Ohhhh remember baby Alden from last year who loved to stare into your soul with intense, prolonged eye contact? He turned ONE during this session (happy birthday, Alden!) and now stares into your soul slightly less (disappointing but age-appropriate). Now when he looks at you, it’s quickly followed by a clever little smirk like he knows everything about you from previous soul-stealing baby sessions and is definitely going to use it against you in the future. His smile is hilarious and almost looks like he’s incredibly proud of himself… the type of smile that happens right before you’d get a big head nod and he’d open his mouth and say, “Hey bro,” except he’s a baby. It’s incredible. I’d be confident too if I knew how to successfully fish for cats at the age of twelve months. Also, his parents are Kathy and Andrew, whom we love, so obviously this helps to bolster his self-esteem. He’s cute and charming. We did a lot of activities and so by the time we busted out the adorable water table that Alden’s parents bought him for his birthday, he was way tired, and I can say with hands-down certainty that Kathy was the person who enjoyed that table the most (this may have happened even if Alden wasn’t wiped out… Kathy really loved that table). We’re so glad we were there to document this little future-cat-lover (and hopefully extremely good secret-keeper) turn one.

Little James recently turned one year old, and every good one year old worth his salt has a totally awesome Batman jacket. James came with sunglasses, little adorable canvas shoes, a heavy appetite for goldfish crackers and ice cream, and two fabulous parents who like 90s rock as much as we do and were able to hold actual conversations about The Presidents of the United States of America and the Counting Crows. Also the Batman soundtracks (of course!). We met at the fountain in downtown Cary and walked around with these awesome guys, hitting up a flowering tree or two and doing our best to avoid grass (James, new to walking, has an extreme grass-aversion. He won’t walk on it, won’t touch it, and has a zero grass tolerance policy). There was also much cat discussion (this family has two, named after cheeses) and a lot of airplane noises made in the direction of James in attempts to get him to smile while we were in the vicinity of grass (which worried him). So here are some pictures of this adorable little boy and his parents, celebrating his birthday and his newfound walking skills and shunning grass at every turn. Happy birthday, James!

I’ve been really excited to photograph these guys since they listed Friday Night Lights as the best TV show and Pearl Jam as the best band on the contact form questionnaire. Then I completely even forgot to talk to them about it because I was too wrapped up in their awesome house and incredibly good looking selves. This family is adorable! Even Mason, the dog, is handsome and well behaved. Hannah and Sydney, the twins, are 3.5 and full of spunk and amazing dance moves. They’re fraternal twins instead of identical, but it’s pretty difficult for me to tell them apart, and if I were their parents, I’d definitely be dressing them as the twins from The Shining for every Halloween as long as they’d let me. They have Whitney Houston Wednesdays, where they dance around their living room to Whitney Houston songs, but they made an exception this week and moved it to Saturday. Adam and Rachel put the twins on their shoulders and then did some sort of synchronized dip like Olympic figure skaters and it was pretty amazing. So amazing, in fact, that I forgot entirely to talk to them about Coach Taylor.