Kirsten and Matt are my kind of people. Geoff is insistent that the amount of animals living with us don’t outnumber us, but he’s wrong. Kirsten and Matt are living in a joyous dreamland of cats and dogs living together, cuddling on the bed and everyone getting along. They live very happily living alongside the following:

*Chip – yellow lab, exceptionally good boy, friendly, cuddler
*Pascal – white Ragdoll, friendly, goofy, likes to chase shadows on walls and harass Chip
*Cinder – insanely handsome very-good-boy long-haired Siamese who enjoys being the center of attention and is very good at jumping
*Weston – human toddler, likes to dance to the Black Eyed Peas, owns the coolest shoes, has the most wonderful cable-knit sweater known to small children, and has an insanely cute laugh

In addition, they also live with Tansy, a calico who spent the session hiding from me under the bed, and two bunnies. And soon they’ll have a 34 year old photographer who moves in as the “Cat Nanny.” So it’s a full house with an unbelievably high cute factor over there and I’m definitely jealous of how well everyone gets along. Also 100% jealous of Weston’s shoes, which I went home and immediately put on my Amazon wish list. What a good looking bunch!

I met Julie, Ben, Claire, and Yoda on a chilly day to get a photo for their holiday card, and despite the chill we had a great time! I say “chilly” but Julie and Ben are from Michigan so they’re pretty hard to make cold. I’m from Pittsburgh and used to think I was also hard to make cold, but now that I’ve lived down here for many years I no longer go anywhere under 70 degrees without at least a jacket (how did this happen to me?). Claire, who I was warned has a bit of stranger danger, didn’t take long to warm up at all (figuratively, since we were outside) and was excited to walk the trail down to the beautiful little park near their house. There we saw lots of deer, hung out near the gazebo (which Claire loves), and played on the swings. Claire is in an “all things leaves” stage and enjoyed holding and giving away her colored leaves, and she loved riding on the gazebo porch swing with her parents. She is adorable, strong-willed, and very smart… she also has the best shoes. Yoda the Very Good Boy of a Dog stayed closed and obediently took part in family portraits even though Claire didn’t always want that (it wasn’t part of her vision for the pictures apparently). I had such a good time spending some time with this beautiful family and exploring a new-to-me gorgeous little park.

It’s always great meeting new small business owners when I work on branding photos, but it’s especially fun to work with a team and even more fun to meet people in empty model homes and admire the furnishings, hah! I had the honor of working with Heyward Team Realty on their new headshots and branding photos for their website, and we had so much fun! Trey started out as a realtor and later teamed up with his wife Courtney to become a husband and wife realty team. As their business has grown, they’ve hired two additional realtors, Caitlin and Kelly, and now Trey finds himself surrounded by coworkers who have all seen the television show Friends when he hasn’t (I suggested a team building exercise in the works to watch all the seasons… it would at least be an interesting exercise in New York City real estate apartment cost estimations for Monica’s place). Now Heyward Team Realty operates as one big happy family selling homes in the Triangle area. They truly love their job, their clients, and working together, and it was a blast to photograph new headshots and group shots for this great team!