A Very Pretty Glowing and A very pregnant mommy

I have always been intrigued with the beautifully taken pictures of pregnant mommies with their protruding tummy, that moment captured for all eternity.

So when my wife suggested that some shots be taken, being a avid photographer game to try out new challenges, I am more than happy to have a ever willing model for it. Where else am I going to convince another pregnant stranger to have me photograph her pregnant belly.

We were having a weekend holiday at Shangri-La KL, celebrating Ryan's 3rd birthday. We grab the opportunity to use the nice setting in the room for some shots.

This is definitely my first attempt at photographing a pregnant woman and I was frantically searching the web for some tips and tricks. It will also be the last time that I will be photographing my wife's very pregnant belly as we will be closing our production line after this....so, this is now or never ....

Wife is shy in showing the pictures taken, afraid that she would look unsightly but I think she has the most beautiful pregnant belly of all...and she really glows! (I think all husbands will think the same thoughts of their wives anyway).

So, without showing off any other pictures without her permission, I cannot help but to share this one picture which I loves very much ....

3 years of PURE JOY!

30th May 2011

Ryan finally turned 3 today. We have gone through great times with him in the last 3 years. He has brought us pure joy and occasional `nightmares' but everyday he surprises us with his new learning, new words, new actions with pure cheekiness...

I can still remember vividly 3 years ago, when wife was hospitalized early when her water bag burst. She was given steroids, antibiotic and medication to delay his arrival as he was pre-matured and the doctor wanted to make sure that his lungs have developed fully and properly. On the 29th May 2011, the doctor came and after a last minute check, confirmed that Ryan will be ready for delivery and scheduled the anticipated delivery the next morning from 9 to 10 am onwards. He stopped the medication that delayed the contraction at around 6pm. By 7pm, the contraction started. I remembered the nurses were checking on the contractions the whole night and we knew that this is it...Ryan is finally coming....


We have decided early that we are definitely going to get epidural despite advices from some well intended relatives and friends. However, given that my wife will even panic when she has to do a blood test, I just cannot imagine her having to go through the ordeal without it. By 12 midnight, we told the nurses that we need epidural. She came back with a form and asked us to read the small print bla bla bla before we sign...My wife was in too much pain to even bother then..."Just give me the pen and sign!"

And then we found out that the doctor to administer the epidural have to come from Ampang. We were told that he has been informed. When you are experiencing labour pain, every minute is like an hour, and he took one full hour to arrive ...hair unkempt (as if he just woke up from his sleep) and in slippers....(See also panic!.) He administered the first dose and said that it should work in 30 minutes....


30 minutes went past..and nothing! Wife was grabbing my arms and squeezing it so tight that I would need the epidural injection next....We called the nurse and he came in, looking puzzled! (Although I looked cool and calm then, I can tell you...panic lar...) He checked and then said he will administer a little bit more...and said something like "full dose already...emmmm" (You tell me....panic or not??)

I think the epidural finally worked around 3pm and wife got to sleep a bit. I was too tired by then and I went back to her room to grab a nap, ready for Ryan's arrival the next morning....

Woke up at about 6:50a.m and after brushing my teeth, stumbled to the labour room. Dr Guna was already there and RYAN WAS COMING!!!...OMG! So early ar???

Rushed back to the room, grabbed the video camera and ran to the labour room ..arriving just in time to hear my wife pushing and screaming ....Too panicky and no time to switch on video camera lar....just hold her hands and told her to push like hell...Dr Guna said "Can see the head now." I went to have a look and with one final push, "Whoossshh.....RYAN FINALLY ARRIVED!!" The first thought....RELIEF!!!...and the JOY then sank in .....

Time of arrival : 7:13 am.
Weight: 2.22kg
Length: 44 cm

....and I'm getting ready to go through all this again soon.....hahahaha.....


(Images captures with my Nikon D90 with Nikkor 50mm 1.8 portrait lens)

The Green Monster

Well...here is the picture of the Green Monster that some of you wanted to have a look from my last post on his 3 years old Birthday party ....

This very good friend promised that he will bring a `surprise' and the surprise turned out to be him in this Green Monster suit to surprise Ryan....

Unfortunately, my poor boy who is normally quite brave was totally horrified and terrified of him and have absolutely nothing to do with him....Not only is he so scared of the monster, he insisted that the monster suit which was lying on the ground in our home after our friend has taken it off, be taken out of the house ...!!

The funniest story of course was when he told us how he got to the wrong house along the same road who were also having a party, walked in completely suited up with minimum vision helped by his friend and started to realize that he has went to the wrong house when he could not recognize anyone there....

He told us as he turned and leave, he heard the children there (I guessed they were totally excited by then, thinking that they would have a green monster for their party) asking their parents or the adults, "Why is he GOING AWAY??" obviously with lots of disappointment ...

Sunday at CyberJaya

Last Sunday my wife wanted to drive by Cyberjaya to check out some new property launches out of curiousity and we took the opportunity to bring Ryan to the Cyberview Lodge for some fun photography. He was having a blast and I was happy having a super happy model running everywhere and posing ever so willingly.

The property that we were looking at are located near the Perdana Lakeview. So, we took the opportunity to capture some pictures of him against the backdrop of the lake and the scenic bridge at Putrajaya.

He was wearing the boxing gloves that he got as birthday present the night before.
A very pregnant mommy with this super active monster ....
He was super happy at the CyberView Lodge because there were plenty of space for him to run ...
I love this shot where mother and son was captured walking in unison .....

His ever famous Kung Fu Ip Man Wing Chun stance when taking pictures and I love this shot which captured that right moment ...
Fooling around captured on camera ...
I simply just love that cheeky grin on his face ....
One last picture with mommy before we headed for a drink by the poolside bar and left the place before the heavy downpour came down ......another Sunday afternoon well spent with loved ones and many wonderful moments captured to be remembered and cherished for a long time to come ...

3 years old Party - First Wave !!

It's May again and Ryan will turn 3 end of the month. We just had our first wave of parties to celebrate his 3 years old birthday. The first wave was held at home with some of my wife's close friends and colleagues, many of whom has literally watched him grow as well as those whom we have assigned the roles of `nannies' when they come visiting .....

For this celebration, we scout through the Internet and found this lovely lady who was very kind and gracious to rush us this beautiful Mickey Mouse and Mickey Mouse Club House cake complete with 32 individual cup cakes. We were thoroughly happy and thrilled with the cake and so were the guests.....




This year unlike last year where we invited over 50 friends, we have only invited only 16 very close friends and instead of catering like last year, I have decided to make some simple finger food and turned it into a wine and cocktail dinner party. Was rather busy cooking and preparing and hence only managed to grab only a few pictures of some of the finger food served for the night.....

Chicken Liver Pate served with tortilla chips ...
Smoked Salmon Dip served with tortilla chips ...
Pan Seared Tuna served on a piece of fresh lettuce with ebiko topping and wasabi sauce .....
Shrimp with bacon wrap served with Mango salsa in a fresh tomato .....
Mash potato with corned beef served in a oven baked potato skin ....

The night went well. A good friend even tried to surprise Ryan by purposely hiring a green dragon suit and came all dressed up (poor guy actually walked into the wrong house along the same road that was also having a birthday party and have to `run' away from the children of the wrong house). Unfortunately, our ever brave Ryan turned out to be totally horrified of the green dragon and decided to have absolutely nothing to do with it...a sincere effort went wasted but we as parents were absolutely delighted and grateful to this friend of ours who went through all the trouble ....:)

First 3D Glimpse

Date : 17th May 2011

We had our first 3D glimpse of our baby girl now that she is 29 weeks old. We wanted to do a full 3D scan. However, she wasn't too cooperative and the best image the doctor managed to get was the one above. Hence, we will be going back in two weeks time to do another 3D scan and hopefully we have better images of her.

For a time being, we are glad to have our first 3D glimpse of our soon to arrive new member of our family. Wife is officially grounded and would have to be monitored closely for the next 5 weeks to ensure that she doesn't have a premature delivery just like when we have Ryan.

Our anxious wait continues .....

Invasion of Gadgets !!!

The arrival of iPhone and iPad have I believed drastically changed the lifestyle of many both locally and abroad. I think (my opinion solely) that the craze has reached a feverish pitch which I think it's rather unhealthy.

I was having my dinner with my wife the other day at the Hyatt Saujana Ara Damansara. While we were talking and waiting for our dinner to be served, in walk a group of young people, 6 of them in their early 20s. They were sitting a couple of tables of away and the moment when everyone settled down in their seats, everyone brought out their SMART phones and iPhones and were all busy typing, texting, checking and God knows what...they were doing with the handset ....

Question: Why bother to meet up for lunch where everyone basically will sit there round the table and were busy texting someone else or busy updating their facebook telling others where they are and what they were eating...

Or would you let your children play with some apps on the iphone or ipad in order to keep them quiet during a function outside? I'm actually in a dilemma here. On one hand, I know for a fact that I will be able to keep Ryan glued to his seat if I give him something to occupy him like our phones or probably a Sony portable playstation (I think that is what it is called)....but on the other hand, am I starting him young on getting addicted to video games and replacing that with the simple pleasures of life like climbing trees and catching spiders and butterflies like I used to do ...

If he gets totally addicted to computer games or online games later in life and neglect his studies, can I discipline him in all honesty knowing that it was I who introduced him to it in the first place .....

What do you as parents think?

Getting Ryan ready .....

Ryan will turn 3 this coming 30th May and our little baby girl is now 30 weeks old. We believe that a 3 years gap between the old would be a good age gap between the two. Hopefully, they will get along well and he will love and protect his baby sister once she arrived.

I heard that a year gap between two siblings is not ideal as they tend to fight over things quite a fair bit. I for one is one example as I'm only one year older than my sister and I remembered that we fought like dogs and cats....

Anyway, we are doing everything we can to prepare Ryan for her arrival. Ryan is a rather possessive boy and demands lots of attention. I'm a little worry that he would be jealous and thinks that we don't love him as much when his baby sister arrives. We are quite glad at least Ryan is more receptive of my wife's pregnancy now. Whenever, we asked where is mei mei (sister), he would now point to his mommy's stomach and says, "..in mommy's stomach ...". We are also constantly getting him to rub his mommy's tummy to sayang (love) his sister and getting him to kiss the tummy to kiss his sister. So far, to our relief, he is rather receptive....all fingers crossed now as we prepare for the little one arrival ....

Any other good tips for us from parents who are experienced here ????

When the water bag burst...bring the handphone charger !!

Ryan is almost 3 years old now. As my wife and I were sitting yesterday at Damansara Specialist Center waiting to get my stress test done, (and we were there since 10am in the morning!), we were discussing on how should we celebrate his coming 3rd birthday. Naturally, we ended up talking and remembering fondly his arrival 3 years ago ....and I'm still laughed at for doing probably one of the most unlikely or `stupidest' thing in my life....

Wife was carrying Ryan for 34 weeks then. She was coughing badly and her work load has been pretty stressful during that period. May was their financial year closing, hence, the pressure of chasing of sales figures to make up the volume or the stretch target was always there ...

On the 28th May night, she came back late at 11pm after a stressful meeting with her boss. I remembered she walked in wearily and was so tired that she said she will skip dinner and would probably just take a bath and retired. Ryan was not due for another couple of weeks. Suddenly, she called out from the bathroom, while sitting on the toilet seat saying that she is `leaking'. I came rushing in and not knowing what to say (honestly) told her to continue sitting and wait awhile if the `leak' continues. After another minute or two, she said `yes..still leaking with a bit of blood.'

Honestly, I have started panicking inside but being a all macho husband, have to put up a brave front. Don't know ask me why, but the next thing I told her to do was....'Ok. Go and have your bath first.' Maybe experience tells me that a bath is something she would not have a chance to take for the next couple of weeks if Ryan is really arriving.

After her shower, she confirmed that she was still `leaking'. "Ok" I told her. "Water bag burst liow. Time to go hospital for check up now." sounding confident and like I really knew what I was doing.

So we changed and get ourselves ready. Then she asked me what to bring along. And I told her to make sure to bring her handphone charger !!!!! Why? I really don't know. Maybe because somehow I have the inclination that she would be admitted and would need to make calls. Maybe because she has the tendency to run her phone battery to the ground and always complained that her handphone battery is flat. Maybe because I knew that she would still be making calls over the next few days (even in the hospital) to chase sales figures since it is the financial year closing. I really don't know why. But, my wife obediently pack her handphone charger and off we went to the hospital.

Her water bag did burst though the baby wasn't due yet. Wife ended up hosptilised for another 2 days with medication and steroids to prepare Ryan's arrival, planned on the 31st May. Was the handphone charger useful? OF COURSE! During her two days there, she DID made those calls to chase for the figures required.

Would I remind her to bring the handphone charger this round for our coming daughter? Of course besides other equally important items such as change of clothes, hot water tumbler etc..hahahaha

Fooling around with a very pregnant lady ....

Date : 2nd May 2011

We took the opportunity of the long weekend with Labour Day to stay over at the Shangrila Hotel Kuala Lumpur. My wife has been travelling rather frequently to Singapore over the last 2 months. Not being comfortable of her flying alone (besides the opportunity for me to travel to Singapore to explore the city with my Nikon), I have been travelling with her as well, leaving Ryan home with the maid and my mother in law.

Hence, we thought of compensating our `lost' time with Ryan with a stay at Shang so that could have some quality time besides allowing him to enjoy himself at the pool.

I have always wanted to take some pictures of my very pregnant wife as part of the memories that we could pass on to our soon to arrive daughter, reminding her how heavy and difficult it must have been for her mommy to carry her full term. (It somehow didn't occur to me to grab some shots when we were expecting Ryan. Probably, the DSLR bug has not caught up then).

Anyway, we had some pretty good fun capturing the following pictures ....