{First Birthday} Photo Shoot

This is this first post in a mini-mini-series chronicling Myles' 1st Birthday! 
I started planning his first birthday when he was about 9 months old. I was so excited, I couldn't wait to pick a theme and start pinning ideas. Being a thrifty momma, it's always best to have time on my side. The more time I have to plan and buy, the more chances I have to get deals. So for me, three months was the perfect amount of time to bring my ideas and plans to fruition on a budget. 
First things first: the theme. Since Myles wasn't really into any characters yet, I crossed all of those options off of my list right away. He didn't have too many other interests yet either, so it was a pretty narrow field to choose from. Of course, his number one favorite was balls, so I thought about a sports theme. I also tossed around the idea of pirates, but ultimately, I decided to go with a water theme. His birthday is in the hottest month of the year and he was showing definite signs of being a water baby (like his momma). He loved his swimming class and playing in his kiddie pool. He was also a big fan of fish. The plastic fish in the pictures below was his first favorite bath toy for months. When he was still a tiny babe, that little fish made him laugh so hard in the tub. He even had a fish as his first pet. So something based around water was the obvious option. As we began finalizing all of the details, the theme became more specifically 'Under the Sea'. I can't wait to share with you all of the fun ideas we came up with, but we will start with his invitation and photo shoot .

I knew I wanted to create the invitations online. It is so much easier that way; type it once and have as many printed as you need. Plus, you can get them just how you like (mostly). I used Snapfish, and picked out a pre-made template. It wasn't perfect, but I liked it well enough. I was getting down to the wire with time, so I just went with one that I liked the best out of the top ones I picked out. I also knew that I wanted to make one that was mostly pictures. Since we have a lot of family and friends that live out of town and wouldn't be able to make it to his party, I wanted to have the invitation double as his first year pictures. It was half as less work for me and everyone was able to get some updated pictures of him even if they wouldn't be able to come to the party. 

I didn't have much time between deciding to do the pictures and leaving for California, so the whole set up and actual shoot was a bit rushed. I also just used my moms point and shoot camera, so they aren't the best quality. Plus, it was super hard to get him to stay still long enough to get anything good. He had fun though and we got enough decent shots to make up the invitation. Also this is the only real beach (off of a river) that we have in our area, so we had to make due!

This is my favorite of all the pictures. We have it as an 8x10 in Myles' playroom.

Then the shirt came off:

And he's done:

I didn't think to screenshot the invite or take a picture of the real thing, so this is a picture from the computer screen. Bad quality, but you get the idea.

Don't forget to come back and check out how we celebrated his birthday!