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I figured with such nice, new photos at hand, I might as well customize a new header for this blog to replace the old one below:
So, this isn't a new blog at all, don't worry, it's just me trying to be creative and using some of my favourites from the recent photos. Hope you like it!

Photos: Action! (Part III)

The last part of the professional studio photographer shots were taken in the studio on Wednesday. Since they were going to take more family shots for us to choose from, the photographer also captured some individual poses of Rosabelle.


Maybe it was the unfamiliar surroundings, but she took some time to warm up and give us her cheery smiles. She liked this bannister prop so much that she kept looking at it long after it was taken away. However, it was super dusty at the bottom and I watched in horror as her clean, white stockings helped mop the dust away, ewwww.....

She is giving her classic 'lion roar' here, as she goes 'aaaahhhh...'. This is a nice, rare shot of Wayne and Rosabelle, as most of the time, I am the one playing around with her, heh!

And ta-dah, another family photo that we are more satisfied with. Rosabelle refused to look at the camera and had to be distracted by flowers/fake fruits that the assistant had to distract her with. The girl made the wrong choice of bringing along a fake bunch of grapes, and the fruit being her favourite, Rosabelle of course wanted to grab at it and kept clamouring her '拿拿拿拿拿!' until we let her hold it. So there, a nice family pic...and a bunch of grapes (she even bit on it afterwards, haha!).

After that, whilst waiting to load the photos and select them, our tired model again replenished her fluids. Obviously, this is a shot taken by our trusty Canon - dark and blurry... enough of studio photos, and back to the harsh reality, hoho.

Stay tuned for what the end coffee table book will turn out to be like. We'll of course also be framing some photos (perfect for the blank wall in between both rooms), and perhaps doing a simple book/calendar for my and Wayne's parents as well.

Photos: Camera... (Part II)

Part 2 of the photo shoot pictures have Rosabelle posing in her own bed, grabbing some of her favourite toys.

Then we wanted to capture her baby fats whilst they lasted, so we got some shots of her with just her panties on (and drinking up alot of water...).

She shows off her 'I'm One!' sign trick.

Nowadays, she gets tickled whenever I present her with her small toys wrapped in her saliva towel, and she will eagerly unwrap the 'present' and give me a gleeful look.

Here, she even shows off her mouth bubble-blowing trick whilst welding her conquest of a caterpillar toy.

This is the shot where the photographer was standing on the bed and almost killed me with the pungent smell coming from his socks...

I'd like to caption this something heartwarming like 'Behind every happy child is a loving mother', but I seriously look more like a Filipino maid doing an awkward chicken flapping dance even as I cheer my own daughter on as she strides with her walker.

I love her sweet smile captured here.

She does some cruising/exploring around the coffee table and TV console area.

This is the only family shot we shortlisted from the miserable 4 in the series...oh well...it doesn't look too bad, does it?

Photos: Lights... (Part I)

Cam-whoring session begins! Since there are 39 photos in all to load from the Chocolate Box photo shoot commemorating Rosabelle turning a year old, I thought I'd split them into 3 different posts comprising of a few different sets of dresses Rosabelle donned, heh!

I'd chronicled the shoot itself that took place in our home on November 5, where the photographer actually took a total of 84 shots. We had a hard time trying to shortlist it to about 30 photos (or risk paying for exorbitant packages and/or RMB35 for each additional piece of photo we wanted). How it works is the photo studio only burns onto a CD-rom the photos we have selected, and in the end, when we went there for our repeat family shot on Wednesday (they presented another 12 individual/family shots for us to choose from, gaaak!), we ended up choosing a grand total of 39 (for RMB1,786 - 5% discount courtesy of Vanessa since they said it's a friend's recommendation, heh!), but we again have to further shortlist 25 from them to be designed into a coffee table book (which I'll be busy working with the studio on over the next week or so).

I looked at all the photos at least 20 times over, trying to wield my harsh axe of deleting and deleting so we won't end up with too many! We also decided to get them to do away with the various framed photos/printed posters etc (just want a book as the end product) as we figured we can get them done cheaper at Kodak shops, so we actually got 9 more than the usual 30 photos in the package.

So...presenting the first series of our girl in her full glory... First off, a not-too-glam shot!
Then she started milling around the sofa...

And slowly warmed up.

I like how our wall paper and shoe couch pose as such an arty-farty background for Rosabelle.

Here she is, pretending how to make a phone call.

And posing with the hat that she wore for only two milliseconds before pulling it off...

Windows and kitchen cabinets can also pose as nice backdrops for her.

After that, she gets comfy on our bed.

Where she chomps on toes... Chomps on plastic toy dogs...

And starts getting tickled by me...

(Note to self: Money spent on manicure the day before was worth it, if only for the brief appearances of my hand/nails. Er-hem.)

Amazingly, no pictures!

This post is going to be text-intensive as my next few posts will be pictures galore as we have selected the photos from our family photo shoot, yaay! More on that later, whilst I go into verbal diarrhea...

Rosabelle has picked up yet another animal sound - that of a fish. I tried to show her how the fish opens/closes its mouth to make 'ooom, ooom' sounds, and she also did the same thing, opening/closing her mouth whilst making smacking noises. Nowadays, whenever she picks up the animals book, she will inevitable turn to the first page with the fish on it and make that sound.

She also has some hilarious escapades during meal times, knowing how to use her fingers to pull her shirt bib up and shake it ever so slightly, as that's what the nanny does whenever it's the end of a meal and before she is being carried up - the nanny will shake Rosabelle's bib to remove any food pieces, and our girl has picked up on that. Whenever she does not want to eat anymore, and wants to be carried up, she will signal it by shaking her bib, with added dancing at times, heh!

Whenever she eats well, or drinks enough water during meal times, the nanny will praise her with a thumbs-up sign, and though Rosabelle does not know how to do the same thing, she knows how to use both index fingers and point at the nanny with a cheeky grin on her face, whilst moving her body up and down in tandem. Whenever she has a good mouthful of food/water these days, she will automatically use both index fingers and move them up and down at the nanny, haha!

However, she was a little over-enthusiastic in feeding herself yesterday, and bit down too hard/quickly after putting a morsel of food into her mouth, clamping down on her own finger by accident. I heard her crying, with tears flowing down her cheeks, as the nanny was feeding her, and immediately went out to comfort her and distract her with a toy. We don't normally cajole her, but it was a different, more painful, type of crying this time round, and I could see a tiny bite mark on her own index finger, poor thing!

She also had another minor 'accident' just now as she was crusing along the TV console - she lost her footing and hit her mouth against the edge of the table, and immediately cried and put a finger to a mouth. I got slightly worried when I saw blood on the finger she pulled out, then realized she had cut the upper lip against her tooth, but luckily there wasn't too much bleeding and she stopped crying after about 5 seconds, phew! But she probably feels uncomfortable with a slight lump at the lip, and cried during eating when her finger poked at it, and again cried when she pulled at it when chewing on her fingers. Oh dear me... hopefully she does not turn out to be as clumsy as Mummy!

Winter Wonderland

After being cooped at home the whole of yesterday due to cold weather and a midnight heavy snowfall, we woke up today to bright and chirpy sunshine, albeit with snow covering the whole area within our estate. Temperatures have dipped sub-zero, but we could not wait to get out and let Rosabelle experience her first snow since the weather was good.
As you can see, we have her wrapped up nicely and snuggly, complete with new gloves to protect her small hands from the biting cold, and with her new pair of fur-lined shoes.

She was very excited to see other friends, though there are lesser and lesser kids coming out nowadays and it's rare to have more than 5-6 of them at any one time.

Here she is, being slightly over-enthusiastic and wanting to reach out to and 'love, love' Gao Yiwei...

She likes to lean on/walk around strollers these days, giving me headaches about her trousers which get terribly dirty from being rubbed against the stroller wheels..

Even when Gao Yiwei was rather nonchalent about the warm welcome, Rosabelle still did not give up.

At one point, Rosabelle was quite frustrated at not being able to grab hold of Gao Yiwei's buttons (as she has gloves like that of a baking glove, and did not separate her fingers from her thumb, so she basically could not hold anything, haha!).

That's her looking mighty cheery from hassling older kids.

Daddy still loves you, little terror or not.

We then made a little round around the estate, taking photos (not our car) of a car that was covered in a blanket of snow...

And letting Rosabelle gingerly step on snow for the first time.

That was the only shot of her looking at the camera - she was much too excited about the soft snow covering her shoes to look at me after that. We had to carry her away as she was busy kicking away at the snow, getting her shoes and trousers wet, heh!

This is yet another friend of hers, Chen Wanyi, who looks like he is geared for the North Pole.

These days, it's a nightmare to get Rosabelle back into her stroller - she just refuses to sit in it, and it does not help that she is wearing more clunky and slippery clothing, making it harder for us to buckle her in. Yet again, it could be because the straps are too stifling that she feels uncomfortable. The other day, since she refused to let me buckle her in, I just let her sit in it, unbuckled. On the way back, I suddenly heard her cry out 'Mama! Eh, Mama!', and saw her slide under, with her arms raised beneath the stroller handle. It was quite dangerous, and rather hilarious, at the same time. I told her, 'See, it's very dangerous huh? Luckily you know how to call Mama to save you, or you would have dropped onto the road!'.

It's going to still be cold over the next few days, so hopefully she can enjoy more of the morning sun, as it gets dark (and cold) by around 5 pm these days, making it hard for us to make it to and enjoy our evening walks.