Owen's Cake Smash!

Owen is ONE! It's still hard to believe that I'm a mom, but a mom to a 1-year old?! It's mind-boggling! Not sure where the past twelve months have gone, but it was the most tiresome, most stressful, yet the happiest, most rewarding, and best year ever.

I have always wanted Owen to have a cake smash, but we decided to not do it during his actual birthday party for several reasons, the biggest reason being that he gets overwhelmed very easily; so you can only imagine what his demeanor would have been like if he was surrounded by dozens of people yelling, "Smash the cake, Owen!" Complete and utter disaster.

So we did his cake smash a couple of weeks ago at my mom and dad's. And who was there to capture Owen's precious moments? Christina Cho! Duh!

Yes, I made it...not the prettiest cake, but I was proud of it!

Outfit from juDanzy. Hat from Party City.

Pooh Bear got dirty too.

All clean!

FAMILY!

With our favorite photographer!

As you can tell from the photos, Owen wasn't entirely thrilled in the beginning, but he eventually warmed up and was smiley towards the end of the session. Here are some tips for a stress-free and happy cake smash session:

1. Don't schedule the cake smash during nap time! Owen typically naps from 10am to noon, so we had his session at 1pm.
2. Do the session in a familiar place with familiar people.
3. In the days leading up to the session, give your child messy foods to feed himself...and maybe throw in a sweet treat here and there. Giving a spoon-fed child (who hasn't been given a lot of sweets) a whole cake to smash and eat would only end in lots and lots of tears...and quite possibly lots and lots of poop.
4. During the session, have his favorite toy on standby; in Owen's case, it was Pooh Bear. Owen also loved the balloons, so we threw some balloons in the air to get him smiling/laughing.
5. Take breaks. If your child starts to cry, do not press on by shoving his hand in the cake. He won't like it. Not one bit.
6. Be happy, and have fun! If you look or sound upset, your child can pick up on your feelings and react to them.

We just got back from San Diego last night, where we spent the last three days visiting the animal parks. I'll blog more about that later because we got one more park to go to for this kid's birthday. Can you guess what park that is?

And no, I did not forget about Owen's monthly photo. It's going to have to wait because he's simply not in the mood to stay still right now - it's his birthday, and he's in the mood to PAAAARTTTTTAAAY!

Fall Family Session

I literally JUST got our photos from Christina Cho Photography, but I cannot contain my excitement. I always tell her that whatever session she just did was "my favorite", but I'm serious this time...THIS is my favorite.

To be perfectly honest, I didn't even think about doing a family session until earlier this month. Reasons being are: 1) I'm not in the greatest shape; and 2) Having a baby in a photo shoot is very unpredictable. Will he be cranky? Will he not want to be carried and just play on the dirt? What if he's camera-shy? What if he poops his pants in the middle of the park? All these scenarios kept popping in my head, but then I remembered the day of our newborn session. Owen was reeeaaallly grumpy that day, but it wasn't apparent in the final photos...well, except for maybe one or two of them. But you know what? I loved every single one of those photos, so I quickly contacted Christina.

We had our photos taken at Riley Wilderness Park at Coto de Caza (que fancy). Ralph and I decided to arrive a little early, just in case Owen fell asleep (to wake him up), was hungry (to feed him), peed/pooped (to change his diaper), etc. (See what I mean about "unpredictable"?) It also gave us the opportunity to look around and have Owen get used to the place.

The place was gorgeous. We had already done our sessions at a "green" park, the beach, and at home, so I really wanted a place that had an Autumn look to it.

Thank you, Pooh Bear, for making Owen smile that day!

Yes, that's the same book we used at our maternity session. Where did the time go?! *Crying*

Thank you, Christina!!! This is DEFINITELY my favorite session, by far! And also a huge thank you to Christina's husband Katzy for entertaining Owen, carrying our stuff, assisting Christina, etc. You guys are awesome!