I absolutely love taking first birthday photos! They can be hard – toddlers don’t exactly sit still – but their first steps, smiles, and laughs are the best. As you can see, sweet Hollyn is one happy baby! See how she’s changed since her newborn photos a year ago.
This girl. I feel like I was just bringing her home from the hospital, but last weekend we celebrated her second birthday. It’s funny to look back on how we thought she’d be our easy-going child. She’s fierce. She’s opinionated, she’s a talker, she doesn’t take “no” for an answer. She has the biggest personality! She and her sister are best friends – it’s a childhood bond I never really understood until I had two of my own, since my sister and I were twelve years apart.
Miss M loves Elmo and swimming, so we had an Elmo pool party! (Can I just say I love summer birthdays?)
It has been fun to take monthly photos of her, but as she grows, she won’t change as quickly, so I’ll concentrate on filling out her baby book rather than posting monthly. 😉
See how she’s changed from two months ago (I forgot to post last month), last year, and when she was a newborn.
I posted photos of my daughter’s fifth birthday last week, but just in case any of you have children who love Sound of Music, I wanted to share a post of some of the fun, simple ways I incorporated the theme. While this is hardly a Pinterest-worthy party, I couldn’t exactly find a lot of ideas out there, either. Forewarning: Despite my better judgement, I did pull movie images from the internet.
And just like that…my firstborn is five years old. It’s been a whirlwind of birthday celebrations this weekend, from her birthday celebration at school and opening gifts from us at home on Friday, to a family celebration on Saturday, to a small froyo party with her closest school friends Sunday afternoon. To say she feels spoiled would be an understatement. She even said a thank-you prayer last night for gifts, friends and family, and cake!
So, what’s she been up to this year? Lil’ Miss K has been busy at preschool and is heading to kindergarten round-up this week. She’s starting to read her Bob books, she loves math and geography, writing and coloring. Her preschool teacher says she’s well-rounded. While she seems to be more cautious than her little sister, she has come out of her shell this year. She’s turned into a leader at her school, she tries new things without giving up, and it turns out that she loves snow skiing (and is pretty darn good at it)! I can’t wait to see what the next year has in store for her.
Check out last year’s birthday here.
I feel like I just shot 6-month photos of this little guy … and now he’s ONE! He is one stylin’ kid – and the West Bottoms turned out to be a perfect backdrop. The balloons may have blown away and it was way too cold for a cake smash, but we still got smiles and loads of cuteness!
Little Miss K has loved Wizard of Oz for a couple of years, so it was natural that she wanted a “Dorothy” birthday party. I can’t believe this girl is already four years old! Her birth feels like yesterday. We had a great time celebrating with family and close friends My mom did a great job with the cake. I found the figurines for it on ebay – they were from the 2013 McDonald’s Happy Meals. I had fun designing the decorations and coming up with food ideas – there wasn’t much out there on Pinterest, believe it or not. Here’s what we did:
Yellow brick road: egg casserole
Over the rainbow: fruit rainbow
Bugels: tornados
Lions, tigers, and bears, oh my!: animal crackers
Ruby slippers: Hot Tamales
Witch’s broomsticks: pretzels
Tin man hats: Hershey’s kisses
Aunt Em’s fresh squeezed juice: You guessed it – juice!
My sweet Lil’ Miss K is three today! Where has the time gone? She’s quickly turning into a smart, independent, “threenager.” Her favorite food is mac ‘n cheese, her favorite color is orange, her favorite letter is O … she hasn’t wavered from these favs for almost a year. She’s obsessed with Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood and can reenact an episode after watching it only once or twice. She loves singing and putting on goofy dances shows, and her favorite toy is her imagination. She’s pretty good at throwing a ball, too. I can have adult conversations with her, but I quickly remember she’s still a toddler when she starts to have a meltdown. We love this opinionated girl to pieces!
Check out how she’s changed since her last photo four months ago.
See how tall she’s gotten since last year!
Today is my grandma’s 92nd birthday! She lives on the other side of the state, but luckily we had time to make the long round-trip drive yesterday to wish her a happy birthday. I’m glad she did – she was all smiles!
I say it time and time again, but I can’t get over how quickly time flies, especially when it comes to babies. This little guy is celebrating his first birthday in a few weeks. He was one of the happiest, most easy-going one-year-olds I’ve ever taken photos of. Plus, he couldn’t get any cuter. Makes my job easy!
Since Lil’ Miss K loves kitties and doesn’t watch cartoons, I chose Hello Kitty for her birthday theme. We kept it pretty simple this year with immediate family, simple decorations, and an easy (but cute!) cake. Her favorite gift was a baby stroller to push her babies in, but my favorite was her new Strider bike!
Photographic Rhodes 