A Very Birthday Shoot

In honor of my daughter's upcoming 1st birthday (yay!) I have been wanting to do a birthday-themed photo shoot with her for a while now. I couldn't decide on what to do (all my ideas involved too many time-consuming, or money-consuming details, wonderful as they were) and so yesterday when the nice man at the Verizon store gave Lexi a red balloon that is nearly as big as she is, lightning hit! This would be a perfect prop for a low-key birthday photo shoot!

And although I did not have time to go buy her a new outfit for the occasion (ok, I really didn't need to but any excuse to buy little girl clothes is good enough for me), I put together pieces from about 5 different outfits to create a one-of-a-kind, very-girly look for my princess ...

It might not have been the most absolutely perfect circumstances (I had no one to help me make her smile, which, while holding a camera steady is difficult for me to do), it might have been a park with nearly dead grass, and we might have ended up with some eye and nose crusties in some pics (gives them character really =) ... but I absolutely adore the way that her little self came out in them!

So happy early birthday to my baby!