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her last breath

Published by Kelly July 10th, 2008 in Life in General. 25 Comments

Beware…this is heavy.

When I moved to Lynchburg back in ‘94 to attend college I began looking for a church to call home. Within my first year I settled on what would be my church of now 13 years, Grace EV Free. To say I love my church would be an understatement. It has been my rock during a long hard 10 years of my life. A support to my marriage and children. I have some of the most amazing friends and mentors. I am forever grateful for my time here.

One of the best parts of my church is the worship. Our church has a full band along with lots of really unique instruments. Just full of talented artists and song writers. Most of our songs are unique to Grace and some are common worship songs and hymns.

There was one particular girl who went to our church in the mid to late 90’s. Her name is Ramey Reeves. She is one of those girls that is just effortlessly “cool”. She never tried hard but she just had that really amazing sense of style that was thrown together but worked. Didn’t wear any makeup or style her hair…and yet she looked amazing! She has an infectious smile and laugh. You just instantly liked her. I didn’t know her well, but I wish I did.

Ramey was on our worship team for many years. When she sang, she sang from her toes. You knew she didn’t give a flying flip what she looked like. If she wanted to lift her hands, she would. If she wanted to cry, she would. There was one particular song she used to sing a solo on that is one of my favorite songs. This song runs through my head all the time even 10 years later and I can hear Ramey’s voice in my head and all the little licks and runs she would put into the song to make it her own. I call it “Ramey’s Song”. I love her voice!

She moved away sometime around 1998, got married and had a little boy a few years later. It wasn’t until a couple months ago that I heard some devastating news that she had brain cancer and was about to undergo a second major brain surgery to remove a tumor. Instantly I signed up for her husband’s blog to follow the journey, praying with so many for a full recovery for her. The news was touch and go day to day. She struggled greatly to recover from her surgery having very little function or ability to communicate as well as losing sight in one eye. Still the prayer warriors marched on standing in the gap asking for a miracle.

Last night I was checking my bloglines and saw there was an update. As soon as I read the first line my heart sank so deep in my chest I actually gasped. Ramey had breathed her last breath yesterday and was home in heaven.

If you only have a few minutes, please, PLEASE read her husbands entry about her passing. I can only hope and pray to have that sort of grace and heart of worship if I were to lose Ryan. This entry also includes one of the most amazing things, a dream her seven year old son had last week. If you don’t cry after reading that, then I question whether or not you have a beating heart. God has a way of preparing us, even children to come to peace with his mysterious ways and timing.

As I crawled into bed last night no longer able to fight back tears. I looked across at my husband as he was talking and thinking this simple act of laying in bed with my husband talking about our day is no longer available to John and Ramey. I had gone up stairs to check on my children giving them one last kiss and thinking that moment is no longer available for Ramey’s son Judah. A wife, mother, daughter, sister, and friend was gone.

I have not been exposed to much death. It is still a relatively abstract concept for me to deal with. I realized last night as I was grieving for Ramey’s loss it opened up the doors of my heart to a bigger concept. One as a parent you don’t want to dwell on. What if I were to die, what would happen to my children? We have a host of family and friends that would be there to support Ryan, Chloe and Bennett….but not to have their own mother…what would that be like? It is an unbearable thought to me.

This morning I have spent a good deal of time crying on and off asking God for some peace and clarity that I may come to terms with the finality of death and the glory of eternal life with him. One free of pain, tears, or evil. The selfish side of me doesn’t want to let go of anyone I love. I know it is because my mind can not imagine a world beyond what my senses experience right now. The riches of glory in heaven pale anything that this world has to offer. It isn’t that you can’t grieve the loss of someone and thank goodness her husband and son have the assurance that they will be reunited some day by the saving grace of Christ. I can not imagine not having that hope, how devastating.

I want you to enjoy two songs by Ramey. Listen to the lyrics, they will blow your mind given her circumstances and ultimate departure. I haven’t stopped listening and singing all morning. My heart stirs with so many emotions as I meditate on the words and picture this vivacious girl, the one with her hands held high singing boldly into the microphone now singing at the feet of Christ.

I don’t have many hero’s, but after reading this article and watching this video, learning more about her last few months and how she handled this devastating situation, I most certainly call Ramey Reeves my hero.

Opinions needed ASAP

Published by Kelly February 12th, 2008 in Life in General and Our Biz-Nas. 44 Comments

Alright guys, we need your opinion and I know you have them so lay your cards on the table. Ryan and I have an amazing opportunity to partner with a new bridal magazine dropping this spring. We are thrilled to be apart of this and they even picked one of our weddings as their main spread AND wrote an article about us and with us on our perspective as a married couple being photographers and what we recommend brides ask photographers. The distribution includes several larger cities and is going to be a huge boost to put us on the photography map in our area.

Okay, so our ad is due on Friday for the spring/summer issue. We are debating back and forth what photo to use. Can I tell you how hard it is to pick ONE shot that represents you? Do you go the romantic route, artistic, humor, abstract, close up, far away? The options are endless. I need you to vote on the picture that strikes you the most.

These are the runners up and as you can see they are all completely different in tone and that is where we keep going round and round. All will include the pink “K” logo with our contact info. Most likely they won’t have many other words…unless we get extremely clever.

Option A:
Sarah and Jeff. This picture has sizzle factor PLUS PLUS. We are debating on saying something like “Chemistry isn’t just a subject you studied in high school”

The question is…yes this picture is VAVAVOOM but is it too much?

Option B:
Kaely and Doug. This was the wedding that won the spread, so there will be tons of photos of them in the magazine, but they are our all time favorite wedding….so classy, so fun, so very summer!

Option C:
Sarah Bridal. Coy, beautiful, elegant.

Option D:
Kristie Bridal. Natural, playful, beautiful

Option E:
Bonnie and Todd. Romantic, dreamy, sweet.

ARGGGGGGHHHHH…HELP!!! Vote, vote, vote and leave opinions in the comments. I will show you the winner next week. Thank you so much!

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Be still my beating heart!

Published by Kelly February 6th, 2008 in Chloe Grace and Life in General. 18 Comments

Can it be? Can my little girl finally be entering the dress up stage? Oh man oh man! I have been eyeing all the expensive stores like Big Lots and Dollar Tree for months envisioning gaudy plastic jewelry all over Chloe’s body.

Tonight while I was at Bed Bath and Beyond I spied a Disney Princess “light up” tiara, necklace, earring, ring, and bracelet set. It started at $9.99, then $4.99, then we walked away with it for a meager $2.50. LIGHT UP PEOPLE!!! I’m just sayin…it is the little things and right now I need all the little things I can get to escape my dirty little renovation world. Don’t get me started….don’t even get me started. (SNL Molly Shannon…anyone, anyone?????)

She was intrigued by the light-up factor, even wore the tiara around with pride and the earrings. But then that crappy little crown decided to bite Chloe’s innocent little finger just as I was getting the camera. So what would have been a great little photo shoot turned into tears, red eyes, flat hair and constant motion pulling everything off. Oh well! This is the best I could get.

Had to use the paci to subdue the crying. One glistening tear is still in her eyes if you look closely.

Most of them looked like this.

So we finally have a kitchen ceiling. It still needs to be sanded and painted…BUT WE HAVE A CEILING!!!! Do you know how much that made my heart happy. I could have kissed Luis on his mouth last night. That man can work!!!! No pee break in 6 hours. I could never do that. Although I have to say that what I thought was a mess is nothing compared to the combination of dry wall dust and ceremic tile being ground. There are white powdery footsteps in EVERY ROOM. I sat in my living room today blinking back the tears. It is so hard for a cloud of discouragement not to decend on me each day. I know we are nearing the end…but for 5 weeks I have had my hands tied. Could we just take the two most important rooms in the house and make them unusable? I mean can you live without your full bathroom and kitchen…NOOOOOOOOOOO. This is a serious infringement on my domestic kingdom. I also think we have the black lung (pa)! All this dust…if Bennett has a third arm or only one eye we will know why.

That’s all on my front. Same ole, same ole whine, whine, whine. I do what I do best! Leave love.

Rock hard or go home

Published by Kelly January 29th, 2008 in Life in General. 17 Comments

I am finding it increasingly hard to blog this last week due to my home being a major hazard zone. I get to spend my days with a middle aged man tinkering around in my kitchen and bathroom drilling, sawing, hammering and creating the biggest cloud of dust ever to descend in my presence. How dare dirt enter my domain!

We have not had a working shower in our house since last Wednesday. No, this does not mean we have embraced 3rd world living, but it does mean we have become BFF with our new neighbors, whom we love and they have graciously let us come in and out of their house to shower and bathe Chloe. We heart you Alison and Shawn!!!! I had a wee bit of a meltdown yesterday. Thank God for super mom. That is what I think of my mom. What would I do without this woman? She listens to my hormonal ramblings and then we can sit on my bed, do our nails and watch our crime shows together, pig out and forget about the chaos that doesn’t seem to be going away in the kitchen. She knows I hate to be babied and just has an innate ability to do all the right things to help without being overburden. I take notes…so much to learn from her. Mom, you will never know the depths of my gratitude…I LOVE YOU!!!!! You are the best mom ever.

We have been told we will have our new tub installed this evening…fingers and toes crossed. What a luxury to have your own tub, one where no bum has ever sat in. I will sacrificially break that badboy in. Right now I have a beastly cast iron, claw foot tub sitting in my hallway. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that sooner. It makes an excellent and timeless decoration and is only just slightly in the way. Somehow the guys didn’t want to carry it all the way down the stairs and out to the garage. What wimps!

Moving on. Ryan’s brother, Dan, came over Saturday night with Guitar Hero 3 and we all rocked till our hearts burst. Good times…GOOD TIMES!!!!! Much better song choices than GH2. Here are the highlights. We do give bonus points for flare, kicks, lip snarls and all around best effort.

This is the one and only shot of myself I will humbly put up seeing as I just got out of the shower so I have nice mom helmet hair ( I chopped my hair off this week..just took the scissors and went for it. Real shots coming later) I have no makeup and my sweats. This is where I have to laugh because this picture is going to be the most viewed on my flickr because nosy moms just have to get a closer look and size themselves up pregnant or not. You know it’s true! Psssstttt….. look at that belly, those thighs….do girls ever stop comparing? Well here I am in all my natural glory ladies drink it in…DRINK IT IN! There is only one man I have to turn on and I bring it to him coming and going….curvy style! Holla!

Here is Dan throwing it down like it is hot.

Awwwww…what is this? Solo time…..give it to us Dan!

Ryan felt like he needed to protect Charlotte from all the devils rock that was coming out of the TV. Her innocent ears.

Ryan’s up. How does a 6′6″ man handle a guitar….LIKE THIS!!!!!!

Oh baby…give me a spray bottle and fan because I am burning up watching all this rock manhood before me. Check out that form.

My dad had a classier approach to playing. He picked the classic rock songs and sat on the couch and played acoustic style. That or he was too lazy to stand.

Look at the concentration on this man. Dan sending rock vibes in the background.

A family that plays together, stays together. Words to live by kiddos!

Winter in Virginia

Published by Kelly January 17th, 2008 in Chloe Grace and Life in General. 24 Comments

Well we had two little mini snows earlier in the year. So mini that they were here and gone in the span of one nap time. I have wanted Chloe to see a snowfall and experience the wonder of snow on her tongue. Today we finally got a decent snowfall…..like significant enough that even Ryan got a half day…whoo hoo!

So I picked the warmest and yet most hideous outfit I could find for Chloe and we ventured out for a few minutes this morning. She looks like a homeless little 80’s child. Never you mind that I looked like a girl who partied too hard last night. You know where you don’t take off your makeup so the black under your eyes is half way down your face….yeah…that was her classy mom.

Here are some highlights.

What do you think of your first snow Chloe? Thumbs up huh?

Actually it was really cute, when she first walked outside she just stopped dead and watched the snowfall and then puckered her little lips and kept saying, “Ooooooh, oooooooh, oooooooooooooh.”

Mommy showing her that snow is not poison.

Now you try.

Too cold…yuck!

She liked crunching around on the snow

Sweet mom sweatpants Chloe. You got cheeks for miles. Love the tapered ankle and ultra white sneaks! I can’t believe I dressed her like this, it absolutely cracks me up.

I let her sit in the snow and touch it a little bit. She just kept scrunching it up in her hands. Not sure what she needed to do.

I just have to share that even though we live in a small town in the south doesn’t mean we don’t have professional breaking news. Why I found this earth shattering, front page article on our local news website this morning. The article is titled, “Area prepares for wet winter.” We learn all about how Walmart stocks up on milk and bread for these emergency situations…then they share about salt trucks and clearing the roads. I found this tid bit the most helpful.

Reynolds - “It could become treacherous. Hoping it don’t, but we’ll be ready. We’ll be out there for you.”

Whewwwww…I was worried. But thanks to Mr. Reynolds hoping it don’t become treacherous…I feel better now! I mean I know you are quoting someone, but could we clean up the grammar just a smidge…just a scoach?

I hate to admit it, but Ryan and I have actually found grand enjoyment in watching the local 11:00pm news and counting the mistakes. It ranges from horrible reading mistakes, awkward pauses, the wrong video playing behind them or the pathetic “eye witness” clips they throw in. Those are the best. You show a tragic accident and then it cuts to a neighbor with hardly any teeth and they literally show a 2 second clip of them saying, “He weren’t watchin’ where he was goin’, he done near ran the stop sign and hit the guard rail clean off.” Hmmmmm….you don’t say. Isn’t that what the reporter just told us but with better grammar? I am so glad you were interviewed and they took the time to splice in your 2 seconds of keen observations. Oh central Virginia. Gotta love it!

I will close this ultra fun post with a few pictures of my little lady watching her Baby Einstein. I swear she plays with toys, but I let her watch her video twice a day. She really makes herself at home in her little chair. I particularly love how ladylike she is in her skirt and tights. Such an aire of mystery surrounds her.