once upon a time, my mother lived in NYC, with the Beels family. the two kids, Jessica and Alexander, were around 10 and 12. maybe 8 and 10. anyway, you get the idea. and now, my mom would say that felt like an entire lifetime ago. but the memories they have of my mom are the best. trying to start out as a sports writer, taking their dad to his first baseball game and baking chocolate cakes every week. chocolate cakes which i remember from every birthday party as a kid ever. every year my mom made a chocolate cake. she, to this day, is sort of funny about finding the best chocolate cake. challenge her and she'll make you her flourless chocolate cake. but she'll deny to the end that she has a thing for chocolate cakes. anyway, i digress.

last weekend i was in DC visiting my sister in law. but with the new baby and the cozy quarters, i needed a place to stay. enter Jessica and her awesome brood. she has this amazing place with two amazing kids, a great chef husband and a very, very sweet dog. so to pay for my stay i got to do a portrait session with her and her two kids Anika (15) and Max (12). did you follow all that? kinda crazy huh? plus! Jessica does this amazing jewelry/sculpting which you should see here. so i drank wine, ate delicious paella, stayed up way too late watching SNL and conked.

a longer post from their session is coming, but when i started going through these, these two particular photos just jumped out at me as being so Max and so Anika. they are both such fantastic kids, and i'm not just saying that because i should. they really are just both really amazing, interesting, talented, kids who actually give a shit about interesting things. it's pretty great. i want Jessica to write a how to for me...

i mean, Anika is just gorgeous and confident and counting down the days to her 16th birthday and Max is 12 and that's what these pictures say. i hope.

xo isabel