Rachel Kate Photography Blog »

Morning! One of everything, please. That is all. Just one of every single thing and I feel like I will feel satisfied with the state of my own little union over here. I keep walking around my house and looking at everything and I realized, that if I just went ahead and got one of everything, I would feel much better about life.  This is due in large part to Pinterest, thanks so much, because now I need approximately 1,000 things I didn’t even KNOW I needed until I started looking at that website.

A full wall of sliding glass doors and windows leading out to my deck? Yes. I NEED that. Which in turn leads to the complete and total necessity of a new couch for my living room. Mind you, since I have been married, 10 years now, we have been the owners of 7 different couches. I am certain that isn’t normal. But I NEED a new one. And once the fantastical wall of looking glass is installed I will need a custom entertainment center type thing for my TV. I will need that. There is no other way around it. And just to be safe, I am sure a new rug in that general area will be in order.

Did you know that I can’t go another day without a staircase desk area in the other half of my living room? NOT. ONE. MORE. DAY. Much obliged, Pinterest. Who knew that a) this creative stroke of genius even existed and b)that I NEED it. I feel the need for it like I feel the need to breathe or to eat my lunch at 10:30 am. NEED. When, not if people, when, this happens that will mean that my kid can have his room back that I hijacked when he was about 3 for my office and then the boys don’t have to share anymore. But are you aware then that means that my entire upstairs which is annoyingly carpeted  will need to be fitted with new wood floors? Because if those floors don’t happen soon there is a strong possibility that I am going to move out into my shed with the lawn mower just so I don’t have to look at that carpet again.

This in turn leads to three new bedroom sets, obvi. OBVI.

Not sure if you have seen my bathroom. I am actually pretty happy that you haven’t. Complete overhaul. Enough said.

I am desperate for a new fence and window boxes, shutters and new front stairs, and there is chatter among the men in my house about a basketball court for the back yard (which I find adorably charming because c’mon…the chances…).

Reading this it sounds like I already live in a shed, right? Until about 2 months ago when I started hitting Pinterest full force I was fairly happy with what I had. I did not know the full extent of white cabinet-ed, marbled, bead boarded, hardwood floored magic there was in the world. I also was unaware of the sheer amount of cellulite free asses and thighs there are in existence and did not live in constant mental anguish because on this site that has equally ruined and enhanced my life those same flawless asses are constantly juxtaposed with the most delicious looking melty chocolate peanut buttery cookies/cake goodness that ever was invented. Sigh.

Anyway, in order to stop obsessing about all that I need to do (like sell my body or a kidney or something) to fund my various Pinterest inspired projects I am going to get to the real reason you  are here.

Meet Cole! I love this baby. He is the happiest little munchkin and he is my new friend. He brought his parents to the studio to come and visit me and made me fall in love with him.

He is just TOO cute!! His little smiley eyes kill me. Adorable family. Really??!!?? Thank you so much! It was lovely to meet you guys! Cole-keep smiling, buddy! xo, Rachel

Hiiiiiiii. Yikes. It is been like a hot minute since I last posted. The rain..the seemingly relentless rain, has been messing with me and pushing all of my shoots back. But I am now on a nice little roll and the frequency of the blog posts should consequently increase. I swear.

What’s funny, is that much like every other January or February I posted that I was going to blog more just to blog. That I would be writing to you just all the time for the heck of it. Remember? And much like every year that I  fill up this screen with my empty and untruthful promises, I lied. I have lied about a lot of things in the slow months when I get a flash of ambition that lasts for approximately the amount of time it takes to write a post  and then quickly fizzles out right along with my will power to eat healthy things and act on my resolution to be a nicer person or something like that.

I also typically resolve to spruce things up a bit in terms of my business (which you have painfully had to bear witness to these past couple of months with the blog redesign) and along with reminding myself of how alarmingly weak of will I am I have ‘complete and total ambivalence’ to add to my list of attractive personality traits and I can’t decide on anything. I can tell you that the blog now, isn’t what it will end up being and again..you nice folks are just along for my indecisive ride.

 And then, wham! All of a freaking sudden it is May and I am in the thick of things and I am still chubby because I haven’t eaten as healthy as I should have, I have not blogged a single picture of my family and wrote some funny story about something that has nothing to do with photography, I haven’t sent my grandmother a thoughtful card because that would be a nice person thing to do and everything is exactly the same as it has always been over here at Studio Rachel Kate because I have gotten nothing done. Impressive, no? What I can tell you is that I am VERY happy with my newly acquired Scramble with Friends abilities and that may or may not have been the way I have been filing up the minutes while waiting for the God forsaken rain to quit so that I can bring my camera out into the world and take pictures of people.

Last week, even though weather.com SAID it was going to rain, I still packed up my stuff and took a ride to Rhode Island College to meet my Kathrine and Chris for their engagement shoot. I didn’t have any pretty sunlight to play with, but it didn’t matter. I had the adorable, seriously, adorable Kathrine and the handsome Chris to hang out with and a cool sky full of clouds behind them.  These two will be getting married in August, and you all know about my Cranston beauties, the gorgeous ladies of Rhode Island that I have the pleasure of shooting. Now I can add Kathrine and Chris to my list of Rhode Island couples. RI, the gift that just keeps on giving….

I met Kathrine and Chris at Rhode Island College where they met and ran track together. And I mean like ran track and broke records and stuff like that. I am slightly obsessed with these two. We had so much fun hanging out, styling was awesome, and even though it wasn’t sunny, I wouldn’t have changed anything about it for the world.

There are not many times in my life that I can remember wanting to be a blond. When I am near beautiful Kathrine, I want to be a blond. I really, really do. I also want her shorts.

They really are very cute together. This was right about the time that I almost killed myself by tripping over a FULL sized trash barrel that was directly in my path and I managed to NOT see at all. I feel sorry for my couples who probably feel embarrassed for me when I trip incessantly over things and bang my head on stuff while shooting. LOVE this. Adorable outfit change. Really. Is it at all possible for Kathrine to be cuter? I doubt it. I highly doubt it. Yowza, Chris. They are just PERFECT together. Chris is ALL about yellow. Which is fine by me since the wedding will have tons of yellow and I really feel like every wedding should have tons of yellow.

Thank you guys!! I really had SO much fun and I am SO excited to be there in August with you. You guys are the best! xo, Rachel

Hi there people. Won’t you join me in a quick prayer for the cancellation of baseball tonight? Just quick. Throw one up so that I don’t have to be tortured for 2 hours in the cold damp gloom that will be this afternoon. Thanks a million.

The one day this week that hasn’t made me want to get directly back into bed after my kids get on the bus was sunny Monday and that was the day I had my grownup engagement session shoot with Allie and Steve. Allie is one of my many Cranston Beauties..the gift from Rhode Island that just keeps on giving…love these girls.  She will be marrying Steve in July and I am so happy that I will be there to shoot it.  At first when we first decided that I would be the lucky girl who got to shoot her wedding, Allie was all..”We don’t want an engagement session..no thanks…”.  And since I am friends with Allie, I was going to let it slide..but someone, somewhere, I think, wants a picture of these two and so they changed their mind.  Monday was the first time I had the pleasure of meeting Steve, and while I guess saying that he showed up to the shoot kicking and screaming would be a bit of an overstatement..it wasn’t that much of an over statement.  Poor guy…getting his picture taken was pretty far down on his list of things he wanted to do..probably right under pull out his own fingernails with a pair of pliers. Not kidding, pretty much after each shot I took he was all…”Ok then! That good? You got it? Can we wrap this up??” It was  very funny and even though in front of my camera isn’t where he wanted to be..the three of us hanging out was actually quite enjoyable. Really enjoyable, in fact, and it just makes me look forward to their wedding (where so many of my Cranston Beauties will be in attendance) even more than I was already.

Isn’t Allie gorgeous? HOW are they all so gorgeous? Remember when the sun used to shine? That was nice, wasn’t it? This could be my fav. Love it. I  love this one, too.

Thank you guys!! SO much fun..(for me at least, Steve:). Can’t wait for July so we can do it all over again! xo, Rachel

Morning! Kind of running crazy today..I actually have plans to shoot some grownups today, and that is kind of exciting for me. Love my kids and babies..especially the ones that you are about to see, but it will be nice to do a shoot standing upright and not on my knees  having to worry about my underwear hanging out the back of my jeans.

I have said before how my job just accentuates how fast time flies. For some reason this family in particular, and especially my little Lindsay, makes me SO well aware of how blazing fast it is going.  I see them every year about this time and every year I find it hard to believe how big they are getting. Like, Lindsay is in FIRST grade. I just don’t get it. She is in first grade but she is way more mature than me and I could shoot this child ALL day long.  Little Ronan is 2 and where 2 year old boys usually like to run in the opposite direction of my camera he was actually surprisingly cooperative and made my job easy.  Just like always..these two kids helped to remind me just why I love my job so much.

I mean..there is no other way to say it besides…her parents are in TROUBLE.

I just can’t even deal. CANNOT deal. Hi Ronan! Why are you so cute? I kind of love you, Ronan. Stop it. Just stop it right now.

Not hard to see why this was my favorite shoot so far, right?? Thanks guys for being as awesome as always! xo, Rachel

Morning! So, yesterday I ran my first 10k in honor of Charlotte Rose and I have to say, I feel pretty happy with myself. Considering that a little over a year ago the only way you would see me running down the street was if there was a knife wilding criminal hot on my tail or maybe if the elusive ice cream truck that is stingy and mean and hardly ever comes down my road made it’s melodic appearance. Running? Not something that I understood. I mean, if God wanted us to run around and do all sorts of physical activity then WHY would he a) make it so incredibly painful and b) make it so incredibly enjoyable to sit down? It just didn’t make sense to me. My running sister? Running, running, running all the freaking time. Ran a marathon. Huh??

I. Don’t. Get. It.

But then, last year, for reasons that still basically remain unknown to me I started running. Where my sister can run a cool 7 miles and barely bat an eyelash, I would run for 30 feet and feet pretty damn proud. I kept at it, and then the guilt of NOT doing started to outweigh the anguish OF doing it and I stuck to it. Listen, there was no part of me that looked at running like a series of accomplishments and no part of me had a desire to run a far distance so that I could then tell people how fantastic I was because I ran a far distance. What my main goal, is and always has been, is to avoid having my heart explode at a young age and I hear that cardio is a good deterrent for heart explosion.  To be honest, 80% of the time that I am running the ONLY thing I can think about is how much I want it to be over and how not really enjoyable it is. This is directly related to my piss poor attitude and it is something that I am trying to work on in terms of this whole exercise thing.

What I do know about running is that there is no better feeling than when it is done. It makes every, single, step worth it to have my brain flood with all of those happy little endorphins and keeps me in a good mood for the remainder of the day. Sorry for the poor children who belong to me if I let it go more than two days without going for a run…call me Crabby Patty. Unattractive, really.  So, the bottom line is, that despite the fact that I got here kicking and screaming, I think that I do actually consider myself a runner at this point.

If you follow my blog at all you know how important that Charlotte and her family are to me. Beautiful people who, even though the unbearable sadness of loss, have made such a difference.  The Prayers for Charlotte road race was held yesterday and to be there and witness the over 3000 participants who were there to help raise money and show support to this wonderful family was amazing. Our great friends, Linda and Eddie with their two kids, our great friend Eric and the four of us signed up and were a part of something beautiful yesterday.  Linda is a “real” runner and signed up for the 10k while Eric and I signed up for the 5k. Eddie and Eric walked with the kids (old man knee problems). At the point where the 10k split off from the 5k , pushed by an unbelievable amount of positive pressure from Linda, Eric and I went the 10k route. It was one of the most enjoyable things that I have ever experienced. At no time did I allow myself to find reasons why I didn’t want to do it, and instead just enjoyed the run, every second, every step.

Anyway, I am done patting myself on the back for now, but if any one of “Charlotte’s Angels” reads this, just know how UNBELIEVALBE the work you did was and how THANKFUL I am that I was a part of it.

Onto other orders of business today. One of my FAVORITE little people in the world, Liam.  I just can’t even tell you…this child warms my heart in ways that I can’t even stand.  There is just something so awesome about this kid and being able to spend time with him and his equally awesome mom, Kelly just makes me ridiculously happy.  Like, it is just hard for me to handle how adorable this boy is..it is too much.  I met them the other day on a beautiful afternoon and COULD not be more psyched with what we got. While most boys Liam’s age are avid members of the Secret Society to Sabotage Rachel Kate, Liam just does what I ask and does it in such a cute way that it is hard for me not to squish him right on the spot.

 

I mean…really, Liam? Finding pockets isn’t the easiest thing in the world. I can’t deal with these next pictures. Just “fixing” the car. I. LOVE. Liam.

Thank you guys!! It COULD not be more of a pleasure to see you. I can’t WAIT for baby girl…

xo, Rachel