SARA+TREY | in love in the pee-less city

Happy three year anniversary to Sara and Trey! They contacted me about an anniversary session to commemorate both their marriage and their new lives in Minneapolis. They packed up their bags and moved straight into downtown - away from family, friends, and the small-town lives they were familiar with!

As we walked and talked and snapped these pictures, I was just so so so enamored with this beautiful city. Here’s a few of my favorite little things about Minneapolis…

1. It doesn’t smell like pee. I have spent time in New York and I have spent time in LA. Those cities smell like pee. This city does not.

2. Cobblestone streets and sky bridges. Old mill ruins turned into museums and those rentable green scooters (which I am DYING to do!!!!). Minneapolis has the charm of an old city with the amenities of a new one.

3. A river runs through it. Should I see that movie? I haven’t. Well, a river runs straight through our city and that river is the MISSISSIPPI.

4. A bridge with dogs in strollers. The Stone Arch Bridge is the icon of it all! Businesspeople commute to work via bicycle. If you’re delusional, you can arrive early in the morning on the 4th of July to get a spot on the bridge to watch the fireworks over the river. You’ll see bridal parties, tourists, locals, and occasionally those strollers with a tiny shaking dog inside.

5. Happy little trees. Not those sad CAGED trees you see planted along the streets of a typical city. Because the Mississippi River goes straight through Minneapolis, the city has tons and tons of green foresty parks smack dab in the middle of it with places to rent kayaks or take steamboat tours. I plan to do both this summer.

6. Not afraid to drive!!! I have been to New York, but NEVER driven myself around it. I have been to LA, but NEVER been behind the wheel there either. Same with Seattle, Miami, Las Vegas, and so on. But Minneapolis? I’M NOT AFRAID OF YOU! I KNOW I can find parking! I KNOW your drivers are not all human scum! I will gladly take your roads anytime.

7. Pretty city. Skylines galore. Positioned for ideal portrait lighting every evening at golden hour. Thank you sun, thank you city planners. I love this pretty city.

SEE ALSO
LINDSEY+COLE | I made an ice cream mistake
AMY+JAMES | lds st paul temple and cotton candy fluffy clouds

CONFIDENCE | not your mothers prom pictures

These girls had a cold and rainy prom night so I insisted they put their dresses back on the following weekend so we could grab some photos to do these gowns justice! Honestly, hanging out with friends in elegant dresses in a dewy spring garden sounds more fun than actually attending a high school dance.

The thing that made me go “OMG YES these girls need pictures(!!!)” wasn’t necessarily the gowns themselves, but the confidence I sense in dressing 100% your own way during the teenage years many of us spend just wanting to blend in and dress and look exactly like everyone else. Wearing a replica of the 2015 Cinderella ballgown? CONFIDENCE. Making (yes MAKING) your own prom dress out of Nigerian fabric to honor your heritage? CON. FI. DENCE.

I would love to the confidence these girls exude and send it back to my high school self! Probs would have ended up with a prom look reminiscent of Leisl’s gazebo dress, Drew’s butterfly wings, or *anything* from Moulin Rouge.

THE BABY CLOSET | the cozy thrifted baby space with no emotional damage

I love thrifting, tiny things, cute things, naps, small spaces, coziness, forests, sleeping, art, cats, and my baby. Combine them all together - we’ve got the baby closet. While our apartment IS actually a two bedroom, why would this new tiny person need a whole big room? We figured we’d much rather use the big room for storage, projects, an office, an art space, and guests, and give the little space to the little baby. So far there’s been no emotional damage from being put in the closet every night and it has become my favorite room in the whole house. Time to share!

The baby closet is roughly 4.5 feet by 7 feet in size. This is the view you’ve got of it from standing in the shower. Yes, I’ve put him in there while I’m in the shower. It’s a walk through closet - the other door leads to a spare room.

Sometimes we turn the ULTRA NOISY POSSIBLY BROKEN bathroom fan on as extra white noise for him. Well, we did until the neighbor complained about “a vibrating noise on the wall all night long” -_- Have tried to avoid using it since that.

Look at that. THIS CLOSET WAS MADE IT FIT A CRIB.

This blanket was a baby gift from our dear friend Loie. She crochet it herself! Loie was kind enough to let me pick the design and colors. I like the look of those Hudson Bay blankets so she made it similar to that! I sewed the pine tree pillows from a thrifted green bed sheet and strung the pom pom strand myself. I was listening to a depressing podcast episode about Elvis as I put the garland together and that memory still comes to mind every time I look at them. It’s weird.

This little gallery wall opposite the crib is the main reason it took me almost ten months to share these pictures. It’s just never DONE done, you know? I finally had to say, “Okay, it’s done enough that I should take some pictures” but I can definitely see myself adding to it here and there when inspiration strikes.

We actually never have the overhead light on in the closet like you see in these pictures, partially because the light switch is inside the spare room rather than the closet itself. Too much effort. The Hatch nightlight/white noise machine is what you’ll typically find going on and it the coziest, most soothing little closet space at night.

There are a couple of cat elements to the room (how could it not?). As a tangent, why are cats found on baby GIRL things but not baby BOY things? This huge grey striped cat was a baby gift from my sister who honestly didn’t know how huge that cat was going to be when she opened up the pattern. We are incredibly grateful for its great size!! We found this nightstand at our beloved fake Target thrift store in downtown Minneapolis.

That’s us! Just know that getting Jason’s hair perfectly accurate is probably the thing in this whole room I’m most proud of. On the right is Spencer’s Korean name, which is legal middle name. In English it’s spelled Taeyoon. Jason wrote it down for me on a piece of paper so I could practice writing it in Korean to make this little framed piece. My ignorant American brain looks at it and sees “EH” followed by a smirking face with a halo.

And there he is!! I found a little mini decorative cutting board at the thrift store, took off the loop of twine from the top, and painted it over with the cutest little baby face in existence.

I received this gold foil print from a past photography client who opened the most beautiful church-themed print shop! The shop is W Paper Co and I knew it would be perfect in a baby room!! The frame, and all the frames in his room, were thrifted and painted white. So. Many. Layers. Of. White.

While we’re on the topic I’ll tell you these striped jammies are also thrifted.

This cat has a nice little backstory. When I was in my second trimester, one of my grandfathers passed away in Connecticut (see his wedding picture in this post). We didn’t fly out to attend Pop Pop’s funeral because coincidentally we had already booked a trip to CT for a week and a half later. So when we arrived, the funeral had already come and gone but my mom had a bag of Pop Pop’s clothes she was going to donate after we went through them for anything we may like. I took two old, soft, polos - one orange and one blue. I brought them back to Minnesota and carefully turned them into this cat you see here. I was very nervous to mess up and ruin the fabric forever and knew I couldn’t just ‘wing it’ like I usually do (and often fail) so I purchased this cute cat pattern on Etsy. Pop Pop didn’t vocalize many strong passions or opinions, except that he absolutely loved his cat. In an additional homage to his time in the Air Force in the Korean War, there is an airplane on the back of the cat’s blue shirt.

I loved creating this little space bit by bit, usually by hand with a paint brush. The little mushroom and acorn paintings were finished literally two days before he was born! I love when art, even just simple decor for a baby room, means something. A connection to a story, a family member, or even just an interest. I hope one day Spencer will ask, “What’s that?” about the space around him and I can share all the reasons I made this space for him.