This photo session was a bittersweet celebration of a beautiful little girl’s first birthday. You see, Catherine has been one of my Little Sprouts babies. For the past year I have had the pleasure of working with this family to document some of the important milestones in the first year of her life. We met just days after she was born to capture the oh-so-fleeting newborn stage; then again when she was a smiley four-month-old, and was just starting to sit up; and then when she was eight-months-old and crawling and just brimming with curiosity. And so while I am so happy for her and her family, I will miss seeing them quite so frequently!

I love that our sessions become a blend of lifestyle photography that is a bit more photojournalistic and catches the moments where the family is interacting naturally with some studio-style images included to just feature our little star.

Catherine’s mom made the beautiful banner in the background to use at her first birthday party the week before, and it made a gorgeous accent for our photos!

I have Maddy’s Fatty’s bakery from Cornelius make all of the cakes used for my first birthday cake smash photos. I love that their cakes are all natural, beautiful, and they taste delicious! Catherine was a little tentative with the idea of smashing the cake, though. She did not like getting her fingers messy, and was much more interested in inspecting the cake and frosting than she was in actually eating it!

Happy Birthday, Catherine! And thank you to your family for trusting me to be your photographer throughout this year. I look forward to seeing you again once you are two!