the sky was vibrant today. so blue, God could roll it up, wrap a crayola paper on it and sell it in a crayon box for heavenly bodies to color with. that vibrant. and when the sky is vibrant, i want to do vibrant things. like plant a garden. paint the house. write a book. adopt a couple orphans. cure cancer. you know, normal things.

but being that i hate disheartenment from unachieved lofty goals, i settled for alternate vibrancy. a bike ride.

a bike ride where i vibrantly cranked the pedals on my not-so-vibrant piece-of-crap bike. well, it’s not really mine. it’s brandyn’s old one, and it’s very small. and i know i look like this riding it, but it’s okay because i’m getting fantastic exercise. fantastic because the gears are kinda broken and it’s stuck on the one that feels like the chains are attached to two lead bricks.

so i pedaled, exhaustively cycling through the lead brick rotations until my thighs twitched and stung and sweat soaked my dyed hair past its already cleopatran blackness. it was a mess. but lainey was content, pulled behind the rickety clown bike in her new little cart my dad found on craigslist. in fact, now that i think of it, the cart i’m sure only added to the clownishness of it all, and when i had to stop in the back of the neighborhood to take a rest and lay the bike down in the middle of the street (broken kickstand, you know) with the cart all cock-eyed and lainey crying…well, now i’m just laughing hard.

if our life was the cover of a book, it would so not be glossy. it would be torn and pasted with old food and lost somewhere in the back of the library.

but it would be funny. and real. and ours. oh, and vibrant.

on my tombstone someday, please let it just say…

she was vibrant.
…and she loved.

~k

car…i’m dancin’ to this song for you tonight.

i know. two blog posts in one day.
but i couldn’t help myself after going through my photos from tonight’s shoot with this incredibly darling family. (plus, there’s a baby bonus at the end!)

i wish for these kind of photos with every shoot.

i met adrienne a month ago at a birthday party and was smitten with her beauty.
so, when she called two weeks later to set up some photos, i was thrilled.
not to mention, her girls are heaven…throw in her husband and you get this incredibly photogenic family.

and i was so glad we agreed on candid as oppossed to posey-posey.

i. love. these. pictures.
and this family.

this next one…well i’m a sucker for those hey-kids-go-play-while-we-make-out shots. alright, i made them do it. but i think they liked it.

and these sisters? dreamy little angels.

and maybe it’s the dawn of mother’s day, but these next ones just make me teary.
a mama’s love.
adrienne, you are so beautiful!

how in the world i get so blessed to meet such wonderful, photogenic families, i’ll never know.

oh, but wait. i said there was a baby bonus.

…and i just got back from the hospital where i held this little love for as long as i could. he is beautiful and i know his mama, my friend, has been dreamin’ of him for about as long as i’ve known her.

congratulations, jason & stephanie.

a perfectly beautiful day.

my camera needs an ambien.

~k

…for a date with my girl.

because life’s been busy and, while that is in this case very good, i crave time with my girl when i am not haunted by the monstrous tasks that lie in front of me and i can instead just smoosh her all i want. and skip. and eat ice cream. and get sticky. and go to the park. and get woodchips stuck in my sandals. and other fun-ish stuff like that.

and so, as all good wednesdays go, i pondered my day while sudsing my hair…and nursing my poor blisters from the uncomfortable ankle straps i wore last night. and it was then i declared today was a date day.

and so it was…

with our day starting a little something just like this:

and then all this in-between-ish stuff like….

breakfast ouside on fifth avenue.
where i sipped coffee and devoured the best greek omelete in the history of mankind, she pecked at a bowl of hearty oatmeal, and we both watched as a huddle of cute pipe-smoking older men talked about their grandkids and their golf swings.

we hurdled over climby things in the park and dangled our feet from big-girl swings.

we ambled down fifth, stopping at any passing pups, park benches and then straight into kilwin’s for a single dip with sprinkles.

we came home to play doctor…

and killed the heat with the hose…

and so it was…

with our day ending a little something just like this….

she slept on my chest, on the couch in the middle of a mess of a living room.

i accomplished absolutely positively nothing today.
and i wouldn’t have it any other way.

~k

p.s. fully aware the hair is a bit cleopatra. trying a new natural dye much more gentle on the hair, and let’s just say medium brown interprets equivacolly across brand names. 26 more washes and in the meantime, i’m gunna rock it out.