What fun to be there on Camilla and Diana's first birthday for a cake-smashing good time this weekend! We did some portrait work and then wrapped things up with a traditional wreck-the-cake party with their whole family.

Sweetness all around -- Happy 1st Birthday girls!

Remember these guys? My stripey twins are a year old already! With the move to CA this year, I was worried about being able to shoot the entire one year package as I had done for their older sister on her first year (includes a book, it's awesome -- especially for parents of twins. You know you'll never finish an album. I mean, seriously).

But serendipity intervened with timing this year and I was able to get back to Chicago for both their 6 month and their one year session.

It was a hell of a lot harder doing the follow-up stripes shot. This is a window bench in a small bathroom. This is the only shot I got of them in that spot and I didn't even have time to put up my bounce -- I snapped it to see where the light was at (dark morning that day) and keeping them from launching off it was not really working so well. But it works and it's so them -- Sarah standing, she's always on the go. Norah is just checking it all out, amused by the circus in the bathroom.

Big sis Sophie slept in a little later and we got to have some separate play time outside after these crazy girls went for a nap (see below).

Here's a little medley of some of my faves of the two, as we played around in the early morning:

And one I just love, a candid I caught as Dad turned around with them -- Mom loves it, she says, because Sarah is "almost never vertical." These are the shots that I treasure so much of my own kids. The stuff that is just so uniquely THEM, freezing a little piece of that time for me.

And here's miss Sophie Sunshine, now 3. Talk about FAST! Seems more like a year since I got to do HER newborn session! This family is all over my main web site. I remember she had been up all night (as had her parents) and it was the first I met any of them. They were so easy going, we just made the best of it and took our time, feeding and rocking and trying to assure her that life on the outside wasn't so bad. I'm so lucky and grateful to have them all. When I'm doing your senior HS pix, Sophie, that's when I'm really going to freak out...