For my clients, I normally do a Milestone Package which includes Newborn, 6 Months, 9 Months and 1 Year Sessions. I knew I would want to do something similar with Henry and I’m so glad I did.

NEWBORN SESSION

I knew before giving birth I would want someone to do our newborn session since I knew I would be recovering and not feel like being bent over for 2-4 hours. We decided on Michele Zakeri with Michele Zakeri Photography and couldn’t be happier with all the beautiful and amazing images we walked away with! It was so nice to sit and watch another photographer work in her element. To love on my child and place him beautifully in props and on the beanbag. We knew we wanted some family shots as well since I can’t really do those myself and we will always cherish them!

 

SEVEN MONTHS

The sunflower field! Somehow this year worked out where I opened up Mini Sessions at the Anderson Sunflower fields in Cumming, GA and I asked my hubby to bring Henry in between naps so we can get a few shots in during his 7th month in Mommy’s favorite flowers! My friend, Marissa came to help me for the day and ended up taking this sweet and amazingly precious shots of us. Luckily Henry loves Marissa so we were able to get a ton of smiles out of him.

 

NINE MONTHS

We knew his nine months were probably going to be in the studio just because we could and it would be fun to try to do it. We took so many in about 30 minutes and he did so good for us in that amount of time. He was picking up books and wanting us to read to him all the time so we wanted to make sure we included that in some images. I had also used the wooden toy camera from Fact + Fiction Toys for every month and session I had done with Henry so we made sure it made it’s way to this session too! Henry had started really crawling good by this time so we made sure to have a few with him crawling towards us to immortalize this milestone! Then Jerry and I took turns taking each other’s pictures as well.

10

During his tenth month, I ended up doing Mustang Mini Sessions and HAD to grab a few shots after we set up the ‘Stang in my family’s farm. Are these not so sweet?!? The plus side to being a photographer and already having things set up for Mini Sessions… By the way, he’s clapping in excitement in these saying “yay!”

ONE YEAR

His party theme was Lumberjack/flannel and was the sweetest thing! We went to the local tree farm to cut down our Christmas tree and took a few pictures while we were there! He was much more interested in the grass than looking up at the camera to smile at me but that was fine – I wasn’t going to push it. Do you see that first picture with Daddy and holding his suspender?!?! Cue all the heart eyes!

 

MONTHLY AT HOME

We wanted to do something we could see how much he had grown so my Nana made this sweet bear for Henry for Christmas and thought it was the perfect thing to show his size. You can definitely see his personality in these!

As I was lying him down for bed on his first birthday, I noticed the shape of his body isn’t the same as when I first held him a year ago. I noticed my arms were further apart, holding his back and under his tush. I noticed the amount of hair on his head was soft but not as baby soft as then. I noticed the way his hands are soft but so much bigger. I noticed I wasn’t the same as I was then. I have more confidence. More love. More grace.  He gives kisses. He notices you when you walk in (or out) of the room and flashes you the sweetest and biggest smile. He loves to read books. He loves when we make noises of any kind but especially animal noises (we’ve gotten good at them). He stands up so easily. Crawls “super fast” as we call it in our house. He chats and we love to stop and listen to it when he does.

They say the days are long but the years are short. I now understand that more fully than I did in the first few weeks of his life. Where has a year gone? Have I loved him unconditionally? Have I shown him he is important? That he can be a world changer? That Jesus loves him even more than me? We love this kid hard and am so glad God entrusted him to us on this earth. We will work hard to respect him, to love him and show him how to be a follower of Jesus.