This weekend’s shoot was for a friend of mine who I have known since I was around 4 years old, I think. Which means I have known her for as long as I can remember. Susan, and her sisters Wendy and Jen were a second family that lived right next door to me and we spent countless hours swimming, laying out, playing little people, sledding down hills that I wouldn’t even consider walking down these days, hanging out, playing barbies, eating dinner together, giving birth to pretend babies (ok, I hope that memory SO made you LOL!) being snowed in together, and even doing chores together. (Remember picking up sticks guys?) We literally grew up together and are all still connected. It’s a very precious thing to have such connections to my childhood. We have all swayed in and out of being close over the years, but when Christmas time rolls around or when the stars align and Susan’s sisters are all in town, we just know that we need to see each other. Oh, and I have even known her husband Jim since I was 14 years old. My world really is the tiniest place ever.

So, as Susan’s family has grown, she called upon me to capture her family in this time of their life. We were going to do the shoot at Solomon Farm, the location of the famed wedding of Cassie & Jason. When we dropped Miles off at my mom’s house before the shoot we were like, “Good gracious, it’s gorgeous in this neighborhood, we should have done the shoot here.” When we got to the farm it was gross, cold and super windy. So we made a quick change of plans and Susan was totally up for heading back to our old stomping grounds. I have to say, it was really strange and neat all at once to photograph Sue’s family in the VERY same spot we had played as kids. I stopped for a moment during the shoot and tried to tell her how I was feeling, but I really couldn’t describe it.

Hopefully the photos can speak for themselves and show the beauty of that old neighborhood and what a great place it was to grow up. It also shows how happy and bubbly this family is. Oh, and you are about to see some of the cutest curls you’ve ever seen.

Did I disappoint? Look at those curls!! Their youngest is a couple months (maybe 6 weeks?) older than Miles. There is NO WAY he would stand there holding leaves for me. He would have been OFF and running through the field. I guess that’s the difference between being the first born and the 4th born, huh? John and I were amazed.

At the count of three let’s all throw our leaves. 1, 2…Somebody was too excited to wait! Look at the glee on her face. LOVE IT!

It’s totally normal to bust out into a spontaneous game of Red Rover during a photoshoot, right? Regardless, we got some CUTE expressions from her kids. Here we were asking Red Rover to send mom right over.

Red Rover, Red Rover, send DADDY right over!

Ahhhh! Here he comes!

Ok, this is just a sneak peek, so more to come later, but here’s one more of three of the kids up against this old chain link fence that lined one side of what could be used as a ball field. I remember watching kids throw baseballs against it as hard as they could leaving it all bowed out and bouncy. I LUV photos up against rusty chain link.

Thanks Susan & Jim for trusting us with your family photos! Oh, and thanks for being such rock stars and putting up with the freeezing gross day. Um, your kids are amazing! Would you have any idea it was in the 40’s? I do have to say I BUSTED OUT some FAST photography that day so they (and I) didn’t freeze.

I just wanted to take a moment to say “HI!” to Susan’s WHOLE family checking out this blog. (I hope they are checking it out!!) I love and miss you all!

PS Sue, what hair stuff do you guys use? I want MY curls to look like that! (When I’m not forcing them to go straight.)