Richelle Thornton Photography

Today my little lady turns one, she is no longer a "baby" and is now a toddler. (these are some pics of her newborn session.) To celebrate her birthday I decided to do a smash the cake photo session. I spent hours on Saturday making her cake, it probably would have taken anyone else about an hour, but I didn't use enough batter... the cake broke in the mold, and I had to "glue" it back together with icing. The plan was to do the session the following day, on Sunday. I had another shoot on Saturday, and when I got home I checked the weather.. rain, all day Sunday. My cake was holding together by a thread.. we were 15 minutes to bed time, and Sunday was no longer an option. We decided to just go with it, she was in a great mood so we dressed her up, took her outside and put the cake in front of her. In my head, this was a brilliant idea, these were going to be the most perfect pictures in the history of photography. HA. Little lady and I were not on the same page. As I took the pictures, and she cried, and pouted, and tried everything in her power to get off the blanket to play in the grass, I thought to myself "there is no way I can put these in my portfolio! I don't want potential clients to think I make babies cry!" While I went in the house feeling completely defeated, I decided to download the pictures and see just how terrible they were. And while no, they are not the "smily, happy, sunshine, and rainbows" pictures I had hoped for, I think they turned out perfect none the less. Little lady has always been our "spirited" child, if something is pissing her off, EVERYONE will know, and in this case, the cake was really pissing her off. It was a real lesson in parenting, we can plan plan plan all we want, it is really the little people that call the shots. My little lady is sometimes difficult, she is stubborn, she has the loudest scream I have ever heard, but I would not have her any other way. :)

After our not-so-happy smash the cake session, I decided to try again. I stuck little lady in my wedding dress, threw some jewelry boxes around her and just started shooting away. I was really happy with the way these came out, it shows the sweeter side of our little screamer :)