Kelle, Author at Enjoying the Small Things

fall mini shoots.

September 27, 2009 By Kelle

i couldn’t wait to wake up this morning. and i’m still in my pajamas at 11:43. because, after four hours of clicking littles yesterday…not to mention, landing in a pile of red ants who went particularly ferocious on my left calf…and throwing my back out…i am smiling. it didn’t rain. and, although my braids were sweat-ridden and shredded by seven o’clock and i looked a lot like tom hanks the day he was found on the island in cast away, i held in my hand 5 gigs of beautiful children. children who made my day yesterday.

so, thank you for that.

fall mini shoots

and so proud of my sweet baby…she shared her mama so well and left her daddy’s care here and there to randomly appear wandering the lawn to come play with the kids. by the end of the night, she cried only for my lap…and the last few pictures were taken with my little monkey completely attached. hence the thrown out back, perhaps.

and for all the mamas waitin’…
what beautiful, wonderful babies…and some not-so-baby anymore. all the same, a pleasure it was to be in the presence of all these little souls…and to attempt to capture just a bit of them.

kati & colleen

bridget

peyton & beckham

reed

lucy (in-the-sky-with-diamonds)

(who i almost got a smile out of…but then ruined it with my loud, obnoxious peek-a-boo that sent her sweet, fragile heart into a fit of tears. ten points on her miraculous recovery though.)

honorable mention to precious little lily who, after just getting over being sick, tried her hardest to be photographed but wanted her mama.

she’ll come back with a couple other littles who weren’t having their best moments yesterday. hey, it happens to all of us.

alan

skye

baby chase

annabella, lena & michael

kiara, javia & tori

ellie & kyle

william & beckett

london & leighton

i love the crying one.

haley & ella
(ella calls me ‘helly kampton.’ i love that. her mama said she asked, on the way to our place, ‘are we goin’ to helly kampton’s?)

lizzi (gorgeous!)

and sebastian & joshua and their mommy & daddy…

and i think this is my favorite shot of the day…

the day was perfectly delicious in so many way.
and, i know i’m pregnant and overly emotional (not to mention billy joel’s and so it goes which kills me)…but looking over this post with all these pictures makes me very teary. because children are so very beautiful…and so innocent…and there is something about taking pictures of them that puts everything in the world into perspective.

“there is a garden in every childhood, an enchanted place where colors are brighter, the air softer & the morning more fragrant than ever again.” ~elizabeth lawrence

more mini shoots in the future!

have a happy sunday. ~k

i love what i do.

September 26, 2009 By Kelle

our large and extended cryderman family has enjoyed an e-mail loop for years now. aunts, uncles, grandmas, grandpas, cousins, nieces, nephews. we’re all on it, and not a day goes by when there aren’t birthday wishes, random ponderings, recipes, stories, inquiries on what everyone’s doing…reading…listening to. i have grown to love this loop.
the other day, after a long day at work, my dad sent his ‘ponderings’ out to void.
my dad is a hospital chaplain…but you ask anyone who works with him, he runs that place.

by ‘poppa’:

i love what i do…
i really do. Sometimes I actually have to finally tell myself to go home…not that it is fun, but it engages so much of who I am and what I value that I realize it is 5:30, like today, and I was supposed to leave at 4:30. Today, I shared with a couple the agony of their full term, first baby loss…and later, was paged to join our nurses on the Fourth Floor as we arranged a birthday celebration for a patient turning 94. Later, one of my favorite nurses asked me to come and take pictures of a patient she had…a lady in her early 60’s who had beat breast cancer but now was facing a recurrence with mets throughout her body. The patient was a retired travel agent and yesterday, she had lamented she would never be able to see Hawaii again. The nurse was determined she would…so she stopped at a party store and bought leis for the fourth floor nursing staff, and flowers for them to wear in their hair…and she bought them for the patient as well…and she bought a fancy flamingo glass for the patient’s beverages, and other decor for the room…the patient’s husband was let in on the secret and he wore a Hawaiian shirt…it was incredible, and the patient was so wondrously happy…and I took pictures of them all…and the husband even brought in a grass skirt and my nurse friend wore it over her uniform all day…and the patient’s husband even wore a flower “bra” over his shirt….it was like Hawaii came to our hospital. Then, a friend of mine passed me in the hallway and, in tears told me her husband had a massive heart attack and would I come and pray with them….and I spent much time with them in our surgical intensive care unit…and there were many other very special moments in my day, but I came home late and thanked God for the opportunities and blessings wrapped in challenges….and my friend’s husband is shocking the doctors in his slight and steady improvement. My intensivist doctor friend couldn’t believe it as he had told me he was most likely not going to make it…and as he began to suggest some of their intervention might be working, I interrupted him and said, “Dr. T, I would like to remind you of GOD’S intervention….remember, you allowed me and the family in for prayer.” And he smiled, laughed and said–that actually is the best explanation of the moment! Life is too short not to love what you do.

…and i guess that’s the best preface to a day full of pictures.

i love what i do.

and i love my camera.

i love this next one…

thank you, samantha, trace, peyton, noah, cameryn, riley & jack. you are all very lovely littles.

enjoying the small things

September 25, 2009 By Kelle

i said i’m not going to number this anymore. because i’m not the numbering kind of gal.

so, randomly, i am enjoying lately…

cupcakes.

watching her make them and need my help less and less. licking beaters. the most perfect fluffy frosting recipe ever. and the fact that i can’t quite decide on what makes prettier pictures…cupcakes or ice cream cones.

purging toys and simplifying.

we bagged up about 90 percent of the growing heap of junk toys she doesn’t play with that overflowed baskets in our play room and made everything look gross and cluttered. we added some covered cork boards, flipped the baskets and turned them into bookshelves and instead made a nice clean little nook for her with very little clutter.

it makes me happy.

daddy & the lipgloss

he glides it on her while she puckers the cutest little pout.

hair did.

i’ve put off a hair trim and maintenance for far too long now. it’s been months…lots of months. and tonight, i lost myself tipped back between the porcelain walls of the red sink in chair number 3. the head massage…the warm water…putting my phone away and allowing myself to read magazines while my color sank in…it is a wonder i don’t go every week.

early fall mini shoots.