THE RUNDOWNPrince Louis celebrated his 8th birthday on Thursday, April 23.To mark the occasion, Kate Middleton and Prince William shared a birthday portrait of Louis to their joint Instagram account.Louis posed against a backdrop of waves while on a boat and looked just like his mother in the photo.Prince Louis, the youngest child of Prince William and Kate Middleton, has celebrated a major milestone. Louis turned 8 on Thursday, April 23; to mark the occasion, his mother and father shared a new portrait to Instagram.The photo featured the young prince posing aboard a boat against a backdrop of blue waves. In the image, Louis wore a blue quarter-zip sweater with contrasting red trim at the sleeves by Boden—a brand the Princess of Wales has previously worn—and offered the camera a relaxed smile.“Happy birthday, Louis! 8 today!” the caption for the photo read. The Prince and Princess of Wales also added a red balloon emoji to the end of the caption in honor of their son’s special day.View full post on InstagramLouis’s resemblance to his mother was visible in the picture. Royal sources agree, with a friend of Kate’s previously telling People in 2020 that “everyone always comments on how Louis is the spitting image of Kate. She loves it and thinks it’s very sweet.”The source added, “She often jokes that he’s the only one of her kids who actually looks like her!”While the royal birthday traditions are often kept private, Kate has revealed that she sometimes gets behind the camera to take portraits of George, Charlotte, and Louis and also stays up late baking dessert for the kids the night before their birthdays.“I love making the cake,” Kate said during A Berry Royal Christmas special in 2019. “It’s become a bit of a tradition that I stay up ’til midnight with ridiculous amounts of cake mix and icing, and I make far too much. But I love it.”Louis might be another year older, but Kate can’t help but see him as the child he was just after he was born. “I keep thinking Louis is a baby, but he’s a big boy now,” she said while meeting young children during a 2022 visit to the Royal Surrey County Hospital. “It just feels like yesterday.”