Rachel Kate Photography Blog »

I am like an editing machine. A MACHINE I tell you. I am still SO far from over having two kids in school full time. It is unbelievable really.

Today I am happily sharing with you the wedding of my girl Nancy to Kieran.  It took place a few weeks ago at the beautiful Wequassett Resort down the cape. The day was beautiful and Nancy was so, so excited.  You remember Nancy? One of my BI girls who LOVES to have her picture taken and really, is there a better combination of person out there for me? Don’t think so.  Everything about the wedding was quintessential Cape, from her parent’s beautiful home where she got ready, to the church, to the ridiculous Wequassett right on the ocean. It was just an awesome day.

Let’s get started…

She was so cute. She COULD NOT wait to get into her dress.

Love this of Nancy and her dad.

Kat Hanafin came along and got the boys for a bit before the ceremony.

And there is Kieran.

How about those eyes??

I love this one of her family.

Love it.

Her dad decorated the golf cart for the occassion..so cute…can’t stand him..

Kat got this one of the boys.

On their way.

I think this one that Kat snapped is cool.

Just love it.

Mmmmmm….

I love that my buddy Sean truly thought that I would not blog him and his pretty wife Kathleen. Silly boy.

Kat got this. It is perfect.

Congratulations Nancy and Keiran!! Thank you so much for inviting me to be a part of your amazing Cape wedding. I wish you so much love and happiness int he years to come!

xo, Rachel

These childless days are flying by which is leaving me with a slightly shorter to do list but just a few minutes to blog before the loves of my life hop off the bus and starting fighting with each other.  So I will just get right to it today.

I’ve know Eric (which is weird for me to type because I have always known him by his last name Lobo and have never called him Eric in my life) since freshman year of college. He is marrying Ana in a couple of weeks and I will be there to shoot it. We went for a stroll around my beloved Navy Yard last week for some practice and here are some of my favorites from the day.

Ana is stunning.

My fav.

See you in a couple of weeks!

xo, Rachel

It is what I wanted, right? It is what I have been talking about and fantasizing about and counting down the seconds towards for the last 6 years. So why am I walking around with a giant lump in my throat that won’t go away. Why, someone tell me please, are my eyes filling up with tears as I am typing this post? Why did watching my babies get on the bus did it feel so depressingly final? I pictured myself doing cartwheels around my backyard and reveling in the peace and quiet of two boys NOT fighting within earshot of me. Instead, I am wandering around my house trying not to cry and thinking about how much I love them and trying to figure out just how the hell all of these years have blown right by.  How am I not counting down the minutes until I can warm up a bottle and put my baby down for a nap so that I can curl up on my couch and read and sleep while time passes and we finally make it to bedtime?  How am I not dragging out the dreaded Play-Dough just so that they can make a giant 3 minute mess and I have to clean it all back up again?  Why am I not strappinga two year old into a car seat and wrestling an infant seat into the car so that I can go to the grocery store and have that be the highlight of my day? How did I get to the place where never again I’ll have to plan my morning around preschool pickup or my afternoon around the kindergarten bus schedule?

 Yes, there were definitely nights that I would wait by the window in tears for Eric to pull up and take them for a little while so that I could make a complete thought in my head for once in 12 hours. And yes, there were the days (more than I care to remember) that I had no patience and yelled at my little boys because the thought of cleaning up the SAME mess AGAIN was overwhelming.  I didn’t particularly enjoy pushing my kids on the swings for hours on end. I could tell myself in the moment that there would be a day that I would give anything just to be able to push them for awhile again but it never made me love to do it. And I won’t lie and say that nap time wasn’t my favorite part of the day.  But I miss their warm little bodies curled up on mine while they settled down to rest. And I miss the way they looked in the tub and the way they talked with a binkie in their mouth. I miss seeing them see things for the first time and I miss being a young mother so totally in love with my first baby that I felt like I was walking on air.

I never think that I can love any stage of their childhood more than I love the stage we are currently in. I have said SO many times over the years that I just want to freeze time. Stop it in it’s tracks so that Jameson will always have the chubbiest legs and curly blond hair. Or so that Aidan will sit in his high chair with his arms folded behind his head like that forever.  And right now, I want it to stop so that Aidan will always look so flipping cute as he is all business in his zipline gear heading up the ladder like a little man. Or so that Jameson will still come directly to me in the morning to curl up and cuddle for a while before we start our day.

My mother always says “The minutes last a lifetime but the years fly by” and she is so right.  I never thought I would get to the place where I had two kids in full time school. NEVER. And here I am. Crying on my keyboard because time flew by while I was busy complaining about how the minutes were taking forever.

Aidan and Jameson-

I love you more than you will ever know.

xo, Mom

Hello. Mother of the year reporting to you from the comfort (well actually it is about 90 degrees in here so “comfort” isn’t exactly the optimal word) of my office.  There was no camp this final week of summer vacation so I have gone to glow in the dark mini golf, out to lunch, to Pinkberry (eh), to my girlfriends house, to Plaster Fun Time, out to lunch again, watched about 6 on demand movies, went to Plimouth freaking Plantation and the Mayflower II today (with lunch AND ice cream). All of this in an attempt to keep my kids from killing each other and to prevent DSS coming to take them away once I finally flip my lid and lose it all together. Seriously? Remember when we were little?? If we went to the beach it was a HUGE deal. Other than that we went OUTSIDE. We would wake up and go OUTSIDE until someone had to call us in because we didn’t want to come INSIDE.  WHAT AM I DOING WRONG????? You would think that my backyard (which is awesome by the way and a child’s dream; tree house, trampoline and after this weekend a flipping ZIPLINE) was surrounded by a moat of bubbling lava impenetrable to the average kid.  The two of them don’t even know what the hell to do with themselves out there. Play? what is that? Use our imagination…??We couldn’t possibly. The only thing they can ever seem to come up with in the way of imaginative play is to find things and smash them to pieces with Eric’s tools which they then leave out to rust. God love them, they complete me but they are exhausting and financially draining. All of that being said, there was more than one time today when I thanked God for allowing me to be their mother.

It is no secret that in terms of babies I am DONE. Finished. That baby ship has sailed and with it went any visions of me lugging around an infant carrier and putting ruffle bum tights on a baby girl (because if I am even going to envision it I might as well do it with a girl in the picture).  No cute, cuddly newborn makes me think about anything more than the fact that I am happy to be able to hand them off at some point in the near future.  My friends have some pretty cute kids and I happen to be the aunt of quite possibly the most beautiful child in the world and NONE of them make me think, even for a second, that I would like to go down that road again.  It just isn’t even a thought that enters my head. That is until last week when Elizabeth walked into my studio and in an instant made me sit and try to rationalize just HOW I could pull off having another baby. 

Liz is yet another of my BI loves. She is a NICU nurse and is due with her first baby in a few weeks. She came with her husband for a maternity shoot and took my breath away.  She is so incredibly gorgeous and is everything magical and beautiful and perfect about what it means to expect a baby. To decide that you would like to grow another human and to relinquish all control over your body is a pretty intense yet fleeting experience.  You do it, you live it, you feel like you will be pregnant forever and as soon as you give birth it is over. Done. Just like that. I think that I bear witness to some seriously important moments in people’s lives but the shoots I love the most, the ones where I truly feel like I give a gift to my clients are the maternity sessions.  I just can’t stress enough how important I think it is to capture this moment in a woman’s life. Because looking back I can’t even believe I ever did it, let alone twice.

Liz came to this session completely prepared to make the absolute most out of it and I loved EVERY second that I got to shoot her. She left all inhibition at the door and with her husband, Chris (who looked at her like she was the sexiest, most beautiful woman on the planet) we caught these moments for them to have forever. The days before their lives will change in ways that are unimaginable to even them right now.

This girl is as sweet as she is beautiful and I feel lucky to know her. I can’t even begin to pick a favorite. I love them all.

Chris is from the Netherlands and “lief” means “sweet” in Dutch (I think it is Dutch, I definitely know that that word means “sweet”).

Thanks. Thanks a lot for making me wonder, even a little bit, if I could possibly have another baby:)  Seriously though, I am SOOO happy that you did this, Liz and Chris. I am so happy it was me who got to capture this for you. That “lief” little baby is one lucky soul to have you two as parents. And I can’t wait to see if the love of your life will be dark or light!!

xo, Rachel

Good morning! Anybody have any suggestions about what I can do with my kids on this rainy Tuesday (EXACTLY one week from the first day of school)?? Currently they are screaming at the top of their lungs at each other, oh, and right now a six year old is crying right in my face and screaming at his brother expecting me to do something about it and I just really don’t care. I am pretending that I am invisible. I am pretending that I am on a beach with a book and no one around for miles and miles. I really wish that you guys could hear what is happening right now. The six year old has  now crawled into the back of my chair and is sobbing and I am still pretending that I am invisible. Think happy thoughts, Rachel. Happy thoughts of the end of summer vacation and planes that fly far, far away from screaming, sobbing children that are at the end of their summer vacation ropes and need school to begin pronto. The best is when they call to me and tattle on each other…”Moooommm???” Jameson just started a figghtttt….” Silly little boys really think that I care at all. I could not care less.  My typical response..” Huh? Oh, hmmmmm….really? That is too bad. Now go downstairs.”The fighting is going to be the end of me. I must be doing something wrong. It just got eerily quiet downstairs. Either they are watching TV slack jawed (which I am TOTALLY fine with by the way) or there has been a juvenile homicide that probably needs tending to. Either way, I am not going down until I am done blogging.

While I continue to mentally tuck myself away into my happy place I will share with you my little friend Matteo. He is four months now and so cute and non verbal…I miss those days… As always, I had a lovely visit with one of my favorite families and got to chill with my boyfriend Luca who is now two and as awesome as ever.

There’s my boyfriend now.

Thanks guys! Awesome as always.

xo, Rachel