when the sun came out...

Hi everyone, we are back but we've been so busy preparing for next week's Motherhood Exhibition that I did not have time to process the images we shot in Perth.

Here are a few quick edits for the time being. Will post more soon :) We only had one day of sun btw! The rest of the days were rainy :(

the MOTHER shoot

As mentioned in this post, we did a shoot last week to celebrate my first Mother's Day as a mother of two and these were what we got.

PEEK...


A-BOOO!!!


Daddy took the role of photographer for the day and I think this one maybe can pass but dylan was trying to get away!






Getting the both of them together was a nightmare, also it was after lunch, their sleepy time :s


Love Dyl Dyl's face and tongue here!


Ok i know what this looks like but i didn't drop him! He was enjoying himself playing rough with mummy, he loves it if you can see his facial expression :)


Check out Dyl's hair!


So cheeky that face! :)


Like kay's relaxed look here, but dyl's saying "bleah"!


Another attempt to get them both together


Tickling does the trick sometimes


And this shot I must credit to daddy, sums up the shoot and my favourite candid one! kay disturbing dyl, dyl pushing him away and me caught in the middle and totally exasperated! :D


Oh well, till the next Mothers' Day, hope yours was a great one! :)

Happy Breastfeeding Mother's Day!

Last month I got an urgent request by the Breastfeeding Mothers' Support Group to help them produce a TVC with just a few days left to submission deadline! I thought it was mission impossible as the concept they had was not suitable for a television commercial. Plus everything was so last minute and it was just chaos when they came for the shoot for their initial concept. I did a photoshoot for them last year and was quite happy with what I shot and I was determined to convince them to shoot a proper video instead of the idea they had which was just to use stills and text. I contacted Candida to see if she would like to take up this pro bono project with me and she was up for it so hurray! To cut a long story short, we did the shoot at The Studio Loft over an afternoon a couple of days later and Candida edited the TVC within a few days and we made it for the submission deadline!

The Happy Breastfeeding Mother's Day event they have is this saturday so if you are in the west area, please drop by to give the event your support.

One more month...

Of cos the big news leading up to his 11th month was that Dylan walked! And curiously about the same time as big brother too. We haven't been able to stop him since, it's walk walk walk all day long and I must say he's really steady from day 1, no fall forward accidents or anything like that. If he loses his balance or had to fall, it will be sitting down. He's like Momo (our cat), he knows how to fall without injuring himself. Amazing this boy :D I am so proud :)

And he shocked me too a few days ago, I was introducing him to a wind up duck toy during his bath, saying,"Look Dylan, it's a duck!" and he went (in that oh so cute little voice) "A duck!". I was stunned for a moment and got him to repeat it and he did! So off I ran to get the camera but knowing in my heart that he probably will not repeat it and all I have to boast about will be my account of the incident :s Flashes of people nodding their head in mock belief came to me BUT ho ho ho! he did repeat it for the camera and well, just watch the video!



He also has a thing about doors shutting in his presence. If we go into a room and shut the door with him outside, he will give a blood curdling scream and start crying his eyes out! This never fails to happen each time I go into the bathroom to take a bath. He will cry and scream outside the door like I have left him for dead. Same thing happens when I have to bring out the garbage and shut the main gate. What can I say, my boy loves me :)

All these developments are also making me nervous, signalling to me his birthday is approaching. Arrgh my problem now is I can't schedule his birthday party before the actual day and they say it's no good to celebrate after. The weekend after we come back from Perth is already booked with shoots, the following weekend we will be busy manning our booth at the Motherhood Exhibition and the weekend after that his birthday would have past already! How? :( Sigh, maybe it's destined my poor son will not have a grand 1st birthday party like his big brother did. I think I will just organise a small one on his actual day (which is a weekday) and get him a nice cake and take plenty of pictures of course. The more I think about it, the more guilty I feel, so unfair to Dylan. Arrgh!

Don't worry son, Mummy will think of something. Hope you will have a great vacation with us in Perth next week! Please go easy on us! :D

M-O-M-M-Y

This is my first Mothers' Day with Dylan and as a mother of two and I wanted to take some photos of my kids and me at the studio to celebrate the occasion. Disaster! Both of them did not cooperate and the father was tearing his hair out trying to be the photographer for the day. He commented that the two of them had to be my worst clients, I do not disagree! Hahaha! I don't think I even managed to get a decent shot of the two of them together. I left the studio feeling rather upset but was cheered up when Kayden sang me this song he learnt in school, so cute! It didn't matter that he stumbled slightly trying to coordinate the actions with the words, I loved it :) Thank you boys for being the best Mothers' Day present ever!

Keeping Kayden

With the arrival of Dylan, I have been spending considerably much less time with Kayden and of late I have seen him distancing himself from me :( To salvage our relationship, I made a conscious effort the past few weeks to have some quality time with my first born.

Last month, I brought him to a children's play "Bear and Chicken go Camping". We took the train (his first time as a toddler) and generally had a great morning together, just him and me :)



Using his EZlink card on the MRT












When we first walked into the auditorium and he saw the colourful set on stage, he said excitedly to me, "Look mummy! A big TV!" Hahaha!


One Sunday, we did some baking together, oatmeal raisin cookies. Here's the proud baker with his bakes.


Besides asking lots of questions every chance he gets, Kayden also makes interesting and sometimes funny observations. While watching Animal Planet (his favourite channel), he saw a stingray and commented that it looks like a roti prata :D He sees me breastfeeding Dylan and will pretend to breastfeed his own "baby" when it "cries"!



He is extremely sensitive to our emotions now. One morning when I had a big fight with Erwin and stomped out of the house to work, he cried and made Erwin find me. I feel really bad to quarrel in front of the kids and mentally told myself it will be the last time I did that. He has been expressing himself better through language and emotions, sometimes coming up to give me a hug or kiss for no reason and saying "I love you". :) Makes my heart expand with joy. As his grandma would say of him, "Dio hor siok!" meaning "so good to love" :D He has started speaking Singlish but the placement of "Lah" and "Lei" is like that of a foreigner trying to speak Singlish on purpose :p His chinese has also been described by my China cleaning lady as "rotten". He loves to sing the chinese songs he learns in school but they often sound funny, again like some ang moh speaking mandarin. But I really enjoy these moments when he sings with wild abandon, the joy in his face as he does.

In case you haven't noticed from the pictures, he gives this horrible cringed up face when we ask him to smile for the camera. Like so:




But when he doesn't, it's such a handsome face don't you think?


His photography skills have not improved very much since the first time we let him have the camera. But occasionally we get some good shots with no heads cut off :D




We brought him for a cable car ride last weekend, he had a great time and I hope he will be just as easy going when we head for Perth later this month.




Here's a shot he took of me with Dylan sleeping in the ergo.






This is his horrible look when we ask him to open his eyes for the camera :s


He demands your attention every now and then, "Mummy, see the crocodile!" pointing to the tv. I will murmur "Yes Kayden." and nod my head but all the time my eyes were still on the computer. He will then reply haughtily, "No you didn't see!" "I did Kayden, I saw." "NOooo! You were looking at the computer!" ahhh hahahaha :D On days when he's adament on his way, he will come right up to your face and put both his little hands on your cheek and speak right in your face "Look!" :s

He has the memory of an elephant but does not refer to time correctly. Something that has past will always be "yesterday" no matter how long ago it was. "Yesterday someone stepped on the snail, so poor thing." He was referring to a crushed snail shell I pointed out to him a few days ago. Yet he knows how to say "just now" when it happened not too long ago. Really wonder how the brain of a kid works, it's fascinating :)

My dear Kayden boy, no matter how much time mummy spends with di di, you know that you will always be my "big baby" and mummy loves you both equally - with all my heart!

Dylan Walks!

On Wednesday evening, 12 days shy of his 11th month, Dylan decided that he will walk! Yes, just like that, he removed his hands from the coffeetable and started to walk 5 steps towards me! Kayden and I started clapping and shouting HURRAY! that Dylan too started to clap for himself :D What joy! At his next attempt, I hurriedly whipped out my iPhone and captured the moment. Would love to upload the video here but I can't seem to download it from the phone :s Anyway it's full of my voice screaming praises at him bwahahaha!

The next day, he couldn't stop walking and did it the whole day! So pleased he was with himself, I have to take a picture of that smirky glee on his face :)

Then today I managed to get him walking recorded on the Lumix. See video below for the cutest penguin+duck walk ever :D



Time to do some shoe shopping for my baby :)