Aleana Keilani Yokoyama: Children’s Lifestyle Portrait Session

Aleana is a very special little girl. She’s tiny and beautiful and has the most gorgeous set of dimples on both cheeks. I’m seriously jealous. I’ve wanted dimples for as long as I can remember. As a child I remember trying to make dimples in my own cheeks! But Aleana is also so very special because of her mother. Her mother, Christina, is a good friend I have known since high school. It doesn’t seem that long ago that she and I were cramming for quizzes and those yearly multi-disciplinary projects. My best memories probably are from our Spanish class. To be honest, we LOVED our Spanish class and we thought our teacher was absolutely brilliant. But of course, we could never let him know! Between studying for Mr. Paus’ extensive assignments and tests or laughing hysterically through impromptu skits…or watching episode after episode of Destinos (we never did finish the series and I hate not knowing how stories end) somehow we had an amazing four years. Christina is amazing and I have always thought that of her. She’s intelligent and personable. She has this great way of disarming people with her conversation and her smile. And yes, Aleana gets those ridiculous dimples from her mother. And it was no surprise to me how naturally Christina took on the role of a mother. She is warm, affectionate and loving with her daughter…and just has a very natural way of interacting with her. There were palpable moments where it felt like the connection between them was so strong and they were completely enraptured with each other as if the world and everyone else around them had melted away.

From Christina I found out that Aleana is a variant of Aliyah (Hebrew) and the meaning is “rising or ascending.” Her middle name, Keilani, is of Hawaiian origin and the meaning is “heaven, sky; glorious and royal one.” I spent a most wonderful morning with Christina and Aleana…here are some of the photographs from our day together: