Perhaps some of you remember my childhood friend, Alli and her husband Spencer. Three years ago I came out to Minnesota and shot their wedding in their hometown of Ellsworth, Wisconsin. I shared our whole friendship story on their wedding post here – but to keep it short, we met in 2^nd grade, didn’t quite hit it off until 3^rd grade, and then were inseparable until I moved with my mom and brother to Idaho after our 6^th grade year. We’ve kept in touch as our lives have webbed and flowed through college, jobs, marriage, and now….children! I remember how excited Alli was after her wedding to one day start a family with her high school sweetheart, and I enjoyed seeing her posts updating her baby bump. Finally Sawyer came, and I knew I just had to meet this sweet baby girl!

As we began to plan out our travels for this trip, I reached out to Alli to let her know our tentative timeline and we agreed that a family session was in order! The day of her session arrived and….it was completely pouring outside! We decided to push the session back one more day, and it turned out to be the right choice. The sun was out and the ground was dry so Sawyer could sit in the grass without getting muddy and wet. We went out to Spencer’s family’s property, and also returned to a spot where we had taken bride and groom portraits three years earlier. It was so fun to “recreate” one of those pictures, but this time with Sawyer in hand. Alli had warned me that Sawyer might be a stubborn one to get smiles out of, but she warmed up to me pretty quickly. I was surprised to see her walking already at under 11 months old! She was strong and independent. My favorite shots are her little crinkled nose!

It is always so fun for me to catch up with Alli and laugh and reminisce, and also to realize how far we’ve come since being 7 years old and teasing each other on the playgrounds of elementary school! I’m so glad this woman is in my life, and that I got to meet her beautiful daughter (I love Spencer, too. He’s pretty awesome as well 😉 )