Heidi Ryder Photography: The Blog » Southern California and Destination Wedding Photography

You may remember Charlotte from her family portrait session several months ago – six months ago, in fact. Because now, that six month old baby is a 1-year-old! I can’t believe it’s already been six months since I met this beautiful little girl. Charlotte’s mom, Jillian, planned a super cute birthday party in honor of her baby girl and she asked me to capture the day. I had so much fun! Here are some of my favorites.

Jillian worked very hard on the details for this party and it really showed! There were lanterns, balloons and paper pom poms all over the house. She even made the cupcakes and cake, including the flower and butterfly fondant details. So impressed.

One of my favorite elements of the party was a time capsule that Jillian planned for Charlotte. She had every guest write a note to Charlotte for her to read on her 18th birthday. Such a great idea and so personal. I wish someone had done that for me!

Charlotte’s dad, Dennis, cooked up some wonderful butternut squash soup, a delightful salad and even croque-monsieur (fancy name for grilled ham and cheese sandwiches) for everyone to eat. Sophisticated food for a one-year-old’s birthday party? Maybe, but Charlotte was the only baby in attendance and she LOVED the soup!

When it was time to blow out the candle on her cake, Charlotte got a little help from her mommy. I love the look on her face. She was having fun!

I think it’s kinda cute that the balloons behind Charlotte’s head look like balloon antennae. Very festive!

Charlotte dug into her cake like a true lady. Barely made a mess at all – and she even used a spoon!

After gifts were opened everyone just sat around and soaked in Charlotte’s cuteness. She obliged by hamming it up for all of us.

Happy birthday, Charlotte! You are the sweetest, most adorable one-year-old!

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I can’t believe I’m only just barely sharing these photos. They were taken well over a month ago now but things have just been so busy, I haven’t even had time to look at them until now. I promise to never keep adorable baby photos all to myself ever again! Baby Vivien is the newest member of our good friends Alisha and Scott’s family. Vivien’s older brother Sam is probably one of my favorite kids ever to walk the planet.

Chris and I weren’t supposed to meet Vivien when we did. In fact, we sadly had no immediate plans to meet her, which is the saddest story ever told. Alisha, Scott, Sam and Vivien live in Denver and so we don’t get to see them nearly as much as we would like to. But, as luck would have it, we were stranded in Denver for 8 hours one beautiful September day (on our way to John and Dorie’s wedding), after our connecting flight to Memphis was canceled due to mechanical problems. As soon as I found out we had nothing to do in Denver for so long, I called Alisha up immediately. She was still on maternity leave so she literally hopped in the car and raced right over to get us from the airport. It was kismet!

So, I’d like to introduce you to baby Vivien. She looks so much like her brother Sam, which is the highest compliment I could bestow upon another human being. I love this family so much and Chris and I were sooo glad we got to meet Viv while she was still a tiny little thing!

When I hopped into the backseat of the car, Vivien was asleep. She woke up a few minutes later and I found her facial expressions absolutely hilarious. I just had to make a collage out of them. I know her mom and dad will appreciate this because they are hilarious people. The second one in the top row cracks me up so much, I am sitting here by myself laughing like a lunatic.

Babies are fascinating creatures. They can start crying at the drop of a hat, and then stop two seconds later. This was seriously the only time we saw Vivien cry during our visit, and it lasted for a nonosecond. She’s a good baby.

Chris took this one while I was holding Viv. I love it!

I liked watching Chris interact with her. I think this was the first time I saw him holding a baby that small! She thought he was weird, clearly.

Speaking of Chris. I’ve mentioned before he’s been learning how to use a camera and taken a real interest in photography. He took the next three shots of the family dogs, Olive and Murphy. They are so good! The student has become the master! I am beaming with pride right now.

And if the day wasn’t already awesome enough – Sam came home from school! Sam is amazing. He adores Chris. Chris adores Sam. They get along so well, it is awesome to watch.

It was sooo amazing to see Alisha, Scott, Sam and Vivien – and our friend Dave, who we got to have lunch with. There is absolutely no other city we could’ve been stranded in which would have equaled us having a really great day. Hooray for Denver!

Last week I had the pleasure of spending some time in the park with this beautiful family for a portrait session. Baby Charlotte was not only one of the most gorgeous babies I’ve had the pleasure of photographing, but she was also one of the happiest! She literally spent the entire session smiling or laughing or giggling or just kind of staring at me like I was crazy, which I’m totally used to. So, basically, Charlotte needs to be a Baby GAP model, ASAP.

I had a smile on my face the entire time I was editing these photos. Charlotte is just that cute. If you don’t want to melt into a pile of goo due to an extreme overload of cuteness, look away now.  You’ve been warned!

Her eyes are GORGEOUS. Look at ‘em!

It was so awesome to see Charlotte’s bond with the family’s sweet dog, Kylie. They are already best friends!

Charlotte’s grandma also came along and I love these sweet shots of the two of them together.

So it’s clear Charlotte comes from a long line of beautiful women. It’s no wonder she’s so gorgeous! Here’s Charlotte with her mommy and grandma.

Didn’t I tell you this was a beautiful family?

I can’t look at this next one without cracking up…so cute.

Usually I see things in color, but every once in a while a shot will speak to me in black & white. That happened with these next two.

I love photographing beautiful families. My job is so fun. Thanks so much to the DeFrehns for hanging out with me!

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Chris and I have known Joe’s mom and dad for several years now. Joey is 2 1/2 years old, but we hadn’t seen him since he was just a wiggle worm of a baby, which is way too long to go between visits! I was so glad the day finally came for me to make some portraits of Joey and I had such a blast chasing after this adorable little energy drink disguised as a child. Here’s a tip: if you wanna get in shape, change your career to kids photographer! I’m rethinking the whole wedding photographer thing just so I can lose a few pounds!

Here are a few of my favorites from our play date in the park.

So, like most boys his age I’ve known, Joey is completely obsessed with Buzz Lightyear from the Toy Story movies. He brought along his costume, which mom and dad say he LOVES to wear as much as possible. Getting to put it on was his treat at the end of the shoot for being such a great little model. He had an absolute blast running around while wearing his Buzz wings and yelling, “To Infinity, And Beyond!”

This particular blog post is all about firsts: My first maternity session, my first baby portrait session, and a baby’s first birthday.  You see, Noah was born a year ago, and a month before he joined the world, I shot my first maternity session with his mom and dad, Rama and Ario. A couple of months ago I received a phone call from Rama. When she told me she wanted some portraits of Noah to commemorate his first birthday, I couldn’t believe it had been a year already!  I was excited to meet the little baby that was in Rama’s belly and I knew I was in for an interesting session becuse if I know anything about 1 year olds, I know they are rambunctious, willful and get into everything! Noah was certainly no exception.

For fun, here’s a sweet shot of Rama and Ario from the maternity session taken last year:

And here is Noah! He was even more adorable than I expected and for the most part wanted nothing to do with me and my camera. Kids these days! It was definitely an experience chasing after him the entire time, but I think we really captured his personality in these photos.

Noah’s dad is very much into gardening and it’s obvious that Noah is taking after him. He was so interested in all of the plants in the yard. And dirt! This boy loves dirt! And sticks, and leaves and rocks, and anything else that crossed his path.

Noah has the best hair. It went from a mohawk, to a stylish mess and then back again. I’m pretty sure that babies with mohawks are my favorite kind of babies.

Ario is a doctor and Noah had some scrubs to match his daddy’s. Sooo adorable!

And of course mom couldn’t be left out of the dress-alike party!

When I first shot Rama’s maternity session, I had no idea I would be photographing her baby a year later. It was such a treat to meet Noah. Rama said she plans to give me a call every year, so I can’t wait to document this handsome little guy as he grows up! Thanks, Ario, Rama and Noah … see you next year!

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, Sunday’s baby shower was anything but ordinary. I thanked my lucky stars during the entire thing for being able to witness and photograph such an exciting party. But, at the same time, there were plenty of things about the party that did make it feel like baby shower. There were games, pink and blue favors––and even a onesie and bib decorating station! Still so many images to go through for the family, but here are a few of my favorites so far.

I had the honor of photographing a baby shower yesterday. Marjan (the mother-to-be), her husband Avi and over 100 members of their family and friends gathered in one of the ball rooms at Maggiano’s at The Grove. This was by far the largest baby shower I’ve ever been to, and at times it hardly felt like a baby shower at all, but more like a wedding.

I was amazed by the amount of people that turned out to celebrate, though I shouldn’t have been since Marjan and Avi are such sweet and loving people, it’s only appropriate that they have an enormous circle of people who love and care for them. I’ve only just begun to sift through the images from the day, but I wanted to give one small preview today. A part of me wanted to post the image without any context and ask you all to guess what kind of event the image was shot at because I know I would have never guessed a baby shower!

Needless to say, this family knows how to party. There was confetti and glitter thrown into the air as almost everyone in attendance got down on the dance floor. Marjan (in the pink-red dress) is positively glowing in this shot—a truly beautiful pregnant woman. And, yes, that is confetti stuck to her—she was positively covered in the stuff after her first round of dancing!

A big thank you to Marjan, Avi and their family and friends for allowing me to be a part of their very special celebration.

This is Jayden. He’s my cousin’s kid and is surprisingly sweet and demure given the rambunctiousness of his father (Hi, Jeremy!). Though, like his dad, he loves to have a camera pointed at him. Future model right there.

A small sampling of some of the youngest girls in my family.