alright, so coming up on little mr. re-nest #2’s first birthday, i realized i
had a total mom fail. besides the photos taken in the hospital, somehow almost
twelve months went by before i had a professional picture taken of little mr.
re-nest #2. somewhere around month 11, i did finally book our dear friend, and family
photographer, to take some family pics of us…which turned out amazing, and i’m
still trying to figure out which ones to order because they are all so awesome.
i finally felt a little less guilt (because lord knows i don’t want to be met
ten years from now with, “why aren’t there as many pictures of me?”)

then, i came across this totally new (to me, not so much to
other in-tune mamas), and obviously exciting idea, for little ones’ first
birthdays: the cake smash photo session. oh no, this isn’t just taking pics of
the little one smashing his face in a cake at his birthday party. this is a
completely separate session which involves a diaper cover, a tie of some sort
(bow or otherwise), and a cake where the little one just goes to town. maybe i
was living in a hole five years ago when little mr. re-nest #1 was born, but i had
never even thought of this. i actually met another local mom, who is also a
photographer, and she does these cake smash sessions ….since
the mommy guilt was at code red levels for not having enough professional
photos of little mr. re-nest #2, i dived in. 

i went about scouring etsy for the perfect diaper cover and
tie. i found it from so stinkn cute out of georgia. she had a custom set that
she did with the “very hungry caterpillar” dot pattern fabric, and she did an
amazingly adorable “1” birthday hat too. order placed. 

then, i figured since i was making all of the party
decorations for the big one bash, why not try and get a little extra mileage
out of them in a photo shoot? like a total crazy mom, i e-mailed with the
photographer (who likely thought i was total crazy cakes) but she was amazing
and totally welcoming of my bringing my little things to try and incorporate
into the shoot.

shoot day. it was a tuesday night after work/day care. we had
two outfits: a normal one + his full on smash suit. i’m not kidding you,
somehow, someway, mr. re-nest + i have produced two children who l-o-v-e the camera
(i should probably be totally scared out of my mind at this). it’s like they
know what to do. he’s a year old. he was totally posing. and can you say,
turning on the charm? uh, yeah.

so, here i present to you, little mr. re-nest #2’s one year
cake smash photo shoot. so. much. fun. i look at these and can’t believe that we
get to live with and squeeze and feed and bathe this adorableness every single
day. (oh, and bless sara’s heart…she even wiggled in some of my party décor into
the shoot.)

*photo credits: all of the photos below were taken by the
wonderfully talented sara jennings of sara jennings photography. find more of
her work on facebook here.

xoxo,
ashley