Happy 4th Birthday Kayden!

To my lovely firstborn,

You are 4 today! How quick the past year flew by. From a terribly shy 3 year old, you have now emerged out of your shell and are so talkative that it drives those around you crazy with your incessant chatter and questions :p Your vocab is superb and I just look at you in awe sometimes when you use words that I have never taught you before or when you string together sentences with whatever words you know in order to make us understand you.

You are kind and sensitive. While watching a documentary on elephants the other night, I explained to you that the baby elephant died soon after birth as it was too weak. You were silent and watched as the mummy elephant gave her dead baby a nudge then shed tears as she walked away to rejoin the herd. I hear you silently sobbing then suddenly you bawled your lungs out! It took a good few minutes for me to calm you down. How cute are you? :)

However I've noticed that you are also capable of being a bully. At your birthday pool party, you were enjoying yourself going down the pool slide but as you were slow, the kid behind you knocked onto your back and after you both landed in the water, I saw you turned around and pushed the kid angrily. That was the first time I see you react this way. Maybe it's a survival trait but I do not like it and gave you a warning. I hope you will be more peace loving among your peers. So far we have not heard any bad news from the school so keep it up baby!

The obsession you have with cows for the past year is finally wavering and you are beginning to take an interest in other animals now like the elephant, sharks and crocodiles. You still have the memory of an elephant and I hope you will always remember that your mummy loves you very much although I have to spend more time taking care of didi. Today you reminded me of the dead baby elephant, you say, "Mummy, the baby elephant was two weeks then it die already, then the mummy elephant cry." I didn't understand and kept asking you why two weeks? Was it two weeks ago we saw the programme? Did you mean the baby elephant died two weeks ago? After you kept repeating a few times I finally understood! You remembered what I explained to you about why the baby elephant die, that it was "too weak"! Hahaha, your daddy and I laughed when we finally figured it out :p

You like to announce out of the blue, "Mummy, I want to tell you something!" Then you will wait patiently for me to say, "What?" to which you will reply, "I love you!" Awwww, it always melts my heart :D You also love your baby brother "so so very much" as you like to tell us before kissing him 100 times on the sole of his feet with loud smooching sounds. Yes, that's your favourite spot for kissing your didi. It's hilarious seeing you kiss him like that, it's like an addiction! You are extremely protective of your little brother too especially when we are out of the house. When I let go of didi's hands while walking with him outdoors, your face will tense up tight as you scream for me to hold him, the look on your concerned face fearing that your brother will somehow disappear if I let go of his hands :s

Some annoying quirks you have picked up includes:
1. You will start crying each time the DVD you are watching is ending and you will shout in a panic to either of us to switch to the TV channel for you.
2. You eat so slooooooooooooooowly, each meal takes at least 30mins to an hour! It's especially frustrating as your father and I are fast eaters.
3. When you pass urine at night before you sleep, you will ask your daddy or me to hold your "kukujiao" for you instead of doing it yourself. Yes, only at night. In the day you can hold it yourself :s
4. Whatever baby is playing with at that moment, you HAVE to go snatch it from him just to make him wail for it. Arrgh!
5. You like to make a silly funny face each time we ask you to smile for the camera :p

As parents, we love you because of all these quirks and not despite of them. But please try and eat faster la! ;) And don't bully your didi ok? kekeke

I hope you enjoyed your day out with Mummy and baby today watching the movie UP and here's wishing you many many many more HAPPY BIRTHDAYS my son!

love, hugs and kisses,
mummy

Now I know what I've been missing

Last Saturday, I bought my first full frame DSLR, the Nikon D700. I tested it out immediately at home on the kids. It was already night, and they were both watching Ice Age 2 (check out their intense concentration and occasional bursts of laughter from Kayden), so that will have to do. I pumped up the ISO to 6400 expecting some noise but CHECK IT OUT, this shot below at 100% zoom, at a ridiculous ISO6400, it is freaking AMAZING! I was blown away by the performance of my new toy! Now I know what we Nikonians have been missing from the Canonians :p Even the grain is unlike those annoying digital garb I get from my D200, the grain on the D700 is almost film like. I can't be happier with my buy, this is one SUPER DUPER CAMERA, now when's my 20mm coming?

at 100% zoom:


all the images were converted to monotones within the camera and I just added a slight curve in photoshop










Dylan discovered my camera and tried to make a grab at it ;)

We are farmers after all

Sorry for the lack of posts, I have been busy "farming" on Farmville :p It's a game on Facebook where you grow your own crops and tend to your farm animals, visit friend's farms, give each other gifts of trees and animals and basically make more money to expand your farm and have fun! I thought I'd just try it out when friends told me about the game, little did I know that it would take over my life! I plant my crops according to when they will be ready for harvest. For if you don't harvest them in time, they will all wilt and die. Yes I'm serious hahahaha! So anyway each day I tend to my farm first thing when I wake up, in between shoots and when I get home. It's taking over all my free time!

I guess deep down we are all farmers.

Here are some pictures of my farm:


I even bought a tractor to help me with the plowing :p




the pic below is Ik Hui's farm, so pretty:


Why stop at a tractor, let's get a harvestor!

When I grow up (Part 2)

I want to be a great basketball player like Michael Jordan...


and daddy!




see Part 1

Our first pair of newborn twins!

Xavier and Cayman are 3 weeks old and boy are they handsome! The bigger one is the little brother ;) Charlene and I are pretty happy with some of the shots we got from the session. Here are a few to share, more on our Facebook.

Second time around

When I became a second time parent with Dylan, I never thought I would become this cool and relaxed about it. I am amazed at myself, check out the difference!

1. Breastfeeding
With Kayden, breastfeeding was stressful. Before he arrived, I bought breastpads, nipple cream, nursing tops. I was strict with the timings I fed him and always worry if he has enough or if I am feeding him the wrong side.

With Dylan, breastfeeding's a breeze! I had zero breastpads or tubes of nipple cream, no new nursing tops. I let him nurse whenever he wants to and if I forget which side I last fed him, I just go oh well, that leaves plenty more on the other side when he next nurse :p

2. Food
I was so excited to start Kayden on solids, I bought baby cookbooks and read up a lot before deciding what to feed him. Every puree I MUST cook myself, NO bottle food please. ALL food that passed through him must be organic. NO sweet stuff till he was like past 18months.

When it came time to try Dylan on solids, I was a bit less excited. Sure I still cooked some of his food but bottle food are no longer banned, in fact, they were a welcomed convenience :) If I was having a chocolate muffin and Dylan looked like he wanted some, I would give him a bite!

3. Germs
I was paranoid of germs going onto my first born. Everything was clinically clean. When he dropped a toy on the ground, that's it, no touching it till after it's been washed with Dettol. When someone on the train coughs or sneezed in his direction, I will quickly turn him away from the offender and dramatically fan with my free hand all that invisible germs surrounding him and if the offender was still around, I would give him a good hard scowl for being so daring as to cough or sneeze in front of my baby!

With Dylan, I still stare at people who cough or sneeze at him but no more fanning action *LOL*. Toys dropped are picked up and given back to him to his delight. He gets away with eating with unwashed hands.

4. Milestones
From pregnancy right up till he was past 2years old, I was anxious of the milestones he was supposed to achieve. Every month I will know what to expect and will make sure that he achieves it.

When pregnant with Dylan, I hardly worry except that one time when I missed a couple of steps down the staircase. I enjoyed each milestone as and when they came and I was hardly stressed at all making sure he achieved them :)

5. Sickness and accidents
The other day when Dylan fell and bumped his head quite badly, resulting in a panda eye as the blood flowed down, I didn't panic and rushed to the hospital as I would have previously with a young Kayden. I just monitored his condition. We even self medicate nowadays with Kayden, using medication we had gotten previously from the paed. I must stress that this is ONLY for common ailments like fever, cough or runny nose, please do not follow our example :p

For all you first time parents reading this post, I think you must have shook your heads a few times already, tsk tsk-ed a couple of times and some may have your jaws dropped at point #5 :p I apologise if I shock you but when you have your second/subsequent child, you will know what I mean - totally! Meanwhile, try and enjoy each moment with your child instead of stressing over what you should be doing. Don't worry! Everything will fall into place :)

World Breastfeeding Week 2009

It's the World Breastfeeding Week again! This year we will be participating in the event organised by the Breastfeeding Mothers' Support Group. It will be on Aug 22nd (this saturday!) at HealthZone, Level 2 of the Health Promotion Board. More details here. Come on down from 11am onwards and join us for treasure hunt, games, shopping, food, talks, contests and craft activities! The Studio Loft will have a shooting booth there complete with backdrop and studio lights. For just $10, get a professionally taken picture of you and your child to participate in the parent-child lookalike contest or if you are shy and prefer to let your child have all the limelight then dress your little one up for a solo shoot. 10% of all proceeds collected from the event will go to BMSG so do come on down and lend your support to breastfeeding mothers :)

We also helped BMSG produced the TVC for the event, as usual Candida from Funhouse Digital did the editing.



We look forward to meeting everyone this Saturday, see you there!

Over the National Day weekend

I had a relaxing break from work!

Erwin finally had a chance to feed the small one ;)


The boys got these cool shades from the goody packs of DeZheng's birthday party and they had a great time goofing around in them :p








We decided to have brunch at Jones The Grocer for a change and the interior totally brought us back to our Perth holiday. Kayden was asking if we were in "another Australia"?














Now I am looking forward to my next long weekend which is in September for Kay's birthday party :) I hope you had an enjoyable weekend with your family too!

Cheeky!

The cheeky boy is 14 months old! He's always up to some kind of mischief especially when he has his partner in crime with him - Kayden :p He cracks me up when he imitates what he observes, like swinging his arms back and forth like how Braddell View Gong Gong exercises...when you least expects it, he suddenly comes up to you and says "tiki tiki tiki" while tickling your tummy with his little fingers (like how his brother and me like to do to him) :D

The eyeshadow he has been sporting for the past few weeks over his right eye was my fault :( I turned away for a second to get his towel after his bath and he slipped and fell down from the sink. Ahhh, his daddy never let me forget it. That hurt :s

Anyway my cheeky little boy, you make me smile always without fail with your cheeky grin, happy 14th month :)

Shin Min newspaper interview

No, of course the interview wasn't conducted in mandarin! haha, they translated what I said. Not sure if it's accurate though as I can't read 90% of what's in the article. Thanks Ik Hui for helping with the scan :)

Jenna!

Jenna is just 10 days old and oh so tiny! She only pee-d twice and both times on her daddy :p









more on our Facebook page

We are on Facebook

There's no denying that the web social tool, Facebook is a phenomenon. Everybody you know is on it and the founders are laughing all the way to the bank selling advertising through it. So inevitably, The Studio Loft now has a Facebook page :p Please visit our page and add yourself as a fan (if you are ;p). We will be uploading our work on a weekly basis so please check back often for updates. Thank you! :)

The Studio Loft on Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Studio-Loft/110502084648?ref=nf