I don’t know about you, but hosting birthday celebrations (especially in the winter time) became infinitely more complicated due to the Pandemic. If this Pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that we better celebrate each and every milestone that’s worth celebrating because things can change on a dime. We have been opting outside more often than not, and thus finding creative ways to have fun and celebrate outside! I don’t know about your tween or teen girl, but most of them love taking photos so we have recently celebrated two 12th birthdays and a Sweet 16 birthday with a photo session! It may be a little chilly outside, but when you are excited about your birthday, a little bit of cold is no big deal.

Last month, my daughter’s friend B turned 12 and we wanted to do something to make her birthday feel special. My daughter and I were trying to wrack our brains to come up with something fun and outdoors they could do (remember we’re talking about December in Denver, so we’re talking about temperatures no higher than 50 degrees outside). It took us like 15 minutes to remember that I am a photographer and that she and her friend have shared a number of 1st place wins together on their past cheer teams, so why not do a cheer themed Best Friend’s Photo Session to celebrate B’s birthday! We found a day with good weather (well, we had to be flexible, because ya know, Denver) and then we planned out all of their cheer themed outfits. We came up with their cheer uniforms, and 3 different 1st place jackets and pull overs that they earned over the past few years. Check out what we came up with below:

We started off with photos in their cheer uniforms since this year has not been anything near normal, neither one of them have had photos in their cheer uniforms yet this season. As you can imagine, they were soooo excited to get all dressed up! The other thing you may notice is that they belong to different gyms now. We think that is the coolest thing about this session is that it says so much…We can be on different teams at different gyms, but we can still be friends, support each other, and be each other’s biggest cheerleaders on and off the mat.

By the time this session ended, the girls got to show off their current cheer uniforms and 3 championship jackets that they won all in one season! They got to reminisce about how much fun they had at each of these competitions, they also got to see what it was like being a model and having to act like it was warm and toasty outside when it was really like in the 40s with a breeze, and they got to celebrate B’s birthday. It reminds me of the quote, “We didn’t realize we were making memories, we just knew we were having fun.” (Winnie the Pooh). And to memorialize the fun, B’s final present will be a cute 8x8 photo book that I’m sure she will treasure for a long time to come.

And of course, I have to acknowledge this January birthday that just passed, of our newly turned 12 year old. One of the ways we celebrated was photo session - on another chilly, but beautiful Denver day. We surprised her with the vest and coordinating balloons and let her choose from two locations for her session. She chose Highlands Ranch Mansion and we had the place to ourselves, because like I said - baby, it was cold outside! Here’s a few favorites of our favorites, and of course, she designed her own book and it’s on the way from the lab as we speak!

I hope this gives you ideas on additional ways to celebrate your girl’s tween or teen birthday during this season. If you want to see how we celebrated last year, you can check out the blog post below:

Tween Best Friend Photo Session at Denver Selfie Museum