before we headed east when krissy facebooked us to let us know that she had breast cancer. our hearts sank. the pain of breast cancer is all too familiar in our family (with mindy’s mother being a 20+ year breast cancer survivor), so it hurts all the more when it happens to friends.

each of the shoots we’ve done with the walls have meant the world to us. but this year’s was a reminder of just how much we value capturing families at a moment in time. and especially at this time.

krissy has been a warrior. she fights the fight head on. she shares her journey with family and friends. and she doesn’t hide. she brings it every day. she inspires mindy and i with her amazing humor, wit and courage with every facebook update

so everyone send some love to the walls!!

and before the pics, just a few fun notes about them. krissy always wanted to do a beatle’s “abbey road” shot with her family. so we just had to do it! we found the perfect road, inserted a vw bug just like the one on the album (ok, not just like it, but a bug all the same!) and note the detail all the way down to jim pretending to hold a cigarette in his right hand nice!

and then there’s the last picture of connor and fin holding krissy’s totems…courage, hope, and love. that pretty much says it all!!! keep it up krissy. FIGHT. FIGHT. FIGHT!

STUDIO 6.23 goes country!!

last year we fell in love with the norton family in connecticut. and they introduced us to their sister, heidi, who wanted us to come shoot at their horse ranch (honestly, i have no idea if it’s called a horse ranch or farm…at first, i wanted to call it a horse farm, but it seems then like we’re farming horses and that’s just not right!) we were bummed that we couldn’t work it out on that trip. so we were all the more excited to get it nailed down for this one!

we have absolutely no idea what this place was going to be like before we got there, though we were pretty sure there’d be some horses (being a horse ranch and all!). but when we turned down the driveway, it was like a choir of angels singing hallelujah! open fields, awesome houses, the pond… and of course our favorite, the hammock! i twittered something to the extent that my country boy alter ego just found his dream estate!! and why is it that sunsets just seem a bit better in the country?!

heidi…your family is fantastic! thank you so much for the invite out to the ranch and for letting us do “country” our way. here’s just a few of our faves!