Running, jumping, playing…

And, as it turns out, making friends with the swan family. Blanche and Blue Boy have 6 new babies and it was so adorable to watch them all waddle around together. They were not at all shy and came right up to visit us.

Perhaps it was because they wanted some cake? Don’t worry, we didn’t feed them, although it was a full-time job keeping the rest of the birds away. One seagull tried to steal a cupcake right through the box! The kids were on high alert though and weren’t letting ANYTHING come between them and CAKE!

After exploring the Exploratorium, we headed to Dino’s Pizza for an early dinner… and more cake. We couldn’t think of a more perfect place to finish the day.

Happy Birthday, Baby Girl!

Creating marketing materials selling YOURSELF can be a challenge. But, that’s exactly what couples hoping to adopt often are required to do. You may have heard of a “Dear Birthmother Letter”, but these days the playing field is full and takes a lot to rise above the crowd. We sat down and hammered out a strategy that included a gorgeous eye-catching print piece that would build interest and excitement, an online presence full of more juicy details, then blogging, facebooking, and tweeting the most recent snapshots. Jay is an iPhone developer and Staci is a wordsmith and social media guru, so we had our bases covered!

For our photo shoot, the number one priority was to show who they were in pictures. They love to have fun and adore the city for all it has to offer. Plus, they’ve both got a little bit of a geeky side… in a good way! The brainstorming session was a lot of fun but we had to narrow things down to about three hours, four locations, and a trunk full of outfit changes.

The vision I had in mind was essentially one of my photo journals printed as a magazine instead of a coffee table book. It would tell their story almost like a photo essay and give any potential birthmother a candid glimpse of their personalities. The design is built around the photographs and the photos are taken with their story in mind. Everything was made to work together and this is the result:

Stay tuned for the rest of their story. Hopefully we will be featuring their newborn session on the blog very soon!

Then we headed out to the Exploratorium for a brunch party and covered as much as humanly possible in pink.

Those french toast cupcakes were made with love by Auntie Staci:

Also on the menu, rainbow fruit skewers:

Granola cups with yogurt:

And sparkly heart glasses as party favors:

Exploratorium parties are actually pretty cool. They have a list of activities that you can choose to do and the kids get to have fun getting messy and learning a little science along the way. Best part? I didn’t have to deal with the clean-up afterwards! Today we decided to paint with shaving cream.

And then it was time to blow out the candles. Four years of practice and she’s a pro!

Before everyone left I asked for a photo of all the kids together with their glasses. I think this photo is actually the most “real” of them all. Notice that the birthday girl isn’t in it at all? She decided at that very moment that she was done with everything and refused to cooperate for one more second. Sounds about right.