Christmas card family photo session

We decided to ask my brother to take our family pictures for the Christmas card this year. To make it easier for everyone (especially the kids), we selected a nearby park to do it. I must say that it was THE most challenging session we've ever done for our family Christmas card. It was difficult to have the kids look at the camera (at the right moment), AND asking them to smile. Plus, Wes had a meltdown a few times, which made it even more difficult. Really...my kids are THE most difficult kids to take pictures of! Thank goodness, we were able to get a few decent shots. Let's just say that my Photoshop skills also came in very handy ;) Enjoy the pictures below...

Behind the scenes pictures:

The kids were not looking (50%)



Funny/blank looks (25%)



Wes having a meltdown (24.5%)



SUCCESS RATE: 0.5% (Aaaghh...!!!)


A few shots I liked but didn't make it on the card:











This is the final card...

The importance of little moments

I brought Wesley with me when I dropped Kay at school today. Afterwards, we went to the park across from school and played there for a while. One thing I dislike is Wesley throwing a tantrum everytime it's time to go home. It's so frustrating having to carry a crying, struggling, heavy toddler! Hope this unpleasant period ends soon. When we got home, we took a short walk around the neighborhood. Wesley LOVES the fallen leaves. He was so fascinated by them and kept picking them up, crunching them, and examining them in great details. As always, he stopped by our neighbor's house to play with the red rocks that are scattered on their front yard. I love these moments of spending time with him!

At 2 yrs 8 months, Wesley is still drinking a lot of milk (like 5-6 bottles a day!) and refused to do it with a zippy cup. He was allergic to cow's milk up until a few weeks ago. We are slowly transitioning him to cow's milk. But the real issue is that he is very picky with solid food so he doesn't eat a lot of it and ends up needing a lot of milk. Right now, he lives on these few things...french fries, chicken nuggets, chicken noodle soup, hot dog, Ritz cracker, cereal, bacon, Oreo cookies, and Yoshinoya rice...that's it! He doesn't like regular rice, bread, ice cream, cookies, and many other things that typical kids would like. I wanted to document this so that when he gets over this picky-ness, I can look back and be grateful! Anyhow, he also has this interesting habit of rubbing the back of your arms while drinking his milk or trying to go to sleep. Below are some shots of him doing just that with me when drinking his milk. He loves to pick and pick on your arm until he can't find any more bumps/scabs or whatever else he finds. So strange, yet so endearing at the same time.

Around 3:30pm, I took Kay to the Yamaha piano class. She loves this class. It's a group class for ages 4-6. The teaching starts them on keyboard first and has a lot of singing, listening, and rhythmic movements. Kayleen is doing so well and is now able to play a few simple songs on the keyboard while following the music. She's come a long way and pretty soon she'll be able to play the actual piano. I'm so proud of her! Take a look at a short clip of her playing the keyboard...

Strange week

It's been a strange week with a few misfits... Today I had to go to my neighbor's house in my old neighborhood because I had sent out my print photo order to my old address. Apparently I didn't change my address information in my account. Plus, I found out that we had no drinking water today. Lovely....A technician came to change the filter yesterday and somehow managed to make our drinking water disappear. In addition, David bought me a nice wireless headset for my cellphone so I can comfortably make calls while on the road. It was supposed to be one of the best ones in the market so it shouldn't be too difficult to set up, right? Right, it was easy to set up except that it was somehow defective. I spent 30 minutes on the phone with the company troubleshooting the issue and concluded at the end that it was indeed defective. Sigh...

Thankfully, despite all of these unpleasantness, the kids behaved relatively well (except for the 15-minute meltdown of Wesley and Kayleen when we pulled them away from the technician who tried to fix our water, but that's minor compared to everything else!). After my running/driving around and the kids' nap, I took the kids out to the library so they won't go crazy at home. But what do you know...the library is CLOSED because it's Veteran's day (aaaagh....!!). I had to take them somewhere else to prevent the second meltdown of the day, so I took them to a nearby park. It was getting a little dark but the kids had fun for a little bit. They got to run around, played on the slides, and rode the little horses. The day didn't end badly and I'm glad the week is almost over.

Fine Motor Skills

I'm excited to share that Wes is starting to acquire the fine motor skills. Below is a little video clip of him cutting a piece of paper. He is 2.5 years old and you can see how he is compared to Kay, who is now quite comfortable holding the scissors and cutting. We need to continue practicing but I think he is well on his way :)

Playdate with Miss C's

We had a wonderful playdate with Kayleen's old Gymboree friends today. The two Miss C's and their mommy came over our house. They had a slight detour on their way here since I mistakenly gave them the wrong direction (telling them to go West vs. East, duh..I felt so bad!). This was the first time they visited our new house so we gave them a little tour. Kay had a great time playing dress-up with Catherine, and I had a nice catch-up time with Maria. Wes tried to join-in once in a while, and Charlotte curiously explored her new surroundings. They went home around 2 o'clock. Hope we get to do this again soon! Check out these girls, aren't they so cute?!

Try to be Better

I spent a few hours last night reading my past blog entries and I really enjoyed it! I especially love the entries about the kids. They grow up so fast that it's wonderful to be reminded of the little moments that made up their lives at that point. Well, I'm sorry that I missed a whole year of it this past year but I will try to be better. It would be such a nice memento for our family if I keep this up. We'll see :)

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Christmas session with the R family

Geez...looks like it's been a year since I updated this blog! Tons of things had happened, mostly we had been very busy with moving to our new house and getting settled in the new area. Before we know it, Christmas is almost here again! And I have the pleasure once again, to capture my most faithful client...the R family. Miss E is now 4 and Miss H is 2. How time flies! Take a look at this beautiful family...they are the perfect model family! Good looking and very cooperative. Sigh...a photographer's dream I tell you :) M & M, enjoy the photos!