When Momma was away...

Nanny put Nick in a cupboard!

Lunch @ Sushi Tei

Nick loves the Japanese sticky rice, grilled fish, and chawan mushi at Sushi Tei. Here is a pic of Nick on our last trip there. Last week I also took him to my fave restaurant, Beautika, and confidently ordered Tinutuan for Nick. Unfortunately, he didn't like it. I was a bit surprised and a teeny bit disappointed coz' I craved for it during my pregnancy (so I thought he would love it!). There were times when I HAD to stop and get it every time I passed by the restaurant. I would eat the porridge in the car and regretted that I didn't get two portions instead of one. Hee hee hee...

Book Review... Again!

Here are two cute books that are currently available at Aksara:

Let's Pretend Rose's Doll's House (Let's Pretend) (Board book)
by Roger Priddy (author)

I saw the cutest book that popped up into a dollhouse at Aksara. It comes with little cardboard dolls and I think it was for Rp. 279k (Amazon price: $11.21). It's a GREAT prop for a little girl's pretend play. Too bad I don't have a daughter… still it took tremendous amount of self-control to walk out of Aksara without that super adorable book.

Clackers: BEE (Clackers) (Board book)
by Luana Rinaldo (author)

My friend gave rave reviews on this one (she even remembered the lines by heart ^_^ ^_^). The book is shaped like a bee and makes clacking sounds that babies love and the story is very cute. I think this is a great baby book and they still have a few copies at Aksara. So hot mama, hurry hurry… go get ‘em! Price: Rp. 55k (Amazon price: $4.99). Oh, they have another title called FISH.

One Fine Day

Cute Baby Snapshots – Anyone?

Motherhood brings me a new interest… photography! I love love love taking pictures of Nick, especially during the first few months of his life (it’s harder to take his pics nowadays since he always tries to grab the camera from me). I have to admit that I was not really big on taking pictures and I didn’t even own a camera until a week before Nick was born.

To my own surprise, I was really really proud of my early snaps. I guess my expectation was pretty low because I was just using a low-end digital pocket camera (it never came across my mind that skills and equipments are secondary when you have a mega cute object like Baby Nick. Ha ha ha!). However, I’ve been noticing more and more “flaws” on my shots lately. I mean, no one really comments on my photo taking techniques when they see my work, but I feel something is missing (aha! I even claim photography as a productive hobby now! – you should really see my husband’s face when I refer to the pics as “my work.”).

So, anyway, I went back and reviewed my snapshots, went online to lots of baby photographers’ websites and came up with a few good tips and tricks and ideas for better results.

First and foremost, planning is everything and these are the things that you may have to think about ahead of time:

• Lighting. Natural light a.k.a. sunlight is best according to one photographer. Another photographer thinkst that the best time to take pics are in the morning before 10AM and in the late afternoon around 4-5 PM on a sunny day. I totally agree with this because the best pics I’ve taken are taken during sunny mornings and/or late afternoons under lots of sunlight.

• Background. Don’t forget to remove the mess: bottles, burp clothes, piles of laundry, etc… Place your baby on a clean blanket… for a contrasting look, you can dress your baby in solid bright colors and put him/her on a white blanket and vice versa. You can even create your own “backdrop” by taping a cloth to the wall. Something that I am planning to try next week (let’s pray my son will cooperate)… using batik as a backdrop and have my son in diaper only.

• Clothings. Don’t be afraid to experiment with the styles and colors. You’ll never know until you see it in prints (or computer screen – if you use a digital camera like me). For example, one photographer specifically says NO NAVY because it just looks bad. You know what, my son looks gorgeous in navy! However, I can’t say the same thing when it comes to yellow. Then again, I didn’t notice this until I saw the pics.

• Experiment with the “photojournalistic” style. Shots some pictures when your son/daughter is busy playing/eating biscuit/swimming while keeping in mind the lighting, background, and clothings.

Last but not least, HAVE FUN!

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