All About Fall

We took a second trip to the farm near our house to grab some pumpkins... and uhh take a ton of pictures of my babe of course. ;-) I still haven't shared pictures from our first trip to the patch (and hubby and I are actually IN those too!) so it only makes sense that I start backwards, right? Errr...

Found it!

16 months

I know, I know, I'm SUPER behind on posting here. But guys, I'm *busy*. You only have yourselves to blame, really. Encouraging me to follow my dreams and all. ;-)

Anyhow our little bug is now 16 months old. Her favorite things ever are:

Daddy.

Daddy.

Oh yeah, and uhhh DADDY!

Seriously, I'm peanuts now. Ah well. It's so sweet how much she adores him. Even if I'm a little (ok a lot) jelly.

Those ASPCA animal cruelty commercials make her smile like mad and laugh. In all fairness, she just sees animals, which she loves... but it's still hysterical to see her crack up while the sad Sarah McLachlan song is playing and kitties are locked up behind bars. This kid's sense of humor is RIPE I tell you. She loves "sneaking" up behind us and us pretending we don't know where she is. Oh! And there's the incident of me leaving her in her room for literally 8 seconds while I went to wash my hands... and finding her stomping on poo from a disassembled diaper on the ground. She fished it right out of the diaper genie and saw fit to do a jig right on it, on the carpet. With her massive grin, I couldn't really be mad. But seriously, I can't leave her alone, period. This child must be watched like a hawk or she's liable to do all sorts of crazy things.

Speaking of watching like a hawk, she hit a kid at Gymboree. Not a kid, a baby smaller than her. With a pumpkin. Up until now she had been getting pushed around a bit, and she never really seemed to mind. It concerned Adam, who wanted her to "stand up for herself" (an idea I wasn't too fond of) but I just chalked it up to kids being kids. That's not to say we didn't spend our car ride home completely tearing apart the mother of the kid who pushed ours. Clearly she wasn't being vigilant enough with her kid. Yeahhh... it's really awful being on the other side of things. We don't know why she did it, but she just lashed out and started smacking this little girl on the head. Hopefully it's not a new habit, but she's feisty at times so I guess we really need to keep teaching her how to be gentle.

LOL between the laughing at animal cruelty, stomping on poo and pounding on other kids, it's sure sounding like my little girl is quite the bully! But I swear, she's still all lady (most of the time). She loves carrying her purses around the house with her, and brushes her hair whenever she gets her hands on a hair brush... or a tooth brush. :-) There really is no greater feeling than coming home and having her run up to me and giving me a huge thigh hug.

 ...and of course...

Oh! And my web site is live now! Please stop by :-) www.alexandrakellerphotography.com  (and you can still check out my facebook and "like" me at www.facebook.com/alexandrakellerphotography). Thanks! xoxo

I'm TERRIBLE, I know!

I so suck at blogging lately, but I've just been super duper busy, I promise. Ya know, trying to start things and whatnot. :-)

In the meantime, if y'all are still out there, you can do me a solid and click "like" on www.facebook.com/alexandrakellerphotography
















And now you know ALL my secrets. Well, most of them. ;-)

Massive fun post to come soon involving a trip to the pumpkin patch, Disneyland, and other stuffs. xoxo

This is true.

I got two hits on my blog this week from someone googling "gross stuff".


Hope you found it.

A little blueprint...

So I mentioned in my last post that I've embarked on my photography adventure... and I'd love to share some of my little tricks along the way with y'all. One of my favorites involves editing. To me it's super important to get it right in camera, but editing can give pictures so much more... oomph! for lack of a better word haha. Here is a little blueprint that I'm actually submitting in MCP Actions' latest contest.

the before is on top, the after below - duh :-)

I used some fusion actions on this one: One click color at 50%, Urban at 20%, Rustic at 25%, dodgeball on eyes and selective sharpening on eyes and lips. I also touched up her skin with the powder your nose tool. 

What do you guys think? I love the warmth and liveliness of the after. Can you just tell that I am so loving what I'm doing? :-)

Check out www.mcpactions.com for sooo many tips on photoshop and incredible actions too!

15 Months Old

Oh hi! Yes I know this is my 2nd post this month, but I've been so busy working on... things. I do apologize if the 3 of you have missed me (is this thing on?!). Anyway, onwards!

• Gabby's new thing is pointing to everything and asking "this?" She wants to know what everything is/does.
• She barks like a dog whenever she sees one. But it sounds more like grunting, which is even cuter!
• She can point out her head, ears, nose, feet, belly and boobies. :-) Still giving the biggest cheeseball grin when we ask her to show us her teeth.
• She's started to not mind tooth brushing, which is great. It used to be a wrestling match just to get a quick brushing in but now she's ok with it.
• Her stats! I almost forgot... 27 lbs 11 oz (95th%) and 32" tall (90%). Noggin measuring in at 19.25" (97%). And I was going to say I thought she was really starting to lean out!
• She's loving her little wand that I got her, her little pink armchair (must share a pic of this soon, it's such a good buy!) and books. Girl loves books. But she's taken a liking to bending the binding back so we're really going to have to try to get her to not destroy them or get used to the idea of buying more than 1 of each book.
• There's this little cartoon that comes on in between real cartoons called So Smart. It's got a duck, a pig and a lion and is the most simple, basic little 5 minute animation... and she is just wildly enthralled by it. My dad turns the TV on at 8:50 every morning for her so she can catch her fave show. :-)

We had a dr's appointment on her exact 15 month birthday so she got to celebrate by getting 3 shots. She did not take this lightly, and now 2 days later she seems like she's sick. I don't know if it's just reaction from the shots or if she's sick from the flu shot (I always seem to get a mini flu when I get the shot). Poor girl. But on her monthday she was just fine after a nice long nap so we went to the park for her 15 month photo shoot.

Here's my little lady:

Oh yeah and with a little bit of courage (and lots of nerves!), I've started my photography business. More on that soon... Thank you all so much for the support!

Thinking ahead (per usual)...

The day after labor day signifies a year since I've returned to work from maternity leave. It also means it's time to decide on a Halloween costume! Because I am a total Type-A when it comes to my daughter, I have to figure these things out way in advance. Last year I just knew she had to be a duck. We called her duckie the whole time I was pregnant and there's something so adorable about a little baby in a fluffy costume. I'd like to keep her in a fluffy costume this year too, because before I know it, she'll be wanting to be a princess/batgirl/beer wench. I'd better hold onto her babyness this year too and go fluffy :-)

So here are the contenders so far:

Little Lamb

This is probably my front-runner. Cute, cuddly, and cute. And it's a very similar setup to the costume she wore last year. I'm making us all dress up this year, so we'd need to figure out what to be to match her. I'm thinking farm animals? I could be Mary but I'm not sure what that would entail. I'd be a much better pig/cat/cow.

Bat 

I know this one's not all cuddly, and it's all black which I'm not usually a fan of, but the expression on this kid's face was just too cute to not post.

Puffy Owl

How cute is this?! I have a feeling the wings would bug her though. And she'd probably pull the cape off altogether.

Watermelon or Strawberry

I love these but think she would yank the little hat off in no time. But a whole family dressed like fruits is appealing. Ahhh this is just making me more and more indecisive as I go along...

Chicken

I mean, why not continue in the duck vain by going poultry all the way? It's probably a boy's costume but I think it's so funnycute.

Horse Rider

OK this one's not really a contender, but it cracked me up. I'm still laughing. It's kind of amazing.

My Day as a Wedding Photographer

My cousin married his lovely girlfriend last Saturday in a ceremony planned in less than 10 days! :-o
They didn't really have a massive budget for a photographer or anything... so... I was it! (err her?). I happily took pictures of their ceremony and after that we went to a park and did some more portraits. On the way over to the reception (which was at my parents' house) we stopped by a beautiful tree-lined street and seized the opportunity for some pictures there as well.

What I can say about wedding photographers... hats off to them, man. Everything goes by so fast, so you really have to be ON your game to capture all the important moments (rings being exchanged, the kiss (especially if it's just a quick peck like they did!), quick little inside smiles to one another...). I was really thrilled that they entrusted me to capture their day, and I'm happy how the pictures are coming along (uhhh I took about 1000 shots, I think I have quite a bit of editing to do!). I gave them a little sneak peek the other day and I wanted to post them here too:

I'm really loving photography. If I must be totally candid with y'all, I maybe (not-so) secretly want to do this professionally, as a career. I'm always full of self-doubt and know that I still have a lot of improving and honing of my skills before that day could possibly come, but it's my little secret wish that I thought I'd let out. Maybe one day...

An Update

I went in yesterday for my biopsy. The nice lady did an ultrasound on my arm pit for about 10 minutes, looking thoroughly and digging deeply to get the best look in there. She then left the room to get the radiologist, while I laid there, anxiously awaiting what was about to happen. I looked over at the screen and saw this:

Well now I'm no expert by any means, but those two things there on the left looked scary to me. I held my breath until the dr. came into the room... and with a smile said everything looked absolutely normal!


Whew! I can't begin to tell you the relief I feel. I immediately hugged my dear friend who came with me and called hubby up in (happy) tears to tell him the news. I feel so lucky and blessed right now that I don't have to travel back down that road again. Last night we celebrated with yummy cupcakes. Life (and health) should never, ever be taken for granted.

14 Months Old

My little love is 14 months old now! Before I know it she'll be old enough where it'll be silly to count by the months. I always thought it was ridiculous when people would say their kid was 21 months old... why not just say almost 2? Now I totally get it. They're so different each month. Always learning, always developing. She's accomplished so much since last month:

• Kicked the bottle to the curb! Now we're doing a full-time sippy situation. It took about 194 different cups, but we found the magic winner: A Pampers brand (who knew?) step 4 sippy cup that I picked up at Vons while grocery shopping. She's taken to it really well so I went back for more and bought the last one they had. I haven't been able to come across these anywhere else, so hopefully I can get my hands on a few more soon. It's not so much fun alternating between two cups vs. the bunches of bottles we had before.
• She's got some new words: duck and uck (yuck). I think she's a little confused by uck, because she uses it even when she likes something (like dinner). Silly goose - er duck. :-) She says up when she wants up and also when she wants to be put back down. Oh! And today (though it should count for next month's post technically) she did something super awesome. We were reading "That's Not My Pirate" and we were on the page that said his eye patch was too bumpy. So she repeated "bump". We were thrilled by this, so when we finished the book we asked her where the bumpy pirate was. She opened the book and turned to the page with that pirate and said "The bump." She also says "Wha's da?" Those are two words together, people. Someone call Harvard, stat.
• She's got 11 teeth now. Last month was a definite tooth boom. 3 of them molars, no less. And she did pretty well considering! So 6 on top and 5 on the bottom, if you're counting.
• She nods her head yes by bowing her whole body forward. It's awesome.
• Sleeping through the night consistently. It's awesome.
• I'm going to be honest and confess that I don't want to take away the pacifiers just yet... because I think she looks so cute and baby-like with them. The pedi said he's not concerned about that at least for another year, and I probably won't let it go that long, but for now, I like giving her the binks for nap and bedtime (really the only times she gets one... or if she's screaming in a restaurant!).
• She wears a size 6 shoe now (5 in sandals) and some 12-18 or 18-24 month clothes. I've started buying jammies in 2T! I have no update on her weight as the monthly dr. appts have slowed to every 3 months now. Next one's at the end of Sept! What I can tell you, is that she weighs a ton!
• Her favorite things are "dancing" to music (Wiggles are her fave, but she'll go for anything really), knocking down block towers, catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror, reading quietly by herself in the corner (she likes alone time periodically), running circles around me, jumping on my back and riding me like a pony (ha!), ravioli and all fruit.
• Speaking of food, she's a great eater! We have had a lot of luck in this department, thankfully. She has her daddy's palette for veggies and fruit.
• She's totally going through a daddy phase right now. I don't like this picking favorites business, but that very well may be because I'm not the one winning. Ah well, it'll be my turn eventually, right? Hubs says it's all in my head, but I suspect he's grinning ear to ear behind my back.
  

Taking pictures of her is now a whole new beast. She runs all over the place, and hardly has time to stop and pose for me like the little model she once was. What happened to my ham?!

Here's what I usually get - the back of her head haha. But at least it shows off all that hair that's coming in! Looks like she's getting my curls!