A Thankful Christmas!!!

This Christmas, I would like to give thanks.
Thanks to my husband for doing the household chores, for tutoring Kayden, for feeding the kids breakfast each morning, for clearing Momo's poop and for chauffeuring us around.
Thanks to my kids for being the cheekiest and cutest rascals you can have around to perk up your everyday!
Thanks to my staff and vendors for keeping our studio running efficiently and profitably.
Thanks to my in-laws for cooking dinner and saturday lunches for the kids and looking after them on days when we can't.
Thanks to my dad for being our studio's handyman and the kids' go-out Gong Gong.
Thanks to the big man upstairs for our health.
And thanks to having peace on earth.
Wishing everyone and your loved ones a very Merry Christmas!

To Santa from The Studio Loft

Dearest white bearded fat man in red suit aka Santa, for Christmas our studio needs the following:

• a MacBook pro for the boss whose HP laptop feels like a hot grill when in use
• the biggest screen iMac for WenLin, who needs more desktop space for her retouching work. if u can fit dual monitors into your sack, even better!
• a new fulltime colleague who can work well with us
• backdrop pulley system that doesn't break or comes loose every other week, it sucks for two girls to have to climb up and down the ladder each time we need to roll up the backdrop paper
• Nikon D3X or upcoming D800, one for each of us please
• a NAS storage system or 8Tb of hard disk space for all our data storage and backup for 2011
• plenty of wonderful clients with happy kids that are never cranky and newborns who don't pee or poop on us :p

Hope our requests are not too much of an ask, we have been really good this year! Thank you in advance :) Our stocking is hanging at 58A Pagoda Street :p

love,
The Studio Loft

The Dinosaurs Are Alive!

Ok so obviously we cannot miss this show right since Kayden is so dino-crazy! Walking With Dinosaurs - The Arena Spectacular, was AWESOME! At first when we didn't know much about the show, we thought what could the dinosaurs possibly do for the hour or so? They can't sing and dance like Barney right? Haha! But boy were we impressed! There was a storyline told and unfolded by a paleontologist character (taking you through a 200 million year journey), the props were appropriate and they moved with each scene (there was even a pile of dinosaur poop!), the sound effects was incredible and of course the dinosaurs themselves were very impressive especially the mechanical animation! It really was as if the dinosaurs are alive again! If they do come to Singapore again, you have to catch the show, it truly is a great production :)

Our dino buff eagerly awaiting for the dinos to appear


Don't be scared didi!


Gor Gor's here to protect me :)


one of their favourites, the Stegosaurus


Brachiosaurus








a flying one! the Ornithocheirus


2 Torosaurus fighting, one of them had it's horn broken!


and then the one we have all been waiting for emerges!


the mighty Tyrannosaurus Rex!


Boy he was intimidating! till the comet killed them all...


the paleontologist concluding the show


There were plenty of other dinosaurs, you can find out more about the show with a google search.

the WOW experience

It's no secret that I am very proud of my Kayden's art. He can draw very well from just using his imagination and some of his art are really abstract which I love. Check out his "Fire Rocket in Space" piece below.



Racing Cars


Family of Dinosaurs


Erwin and I have talked about encouraging this artistic side of him by sending him for art classes but I was kind of afraid that structured lessons teaching him the "proper" way of drawing, painting etc may influence or limit his creativity. So we have been sitting on the fence till now.

Last week, the kids and I were invited to a sneak preview of WowART Learning Studio's Holiday Workshop!



This was a great opportunity for me to check out art lessons for the kids and the boys were excited to be taken early out of school as well :) When we got there, I was amazed by some of the art on display done by kids as young as 3 years old. Here's an artpiece by a 4 year old titled Peacock. WOW!



At this workshop, we were supposed to create a whimsical Christmas art with the theme of Fantasy & Magical dreams. Now here's the catch, the kids were put in one room to do their art and we adults were placed in another room to do ours! I was afraid Dylan would act up without me around but the instructors assured me that he was blending in well and participating intently. I took a peek every now and then and he really seemed very serious about his art together with his gor gor by his side!





Here are some pictures on Wow's facebook. Check out Dyl's serious face :p

After about an hour, we finally finished and the artwork of the kids were compared with that of the adults. Adults' work tended to be more deliberate, we were more obsessed about getting things "right". The kids' work were more spontaneous :) Nonetheless everyone's work looked great!





WowART aims to develop creative confidence and inspiring expressions. They believe every child is an individual, and are confident that each child learns best when they explore, observe, express and play. To ensure that every child gets the most out of his learning experience, class sizes are kept small, to allow their team of dedicated and well trained instructors to nurture and encourage each child to grow intellectually, emotionally and creatively. Their learning courses are for children from the ages of 2 and a half years to 12 years old.



I like it that they use many different mediums in their art classes, from clay handling to glass painting! Do check out their website for more details. Here's to more WOW art from my boys in the weeks to come :)

I've hung their whimsical Christmas art pieces as ornaments on our Christmas tree. Don't they look great?





*all pictures in this post shot and edited with the iPhone*

neh-nee neh-nee poo poo

Of late, the boys have been uttering naughty words, thanks to influence by other kids in school. Using them on each other and in regular conversations, they will give a hearty guffaw after they've said them :s I've read that when they do that, just try not to react to them and it will eventually just be a phase they get over. BUT it's been more than a month and still, this goes on.

Typical banter between the boys:

K: Baby, you cannot catch me! Neh-nee neh-nee poo poo
D: I beat your backside!
K: Orh hor! Mummy, didi say "backside"!

They also enjoy saying the word "penis" in dialect:

(during bathtime)
K: Eeeee! Baby naked!
D: Gor gor, see my ku-ku jiao!
K: Didi is so naked!
D (starts singing and dancing): Twinkle twinkle ku-ku jiao!
Then the two of them starts laughing hysterically :s

Some other words they have been using are "chicken backside" and "ah boo neh neh". It's still not too bad when it's within our home but when we are outside in the company of others, it gets embarrassing.

Can't wait for this phase to pass, I should be thankful it's not the F word. Well, at least till they turn into teenagers! But that's another chapter.

The Perfect Employee

She came to us fresh from school, a young girl who has never held a baby before, little experience in dealing with clients, rather quiet and still green to the ways of the working world.

More than two and a half years later, she left us yesterday, a confident young woman about to embark on a new career. Wiser to the ways of the world, she is Charlene my longest serving employee.

It's funny thinking back to those days when Ashley and her will be looking after newborn Dylan in the studio while I am shooting. By the time he was 3 months old, the two girls were experts at patting him to sleep, clearing his soiled diaper (yes even the BIG business they can do it!) and playing with him. Often they would put him infront of the iMac and have photobooth sessions with him :p When he started solids, Charlene can manage preparing his meals and feeding him too. And the girls were a great help with the boys when we all went for a holiday in Perth.

How time flies, now Charlene can handle clients, shoot solo, tackle naughty kids etc. She even helps me with the marketing of the studio and overall I feel that she has been the best help for me and the business thus far. So when she broke the news to me that she wanted to fulfill a dream of hers in another career, I was kind of sad. But I have to be a good employer and not hold her back. After all, she has been with me for more than two and a half years and this is also her first job straight out of school so I should be thankful already that she has been with me this long. Young kids nowadays don't last more than a year in their first job. Char is the exception. She has the right attitude and is hardworking.

My dear girl, I wish you all the best in your new career and if you get bored of it, you can always come back to The Studio Loft haha :p Send me a picture of you in your kebaya to complete this blog post :) I hope you had enjoyed yourself working with us and take away with you some lessons in life and photography. I also hope that I've been a nice boss ;p Take care and we will miss you!

Me

i'm 37 today
but look slightly younger ;)
I became a wife at 29
a mother at 31
and have been shooting professionally since 2006
i use nikon exclusively
although at times I do use my iPhone
almost anything that involves numbers
i need them to be multiples of or add up to nine
eg. heating up the milk in the microwave has to be 27seconds, not 30.
keying in the levels for a shot in Photoshop has to be 234 and 63%, not 235 and 60%.
yes I think this is a problem especially since i can't have 9 kids :p
i am not into luxury clothings or accessories
why pay hundreds or thousands for a LV or Coach bag when the repeated logo/emblem print on the bag is so ugly?
i am not shy to still whip out my Billabong wallet when paying for an expensive meal in a restaurant
hahaha even my employees have more luxury items than me!
i used to be a rocker and only like rock music
but now the sound of my children's laughter is the best music for my ears
my all time sports idol is Michael Jordan
the only sports I do now is watching :p
i am terribly messy, you should see my computer desktop
and secretly wish that I can have a personal assistant who can help me organise my everyday
my birthday wish for this year
is to be a better mother, wife and photographer

happy birthday to me! :)