Heather Hoadley Photography: Aiden's 1st Birthday

Phelps Grove Park, Springfield, MO

I first met Aiden in my studio when he was 6 months and he is one of the cutest babies I have ever seen. Seriously...picture perfect cute! But then with as pretty as his mamma is, it's no wonder. Up until now I have only had Aiden for mini sessions and just snapped away like crazy for the entire 30 minute length of time because I just can't get enough of him, and so when his mom wanted to do a full session for his first birthday I was ecstatic! She scheduled it months beforehand and so of course come time for the session, there were some crazy and nasty storms that day so we had to reschedule. Luckily second time was a charm, it was incredibly hot and sticky, but like I always assure everyone...the ickiness of the heat doesn't show up in photos. It kind of takes out a bit of the fun for the photo shoot, but the end result is just as good as any other day!

We picked Phelps Grove park because of the massively large trees and the size of the grounds. It's a great place because you can always find an area where there aren't people or else they are so far off in the distance that I can get them out of the shots. Needless to say, I was excited to have the photo shoot here, but then when I saw Jocelyn (Aiden's mom) come up with all the bright colored balloons and adorable birthday shirt she had made for Aiden I got even more excited. I mean really, is there any better photo prop than balloons???? I think not!

Okay, it is kind of tricky to get the boy to smile, but with that adorable face of his, I'm not sure it matters!!!

Jocelyn had been working on getting him to give her kisses...awwe, I love this next shot, such a great moment!

We had to try the bubble thing a few times, in order for him actually want to try and catch the bubbles or at least notice them. : ) Okay, so maybe there is another great prop beyond balloons....bubbles!!!