Growing Up-Sammie's 1st Birthday Session

Today is Samantha's 1st birthday. Sammie turns 1. Her mom and I have been trying to get together to take pictures of this little girl for a while. With six days to her first birthday, we just scraped it in. Before she was born, Kanani showed me pics of her other kids when they were babies and told me "my babies don't have hair but they're the cutest babies you'll ever see." I thought she was just speaking with a mother's bias, but she was right. Sammie has these big eyes with the longest lashes, simply striking.

I showed up at their house early Monday morning. Sammie is not my biggest fan, she usually clings to mom constantly (and I'm not exaggerating with the word "constantly"). However, since I met them on location at their house, she was in her comfort zone. And when I unpacked my bags of goodies...alphabet blocks...my lens and flashes, she became my best bud. And since mom was adventurous and let us try all sorts of poses, Sammie was delighted to find that she could now climb on anything she wanted. All rules went out the door. But the real delight, was when mom brought out the cupcake with yummy pink frosting. Too bad, she dropped it frosting side down and spent ten minutes digging through the cupcake trying to find it. I hope I got enough good ones. She's a smiler but quick...she mastered walking weeks ago and has moved on to jogging.