these little moments

2011 was such a good year, full of adventures, growth, goals accomplished and gifts of life. It was also my busiest year ever, personally and professionally. I have so much good to look back upon and so much to be thankful for.

Those big moments are ones we will always remember, but I want to remember the more ordinary moments too. I look back on them most fondly for I have a feeling that our every day moments of 2012 will look quite different (in the best of ways).

I welcome 2012 with open arms, there is already so much to look forward to!

Happy New Year friends.

A Christmas Surprise

All I want for Christmas is a Mojo bouffant for me and a salt and pepper Mea beard for Jinny!

A little while ago, Jin and I commissioned Melinda & Chris to do collaborative cat portraits of Mea and Mojo with no rush of a timeline. We were surprised when they handed us two lovely packages in time for Christmas and were even more surprised when we opened them to find that they snuck Jin and I in the portraits too!!

Just imagine howls of laughter when the paintings were revealed to us! Jin and I were completely blown away! And for the cherry on top, Chris handmade the frames for the paintings! What an amazing Christmas surprise!

Happy holidays and Merry Christmas from Jinny, Mea, Mojo and I (and char siu bao is hiding in there!), courtesy of Melinda & Chris!! This year has been an amazing and eventful one for our growing little family and I am very much looking forward to spending time with our family and a few quiet days at home with Jinny and Mea and Mojo this week.

Now I must head back to our Christmas festivities (which translates to "eating all day")! Bye everyone!

(I replaced the images of the paintings with scans Melinda provided me. They are much more accurate to the real paintings!)

(Thank you Henry for taking the photo of Jinny and I!)

mojo's lazy weekend

He found sunny spots to hang out in and soft spots to nap in.

He decided to be nice and share the bed with Mea one morning (the sight of them together made me laugh when I woke up to find them staring at me!).

And he loves hanging out with his daddy when he is working on the computer.

Jin and I had a really fun weekend spending time together and Mojo made sure he was always present! oh Mojo!

treasures I brought home

I love what I do because I feel like people ask me to take pictures and hang out with amazing people and this weekend was the ultimate amazing-people-hanging-out-time. When Becky approached me asking if I'd be interested in taking photos and documenting City of Craft 2011 a few months ago, I didn't even hesitate to say yes! I knew it would be a weekend of inspiration being surrounded by so many talented vendors. Now City of Craft has come and gone and it was amazing. I hope you had the chance to drop by.

I wanted to bring home so much more but I had to practice much self-restraint.

I got a Squirrel Crest Bottle from rcboisjoli for my brother because I saw him eyeing it when he came to visit me at the show.

Some very soothing balm from Truth & Beauty for my ever growing belly (it has worked really well so far too!)

I couldn't resist getting this pretty necklace for myself from the talented duo, Caboto!

This lovable Lucky Number 13 Cat from Fools Gold will probably keep char siu bao company in the nursery!

A few shots I took this weekend are already up! You can see them in this flickr set. Watch for more in the coming weeks!

Week 21

From these photos, it doesn’t look like I grew much from last week to this week but I feel bigger and I can no longer say that I have a pudge. Some days I feel great and I forget that I am pregnant, but char siu bao will give me a tiny little kick me to remind me that she’s still there! Other days, I feel like I am in a baby brain haze (today is one of those days) but it is not so bad because everyone has been so sweet and understanding!

I am really grateful to have friends who are looking out for me. Some of our friends who have recently had babies have been passing along some good advice and a lot of Jin’s friends who already have kids cannot wait to give us their good hand me downs (yess!).

I also feel really grateful to have a friend to be pregnant with! Juli is only 2 weeks ahead of me and we have been checking in on each other to see how we’re doing! Juli, John, Jin and I finally went for a lovely dinner together last night and it was so nice to be with friends who are going through the same stages as you are! Juli and I plan to meet regularly for tea and hopefully complete some baby sewing projects together! I can’t wait!

Now back to editing and preparing for a weekend of City of Craft! Hope to see you there!

Pom Pom Party

Last Friday, City of Craft held a decorating party at The Workroom in preparation for their annual holiday show coming up next week. This year, they decided to decorate with pom poms!! I haven’t made pom poms since I was in daycare, it was so much fun!

I am excited to tell you that I will be photographing and documenting the fun happening at the City of Craft this year so come by and say hello next weekend!

There are a few holiday craft shows full of handmade goodies happening tomorrow. If you are around the Kensington area, you should drop by Handmade Holiday by Kid Icarus and NOOK’s holiday sale!

It's December (already!), let the holiday crafting begin!

Victory Patterns!

Kristiann is the talent behind Victory Patterns, a line of fashionable and unique sewing patterns for various skill levels. I was so excited when we met a few months ago to talk about shooting the line and I am so proud to see how everything came together! She launched Victory Patterns yesterday!

Kristiann made my job so easy, she put a beautiful girl in beautiful outfits in front of my camera and the outcome is amazing! Thank you Erin for being such an amazing model! It is hard to choose which pattern my favourite is but I am quite fond of the Madeleine skirt and the Hazel dress! It is definitely on my sewing to do list post pregnancy.

See more pieces from the launch here.
And if you sew, take a look at the full pattern collection in her online shop here.



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Thank you sincerely for all the heart felt comments, emails and tweets on char siu bao’s gender reveal! I thought it was really sweet that some of you wrote that you teared up a little! I am so happy I could share this amazing moment of our lives with you.

drumroll please!

We were so happy to hear from our midwife that our little char siu bao looks healthy from the ultrasound we did earlier this week but we gave our midwife specific instructions not to tell us if it was a boy or a girl!

Instead, we asked if she could write it down on a piece of paper and seal it in an envelope so we could open it when we got home. Gabe kindly came over to capture this moment for us on camera because of course, I had to have it documented!

Jin and I cannot stop laughing at the pictures of our reactions! We are a little embarrassed by our goofy faces but we are overjoyed!















IT'S A GIRL!

I was completely surprised! (I really thought it would be a boy!)

And Jinny is in BIG trouble (in the best of ways!).