In the past couple of months have you seen that photo of me sitting on a couch with seven babies?

And have you thought to yourself, I wonder how on EARTH that came together?

Well, if so, you've come to the right place.

I'm gonna tell you all about it. I'll also tell you how I burst out crying the moment I handed these babies back to their parents after the couch photo...

That photo with all those babies didn't just happen. It was a labor of love that got me with all those squishy cuties. It started last fall, when I started thinking about the fact that this Monday, May 15, 2023 will officially mark...

20 years of

Boston Baby Photos

and realizing I wanted to do something big to celebrate.  My 10th celebration was amazing and wonderful, and I wanted to do something different.

And I thought,

What if I threw my business a birthday party?

And what if I invited babies to come celebrate with me? And then I'd photograph those babies and give them their photos as my present to them... and maybe I could hire a photographer to take pictures of me taking pictures of the babies...

Mariah Gale (branding photographer extraordinaire) agreed to come photograph me doing my thing (these are her gorgeous photos you see on this blog post whenever I'm in the photo - the ones where I'm not in the photo are the ones I took of the babies...), and we booked Studio B in Southie for March 7th.

And so I did a model call.

And that went well.

Actually, it went REALLY well.

I had nearly 100 applicants for this model call! But sadly, I knew I couldn't invite them all to the party (although that would have been totally epic and amazing)...

So after lots of age-based decision making (people's due dates and babies' sizes on the date of the photoshoot led my model choices), we had a plan. We had 11 baby models (two of them still in utero) and 11 moms and one dad scheduled to join us...

And now I'll pretty much let the photos tell the story.

We broke our two hours in the studio up into 20-30 minute sections - and I divided the babies into age groups and had them come just for their 20-30 minutes, and offered that they could stay and be part of the group shot as well if they wanted to...

I'll start by showing you the youngest of the tiny babies, sweet E and his mama, Genesis.

He was a star, as you can tell.

And then we had baby E and her mama Vanessa.

Just perfection.

And then our third youngest baby was little M and his mama Kristen.

Don't you just love his cheeks?

Then baby A and his mama Laura...

And we got started on our high chair pictures... so good. (Like I do in my messy minishoots...)

Then baby I and her mama Elspeth...

And we got to do some sink tubby pictures with her, which of course made me very happy... (again, a la my "messy minishoots")

And then we had baby C with her mama Gia...

Tubby fun again and flying/squishy cuteness...

And then we get to baby F and his mama Katie, who drove ALL the way from New Hampshire for the photoshoot and to this DAY I still feel guilty about F's experience at the photoshoot.

See we were moving FAST. As you can kind of tell from the photos you've seen so far... I was flying around the room, doing this photo, that photo, we had babies in all different spots and I was running between whoever felt like they were doing something worth photographing at any given moment... and poor F... the buckle of the high chair (that I provided!! Seee?? GUILT...) pinched him and he started crying on his way out of the high chair.

So sweet F *only* got photos in the high chair.

Nothing else - no tubby pictures, no flying pictures... because he was sad after he got pinched, and that was my fault because I provided the high chair that pinched him.

Ikea - grrrrr.

But look how cute he was in the high chair!

I mean, he was a star, am I right? His two minutes of stardom in the high chair were totally adorable - AND I will say that he did rock the group photo in his Little Lord Fauntleroy onesie provided by Bringing Up Baby - tho... (more on that in a bit).

But I'm so sorry about the pinchy buckle, F and Katie!!

And then we had baby D and her mama Danielle...

I just love that little tummy. And those little wet eyelashes!

And our last baby was baby A and his mama Allison.

He was able to rock *both* the sink *and* the high chair. Soooo good.

And we don't want to forget our two maternity models!

First we had the gorgeous Tori.

The gown she came with was so fabulous! And she looked amazing in it, of course.

And then we had the gorgeous Kieu and her partner.

We had such fun getting creative during our maternity photoshoot!

And that was it -- that was my business birthday party.

But I forgot to explain the whole crying thing.

I’m not a crier, is the thing. I mean, I’ll cry. I’ll definitely cry, but it’s not something I do a lot, so I was actually totally shocked when this group shot made me well up.

Once it was over, I realized that it just felt so momentous, so big… I was so honored that all these babies’ families had joined me to celebrate the business’ birthday, and I was just so over the moon happy… snuggling a 3.5 week old in one arm, a 7 week old snoozing in my other arm… and a 6 month old, a 7.5 month old, an 8 month old, a 9 month old and a 9.5 month old… it just symbolized so much to me.

So many years of doing what I love, so many years of wrist rolls and knuckle dimples and squishy baby parts just knocking me down with their cuteness, day after day after day after day.

I’m crying writing this right now, in fact.

I’m so grateful to the eleven families who carved time out of their lives to join me, but I’m also just so grateful to the decades of babies who’ve let me tell their stories.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. I’m overwhelmed with all these feelings.

Thank you.

You all complete me.
xox Jess

Onesies for the baby models courtesy of @bringingupbabyboston - an adorable baby clothing shop in Southie just steps from where we did the photoshoot. ❤️ #bbpinaction #bbpturns20