Happy Second Birthday G!
About a week ago I was visited by the amazing J & W family & had the privilege to once again work with them! G & her family have now visited me on 3 separate occasions & each time has been more enjoyable than the last. G is ALWAYS on her best behavior & always makes me job of narrowing down photos incredibly hard. I don't know much about her mother Aravon or her father Chris outside of what I've learned about them during our sessions BUT looking about at photos I saw a lot of similarities in mannerisms as well as certain expressions & it was incredibly obvious that she gets her amazingly sweet & bubbly personality from her parents. The fun these 3 had during our shoot was completely genuine & these 3 were truly happy just being in one another's company.
G spent the majority of her session showing her parents off to me & was milking them for everything they had! She's an incredibly smart two year old & was very aware of what was going on & knew that we were all doing everything to keep her happy & was using that to her advantage. She spent the majority of her session getting swapped between mother & father, climbing up them and than the rest of her session trying to get them to swing her in between them.
Despite being cold & tired she was always on the move & spent the final portion of their family session chasing after all of us. I would get them set up somewhere than run about twenty feet back to get a shot, only to turn around & see G hot on my heels!
Now, if you've by chance bumped into me in the last few weeks I've told you this hilarious story, but for those of you who haven't had the privilege... At G's first Cake Smash I had everything set up & ready to go as soon as they walked in the door. The cake was in plain view so as soon as they came through the back door G's eyes were glued on the cake. Mama A even took her to the other side of the room, changed her, moved her around ten thousand times, & she NEVER took her eyes off the cake, so as soon as they let her go it was over. The Cake was destroyed in no time & she was the first baby to ever really dig into her cake without her parents help. Needless to say I learned from the past & waited till they were inside and changed to set up. When the 3 of them came in the cake was still in the kitchen & I didn't bring it out until A & C had settled in & got G changed into her final outfit. By the time I came back in the room (cake in hand) G was sitting on the couch, nestled between her parents, playing on her mama's phone. The second she looked up & saw what I had she dropped the phone, (I'm SO surprised she didn't break it), scooted off the couch & started making her way towards me, the most determined look on her face... She was mesmerized by the cake & had completely forgotten about everything going on around her. Her parents had to hold her back while I got my test shots in, & though she was being incredibly patient you could tell she was getting annoyed.
I managed to get two good shots of the set before letting G get ahold of her cake. She automatically stuck her face in it & for the next five minutes I was taking photos non stop... she never really made it past the icing, which most babies don't, & instead spent most her time eating the big fondant bow on top of her cake (which matched her bow perfectly!) & trying to pick up her cake & walk off with it. I could have been done within two minutes because of how expressive G was & how everything she did was just beyond cute but I couldn't stop taking photos of her & the chaos (cakeos).
G is such an expressive little girl & it was SO hard to narrow down what photos to show for her preview (trust me, there's A LOT more behind this). She is the epitome of sass & wasn't afraid to tell us how it is. I caught her on several occasions looking at me & her parents like we were stupid, because we kept telling her 'do this, do that, look here'... G made it very clear she was only here to eat cake.
I imagine her saying in this photo something like 'Why are you guys even here?' or 'Stop telling me what to do, I'm eating the darn cake!!!'... or maybe even 'shut up, it's my cheat day'
As we were wrapping up she made sure to let us all know that the cake was going home with them. They were going to have pizza for dinner AND cake (G added)
I've loved watching G grow from a beautiful giant one year old to a beautiful & incredibly smart two year old! I briefly discussed in my last blog how much you felt our age when you see your friends children hit milestones & I swear it didn't seem that long ago Aravon & I were planning their first session! We even exchanged a few text messages the other day talking about how we were comparing photos & how we couldn't believe it had been a year already!
Happy Birthday once again G! I hope you, your beautiful mama & sweet papa have an amazing day & a very safe but spooky Halloween!
Behind the scenes
Even though G looks completely majestic walking through the tall grass, truth be told she hated it (BUT THAT'S WHAT BEING A GOOD MODEL IS ALL ABOUT). We stuck her in a patch thinking she'd walk right out but instead she stood there with her arms outstretched waiting for one of us to come get her. This first image is of her begging me to save her
G wondering why her parent's were running away from her & not swinging her in between them instead (note the outstretched arms)
G wondering why her mother was touching her
