Mustache March

My husband is very proud of the mustache he grew for Mustache March with his brother. I'm not impressed. I have to say I prefer the clean shaven look and can live with the usual beard growth but the mustache by itself is not my favorite. Especially on the man I like to kiss. Since my darling husband knows my facial hair preferences he was wise enough to shave the mustache off before we attended my friend's wedding last Friday. Thank God! He did ask me to take a photo of the mustache before he shaved it off so here he is in all his mustache glory. Enjoy.

Lest you think the macho pose before is my husband's typical look I thought I'd share this outtake from our room at the bed & breakfast. Notice how he's trying to look manly and tough but he's having a hard time keeping his face straight. That's because I'm practically doubled over laughing as I took these photos. He just looks so silly trying to put on the Tough Guy persona because it's totally not his personality. Isn't he cute?

Unlike my husband my brother in law can actually grow a serious 'stache. It's quite the look. I borrowed this photo from his Facebook profile, hope you don't mind Sam!

I ♥ Faces Week 11: "Bundled Up"

This week's I Heart Faces theme is "Bundled Up" and I knew I had some photos that would work perfect for this theme. I did a little perusing through past year's winter photos and found this one from December 2008 (remember that big ice storm?) that I thought was cute. Did some different editing and here it is!

For more cute "Bundled Up" photos click on the link below:

Playing with Logos Again

My name is Kellie and I have a problem. For the life of me I cannot seem to leave well enough alone when it comes to design. I know the logo I've been using for my photography is just fine and dandy. That it probably doesn't even really matter in this stage of the ball game but I'm not happy with it and I insist on changing it much to my husband's chagrin. Right brained people just don't understand.

Part of my problem is that I have a hard time committing to a single design style. I'm an equal opportunity design lover and have a hard time settling on just one. Why do you think I change my blog look every month? Because there's no way I'd ever be satisfied with any one design!

I've been doing a lot of wishing/dreaming/journaling etc. about what kind of photography I'd like to to do and what kind of client I would like to work for. The words that jumped out from my scribbling tend to be in the fun, lighthearted vein. I like to work with people who have a sense of humor and like to have fun. Looking around at other photographer's logos/identities I find myself more attracted to the fun and funky. At this point I don't want to rule anything out so I don't want a logo that immediately pegs me as a certain sort of photographer (i.e. one who only does babies, or weddings, or families etc).

So here's where I'm at. I tried doing two different fonts for my name and the word "photography" but it just doesn't look right. My last name and the word "photography" start and end with the same letters so they look awful similar which bugs me when they're in different fonts next to each other. I'm currently leaning towards the first one. Opinions?


I played around with different watermarks and like that I can switch the colors around so that the watermark would work for both dark and light colored photos. Here's two recent photos from my Project 365 that I used as an example.


And just for the sakes of comparison, here's a photo with my current logo watermark:

I think we're allergic to the Oscars

The 9th Annual Oscar Party was a success, and I promise I'll write about it later. Like, maybe next week. Why? Because a terrible plague has descended upon our house for the second year in a row following the Oscar Party. I'm starting to think we're allergic. Last year Ethan and I had the stomach bug from hell while David was out of town. Convenient. Well this year David got most of the puke clean up duty so I suppose it all evened out.

This morning when I woke the kids up to get ready for MOPS I discovered that Ethan had dried puke stuck to his face and hair and all over his sheets. Just the sort of thing I love to discover on mornings where I have to be somewhere by 8am. I was 10 minutes late due to the necessity to bathe my puke crusted 2 year old. Since Ethan was acting fine and the puking had obviously happened earlier I decided to leave Ethan at home with David and I took Grace to MOPS. I foolishly gave Ethan applesauce for breakfast which he threw up a little before I left, but I got him changed into clean clothes and left hoping for the best. Unfortunately he threw up four more times for David which required a few more clothing changes and added quite a few blankets and towels to the laundry pile. David can handle watching a sick child while he's working, but an actively puking child is a whole different ball game. So I finished up the ice breaker at MOPS, wolfed down the rest of my breakfast, grabbed Grace from her class, and headed home.

Naturally, Ethan was done puking by the time I got home, but it wasn't too long before I discovered David napping under a blanket on the office futon. Not good. Turns out David rather suddenly started feeling sick right after lunch. I've been feeling slightly under the weather for a few days, kind of that pre-cold feeling but this afternoon it's ramped up to Officially Feeling Yucky. Not nearly as bad as last year, but enough that I'm starting to worry about the trip to Denver that David and I are supposed to be making Friday morning.

If you don't see me before next week you now know why.

I ♥ Faces Week 8: "Hands on Fun"

Thought I'd join in on this week's i heart faces because the theme is "hands on fun" and I have a bunch of hand shots from the last month or two! This one's my favorite because it's so soft and girly.

To see more pretty pictures click on the link below:

Seeking Sun in the Northwest

I don't know about anyone else but cold rainy weather is not my favorite. Lucky for me I live in the Pacific Northwest! Oh wait, maybe that's not the best place to be if you don't like cold rainy weather. I do, however, love to live in the Pacific Northwest when the sun is shining because then it makes the gray rainy days incredibly worth it. The grass is so green, the sky is so blue, and it really can't get any prettier. It just takes a lot of rain to make it happen! So I'm willing to live with a little (ok, a lot!) of rain to be here.

Today was one of the rare gorgeous golden sunshine February days and I loved it. More specifically, my camera loved it. I'm trying very hard to conquer sun flare and gray rainy days don't exactly give me much to work with in that department. For that my friends, I need sun. The only place in my yard to find sun for sun flare is in the backyard and by our lilies in the side yard. That's why all my sun flare photos are of the kids in the lilies and on the swing set. That's what I have to work with.

If you live near me and happen to have better late afternoon sun access just let me know and I'll gladly camp out in your yard with my camera. :)

Without further ado my favorite sun flare photo of the day:

Notice the pretty flare at the lower lefthand corner!

And this one doesn't have much flare because Grace was sitting opposite of Ethan and the sun wasn't hitting her quite right. I kind of like this girly action with this photo. Grace is such a pink princess kind of girl it's not even funny. Appropriate is it not?

Happy Valentines Day!

I snuck some Valentines photos of the kids in on Friday afternoon after their parties. They both received red heart suckers which worked perfectly as a reward/distraction for me to take photos. Grace is always a little more challenging since she rarely looks at me and gives cheesy smiles when I have a camera in my hands. Ethan is always more obliging in my effort to photograph my children. He's quite willing to look at me and smile his easy going grin and even more so when there's candy involved. The secret for getting good photos of him is to do it right after his nap when he's not quite awake (and not moving so fast!) and have him sit on our kitchen stool outside. Sitting keeps him immobile which makes picture taking easier. Just a tip for the rest of you!

I also have a ton of photos of the kids looking at their Valentines but I haven't had a chance to edit them all quite yet. We went to the Indoor Park Valentines Party Friday morning and Grace had her preschooler party Friday afternoon. We've got enough Valentines candy to last us through Easter and then some! Good thing Mommy and Daddy are willing to help eat it.