2008 August archive at Filtering Life

Archive for August, 2008

A piece of history

Published by Kelly August 29th, 2008 in Uncategorized. 19 Comments

Many of you know that Ryan only has the opportunity to moonlight as a photographer right now. Hopefully, in the next 3-5 years we can phase out his day job, a web designer for the city school district in town. Right now the base pay and insurance are INVALUABLE considering we like to pop kids out every year, having good insurance is worth it’s weight in gold.

Anyway, as of late, they are having Ryan take photos for special events that happen in the school district. A couple weeks ago we found out the day before that Barack Obama was coming to speak at one of the high schools in our district. Although we are not politically affiliated with Obama’s beliefs, it was still an awesome opportunity to photograph a piece of history…a presidential candidate and possible president. Not bad for the portfolio!

I finally got to look at some shots he took and jazz them up a bit. I am enjoying experimenting with some “actions” we purchased a few weeks ago.

I will start with my favorite. This is the first time I played with textures, but it just seemed fitting.

The crowds gathered many many hours before he actually spoke.

He said that most of the media were really cool although you had to elbow your way anywhere you went to get shots.

Does this guy look like a news anchor or what? They just have a certain stereotypical look.

Of course a massive entourage of Secret Service. They were everywhere but surprisingly friendly.

This is how pathetic I am about politics….it really is sad. I had to ask who the guy speaking was. I knew he looked familiar.

Ryan gives me that incredulous look…”Ummm Kelly, he is our senator, Jim Webb.”

(sheepishly smile) Oh.

Have a great weekend! We are painting our house (we as in my brother and Ryan…but I like to think moral support is just as important as actually doing the work!) So long early 90’s hunter green, hello mushroom brown. YEAH!!!!

Somebody’s battery ran out.

Published by Kelly August 27th, 2008 in Uncategorized. 12 Comments

He is a bouncing fanatic! After awhile you tune out all his chatter and the clank of the spring…but it hit me last night that it was pretty quiet and when I turned around we found him like this!

and Chloe found a little hiding place in the kitchen corner. This may be her punishment in the winter when the radiators are at full-blast. Kidding….

could she smile any more goofy?

So I am home with two sick kids today…good times, good times.

A sea of randomness….

Published by Kelly August 25th, 2008 in Apparently someone thinks I'm cool, Bennett Wade, Chloe Grace and For Kicks and Giggles. 31 Comments

Pssst…..I’m here and I am about to download an amazing amount of randomness upon you. Just think of me as that Starbucks coffee splurge. Grande size! It is warm and good and you don’t know how it comes together, but you are glad it is here and you look forward to the next time you get one. You can’t have one every day or you would get spoiled. See that is why I don’t blog every day…I don’t want to spoil you or burn your tongue. So nice of me. Too abstract of a comparison? Yeah, well….me no sleepy in long time.

Okay, buckle your seat belts! If I get to be too much, your exits are located above, kindly known as the “back arrow” or if you are really confused with this post then click the red “X” and forget it ever happened.

Where to start (cracks knuckles).

First of all, just when you thought you heard the words “Kellan Studios” too much. I will briefly make note of a very cool honor bestowed by my friend and lovely Canadian blogger, known as Dutch Blitz, who is the lead editor for the Arts & Design Channel for BlogNosh. We were given our very own shout-out highlighting our business. So go check it out, how fun is that? Thank you Angella, we are so honored!

Speaking of Canadians….Angella’s friend and neighbor and my besternet friend, Amanda “Kickyboots” Brown, sent Bennett two awesome gifts from Etsy. Sorry for the blurry shot, had my shutter speed a bit slow.

Amanda, Bennett will do that onesie proud. I mean who will say no to these eyes? You are the coolest…I will hit you back when your second sweetie enters the world.

Okay, now I am off to dispel a nasty rumor ( I am embarrassed to say that I spelled rumor “roomer” for 1 second and then scratched my head and wondered why that looked wrong. Man I am more tired than I think!)

Every time I post a picture of my house I get comments like:

“Where are the toys?” “How do you keep things so neat with two kids?” “I could never keep my house clean all the time”

ARE YOU SERIOUS???? Do you really think I live that way? I wish. I would have to put Chloe in a straight jacket if I wanted to keep my house perfect. So not going to happen. When I take a picture of a room it is during nap time so I can pick every thing up just for a few brief moments. Why would I take a picture of a room in chaos? So I thought, what the heck. You want to see what our Monday morning looked like?

I didn’t touch a thing…this was completely organic. Laundry, toys, Chloe with her disheveled morning hair. If you cut me I bleed. Don’t go feeling bad about your house being in chaos and glorify mine…so not the truth! Yes I LOVE order and cleanliness…but not when my kids are awake. The second they go to sleep it is all whisked away into baskets and closets.

Let’s talk about my kids. My kids who absolutely make me smile from sun up to sun down, I freaking love them!!!! I love them so much I blow up their pictures to ridiculous proportions…..

My homage to Bennett. Ryan thought it was a bit much….why not have a giant picture of your kids? I see nothing wrong with it.

Speaking of Bennett. Being freakishly tall and strong catapults you out of infancy really really fast and you are able to do way more than your average four month old. We broke out the jumper a few weeks ago and now we have our very own Tigger. It is hilarious to watch him. I so wish our bodies had sound effects. I want his legs to make the noise “doing, doing, doing” every time he springs up. But alas…they do not.

Look at him. A man, his swing and his thoughts.

closer

looks like he rode his horse all night.

I asked Chloe to give him a kiss. This is as close as she got to him making the “MMMMMM” sound of a kiss. Close, but no cigar!

Can we take a moment of silence for Chloe’s beautiful hair?

I mean..the curls and highlights and this is after being slept on all night! The next Pantene girl? Maybe?

I mean this was almost one year ago to the day.

Her hair has grown so much in a year!

So we have finally entered the world of talking. It is AWESOME….she is ridiculously funny and now I understand how parents are the only ones that can understand their kids. There are moments where I would love to buy a vowel or get another consonant, but usually in context I can figure out what she is saying.

She says Amen and raises her hand “AHH MEAN”. She says Jesus like a southern baptist pastor “JEEE-SUS”. I love it!

She says all of her colors, but our favorite is the color yellow. She says it “LELLLL-OOO” and her mouth looks like this.

She has an amazing range from low and raspy to high pitched and breathy. This kid is my laughter.

Okay so I saved the best for last. This is not everyone’s humor, but it is 110% our humor. I got a bunch of books while digging through a pile of crap someone dumped on the side of the road (long story for later) anyway, I didn’t really pay attention, just thought “BOOKS….Chloe loves books”. Well after going in the basement to pull some of them out I came across this gem. Oh man oh man…..it is called “Once Upon a Potty” the boy edition.

I must say that I have never ever read a potty training book but I would bet money this is one of the most graphic. I mean I am all about calling a spade a spade….but…this has to be the most hilarious book I have ever seen about potty training. No stone left unturned, no question not answered…let there be no doubt how it works and where it comes from.

This is the story of Joshua and how he learned to use the potty. I am so glad they clarified what this hole is for.

Ryan and I were laughing until we were crying.

Still confused, let me show you another page.

Oh Joshua…you coiled one next to the pot and not in it!!!! That is nasty. Is anyone else confused why they are using a pot? This book isn’t that old.

One more for the road. This is the page following the one where Joshua feels the urge to poop so he remembers to go to the pot and he…..

YEAH JOSHUA!!!!! You did it!

I wish I had the time to photograph all the pages, maybe I will give you a transcript and spare you the very detailed illustrations.

So anyway, that either made you laugh, smile, make a disgusted face or erase me from your feed reader. Remember you had the back arrow and “X” option and you didn’t take it! You can only blame yourself.

Okay, off to continue to watch Gilmore Girls….I am hooked. Erin and Joy…you were right and you know what? Ryan is hooked! He isn’t requesting it, but he doesn’t mind me playing episode after episode. We even watched about four episodes in bed on Sunday afternoon on the laptop. I rolled over and giggled and told him he was the best girlfriend I ever had! He didn’t find that as amusing as I did.

Okay, that’s all I got…but man…that was a lot!

Surviving and thriving….

Published by Kelly August 18th, 2008 in Uncategorized. 20 Comments

I did it, I made it through…I survived. First wedding in 8 months and you know what….It kicked donkey tail. It was so much fun, perfect weather, about the most fun bridal party you can ask for and BEAUTIFUL. Hello…the beach…twist my arm.

We had a VERY rocky start as we realized 10 minutes before we were walking out the door from my parents house (a.k.a.-The nanny’s) that Ryan had a rip in his dress pants…in the butt! WHAT?? We have a two plus hour drive somewhere we have never been and now we have to find dress pants for a 36 inseam. NOBODY carries that in store. So under much duress we walk out the door and head to the nearest mall (after missing the exit adding 7 more minutes to our tight schedule.) JCREW…come on JCREW…come in clutch on the ole 36 inseam. Nope..nada..zilch. You have to be kidding me? They do make them, just don’t carry them in the store. So what do we do? Get a bigger waist and stick with the 34 inch inseam. Baggy butt and barely hitting the ankle…but no rip! Lesser of the two evils. So after much traffic, the whole mall incident..we made it just 3 minutes late. Not bad at all.

I was nervous…cue pit sweat. Not because I don’t know what I am doing, but it is a big leap going back to 8 hours on your feet, thinking, creating, persevering….not easy. Not to mention, I was about to go 12 hours without breastfeeding and had my pump in the Pilot incase I needed to hop in and pump away. Did I really need gravel boobs to boot?

Needless to say, we had a BLAST! They were the coolest, the whole vibe of the beach, the weather, just being out with Ryan….inspiring!

You must see the best shot of the night. I am in love with it. The romance, the beauty. Her headpiece was to die for. Totally want to reincarnate my wedding so I can do the 20’s vibe.

Seriously, you have to see the images full size. My blog does not allow for such things. I know I keep cramming Kellan down your throat and like good, polite little blog readers you oblige. We are just so happy to be doing this together and feel like God has lifted a veil lately (no pun intended) and allowed us to take it to the next level. This is definitely an art medium that is ever evolving and we want to make sure we are pushing each other to learn more and edit more creatively, etc….so we love when people get excited about our work. Not blowing smoke…I hate a kiss butt. Seriously, don’t like it, don’t believe it when people do it. Just sincerity please.

So last minute I decided to stay in Richmond for three days to catch up on some editing while cashing in on some free babysitting at the awesome bed and breakfast known as my parents house. They have a crazy awesome house. I pretty much get my own wing…so call me stupid, but I know a good thing when I see it. It is a Monday afternoon and I am sitting in Panera..BY MYSELF…drinking coffee, eating a cinnamon crunch bagel (heaven in bread form) blogging and editing and my children are getting mad love and attention from Papa and grandma. This is good. This is really good for me.

So off I go…time to edit schmedit. Miss you guys.

Keep your eyeballs peeled

Published by Kelly August 14th, 2008 in Uncategorized. 11 Comments

If you are in a 60 mile radius of the “Burg” then keep your eyes peeled for the Fall/Winter Soiree Magazine to drop in September. We made the plunge and purchased a full page ad because money is no option for us. I wipe my butt with 100 dollar bills regularly. Nothing like a crisp 100 across the tailpipe! Don’t I wish….about money being no option not wiping my butt with a tiny slice of paper with ink on it.

Here is our lovely ad in all of it’s glory. Ryan and I nearly get a divorce (kidding) when we have to come up with an ad. Can I tell you how hard it is to find ONE picture that encompasses your style for your ENTIRE business? So we hemmed and hawed and pleaded our case for this picture and that when a big giant lightbulb went off in my head…”Dummies…use lots of photos…not in the college dorm room, decorate your door with a mess of pictures sort of way….classy, separated, bold….”

I am not sure why Flickr likes to mess with my head because I can promise you we did not use 80’s neon green for our ad. I know it has some technological reason with the whole internet only reading certain colors ( I do semi-listen Ryan). It just makes me mad. I also have to tell you, I was at my parents last week and pulled our Kellan site up and was shocked. I mean my parents have a decent laptop…but our site looked so dull and dark. Is this how you guys see photos on the internet? Are Mac screens calibrated that much better? I was so sad that many of you are looking at our photos thinking “those are okay…but kinda lifeless”…..so sad. I wish you could see them in all their colorful glory on the mothership computer! You must be blowing some serious smoke up our butts that you like our pictures if you have an old computer monitor…LIARS!!!!! You should run…not walk…and drop a wad on a good monitor for the sheer pleasure of experiencing the internet’s buffet of color and of course to keep up with our latest work. Too obnoxious? Sorry. Dial it down Kelly.

I have a post written in my head with tons of pictures from my time in Richmond…but unfortunately, we have shot two nights this week and leave for VA Beach to shoot a wedding tomorrow. GULP…my first wedding back since December. I don’t know if my feet and back are ready to take the plunge again. Wish me luck. I will also be meeting up with a fellow blog friend of two years, O Mama Mia…better known as Jess to the real world. We are having breakfast and will swap labor stories and I am sure laugh as much in person as we do over email. Can’t wait Jess!

So that is your carrot to keep reading….I will check in next week if I can stand upright.