Photo Shoot

Yesterday was Leila's big day- her photoshoot with Nicolas & Bears. It was an interesting experience! All week I was wondering where it would be since the location was TBA when they set the date. I finally found out that it would be at the home of the lady who first approached us in August, and a driver would be sent to pick me and Leila up. Perfect! It was supposed to be at 3:40, which already seemed late but I got a call during the day that our pick-up time was being moved to 4:40 and would take until 8:00. That was during Leila's nap, so I let her sleep and sleep and finally got her up four to get ready to go. I never let her nap long, but it wanted her to have as much stamina as possible. Really, I had absolutely no idea what to expect. I hadn't been told very much about it.
The driver was on time to pick us up, and in the van was another mom originally from Poland, her helper, and her one year old baby girl. I could see why they wanted the baby- she was so cute with big blue eyes and a whole head of hair. We drove and drove way out into the New Territories and I had no idea where we even were, and the van pulled up into a gated community that had dwellings as close to North American style that I have seen in Hong Kong. It all looked very fancy, and there were garages, big front doors and back yards. You just don't see that here- just lots and lots of high rises! Inside was huge and fancy- the kitchen alone was easily as big as our flat! To think that my friend's tiny HK flat cost $400,000 USD to purchase would probably make this home of Elaine's worth millions. Anyway, it had all been turned upside down to make it work for a photo shoot and they had had kids coming and going throughout the day. Leila and little baby Emily were the last two of the day.
Leila loved getting her hair and make-up (a bit of lip gloss and blush) done. She was so shy and cooperative. While they did this, a boy and a girl finished up the last of their pictures so once she was done, they were ready to start.

Getting Leila set up in her first of EIGHT outfits. She was really excited at this point, but once they started taking pictures, I think she realized that it was more difficult than she thought. I know how hard it is to take pictures of my kids. I mean I KNOW! It's hard! That CNY photo session is still very fresh in my mind. But I only worry about their face- not their hair, their pose or whether their clothes are looking perfect. (Later I sometimes regret that I didn't fix their hair or wipe their face, but it's hard enough to get the smile!) When the picture is supposed to be about the clothes, that really changes things. Leila would smile, but it would be too forced. We'd get her to laugh, but then her shoulders would go up, or she'd move her arms in front of herself and wiggle and tap her feet. And then her hair would get messed up and have to be fixed. It was all really tricky to have her be able to just stand with her hands at her side and SMILE. So after the first outfit she announced to me that she was done and wanted her regular clothes back on. But unfortunately we had many more wardrobe changes to go.

(Refueling with grapes and goldfish for the next round....)

All the while, Leila and the baby would switch off. I would never want to do something like this with a baby! At least Leila sort of understood what was going on. It was a little hard on little Emily, especially as time went on. But she was a very happy little girl and did really well. I have such a new respect for babies and children that you see in catalogues!

Getting Leila ready for her weekend trip to the country club....oops I mean, for the next pictures. Seriously, this company sells clothes as if these children are off to Martha's Vineyard or for a weekend on a yacht. It's so over the top! Also, all the kids that they advertise with are Caucasian and clearly they are marketing to Chinese people since all their locations are in HK and China. Kind of funny.


Leila had her moments where she wanted to be "all done", but we pushed through, and they got what they wanted. We were finally done at nine. And she fell asleep pretty quickly on the drive home. I was surprised that when she woke up this morning the first thing she told Mike and Annika is that she had fun at Nicolas & Bears. Out of curiosity I asked her if she would want to do it again and she said she wouldn't. It was pretty stressful. I think I'd only want to do something like this again is if there was actually some cold hard cash involved. :) But there were some catalogues from last year lying around, and the pictures were really nice. When it's all said and done, I think it will be fun to see the pictures and it definitely was an experience!

Ba-ack!

Finally, our laptop is fixed and back! It had been fixed and worked for a short while, but then returned to it's old tricks of being really slow and then eventually crashing. It seemed like it's future was bleak, but then our IT friend Matthew thought we could try replacing the hard drive, which only would cost about $75, and then if it still didn't work after that we'd know we'd done what we could and we would have to get a new computer. So far so good... but I think we'll be very distrustful of this little macbook until it proves itself to us that it really is fixed. I don't think we can afford another macbook if they only last 2.5 years! For the price you could just buy a brand-new PC every year. But here's hoping it's fixed!

So what's new? Well... not too much... let's see...

- Annika lost her second tooth, so we got to use the tooth fairy pillow again.

- Leila's going to have her chance at fame. Remember this post about getting "discovered" at Stanley? Well, out of the blue, Nicolas & Bears gave me a call wondering if Leila would be able to model for their spring catalogue. She's already attended a fitting and the photo shoot is next weekend. I'm very curious how this is all going to go down. The clothes are very fancy. She will be getting a gift certificate for the store for about $200, but it won't go very far. The fitting that she had was basically her standing there while they put on about 20 outfits on her. I helped take off a cardigan at one point and noticed it was really soft. I looked at the tag and it was 100% cashmere! Just a little bit fancier than the Old Navy and Joe Fresh that she's used to! :) Leila was far more cooperative to have so many clothes put on her than she would have been for me, so here's hoping the photo shoot will be successful!

- We figured out what to do next year with Leila for school. CAIS had been planning to start a K2 program that she would attend, but it ended up getting postponed for another year, so we were left with nothing lined up for Leila for next year and schools are competitive and costly to get into. It's not like she *has* to attend school at 4 years old, but in Hong Kong that is practically a sin, and the rest of her little friends are going off to school. Also, kindergarten would be a HUGE jump if she hadn't gone to school at all. Already it was pretty big for Annika to go from two mornings of preschool to all day/every day kindergarten in Hong Kong. So... we found a "local" school called Sun Island English school that will take place every morning, and is bilingual English/Cantonese. We'll try it out and see how she does. My personal hope for her is that she'd actually be able to learn Cantonese and could play with the little kids in her class/neighbourhood and speak their language. I guess we'll see!

And... a few photos since it's been so long...

This is yesterday (Saturday) on our outing to Snoopy World. It's kind of a random-themed playground outside of a mall in the New Territories. The girls didn't really even know who Snoopy was the first time we went, but then we showed them some Charlie Brown Christmas clips on YouTube during Christmas, and it made it all that much more exciting. Mostly they really like the empty Snoopy school bus that you can climb inside.


Unfortunately the whole playground part was closed. It has been rainy and misty lately with humidity between 95-100%. It's like living in a cloud! They like to play it safe in Hong Kong and avoid potentially dangerous situations if at all possible, so that meant shutting down the playground for the day, even though it didn't seem that wet to us.

After I took this picture of Leila a whole crowd gathered to get their own shot of her. She stood there like a little model with the forced smile that we've been practicing for next weekend!

Annika wasn't about to be left out and wanted to pose as well with this random stranger.

This is the mall the playground was connected to. Very crowded and busy! Malls in Hong Kong go up, rather than sprawling like WEM. Lots of escalators!

And a couple of Sunday afternoon shots taken in our bedroom.

cute

Remember this photo?

Today Leila was in the same shirt and it made me think of this picture of Annie so we decided to take a new version!

Can I help it if I think my kids are the cutest no matter which one of them is wearing the "put-a-bird-on-it" shirt?

Also, I gave Leila a haircut yesterday. I tried to take her to a local place, but she would have none of it. Even though it was getting long, it wasn't looking very nice, so I did the best I could and I think it's an improvement....

Kung Hei Fat Choy!

Here is the only picture I took of Mike spending time with his old pal, Paul. It was really great to get to know him (the girls really loved him and his friend Mark as well!), and Mike really appreciated getting caught up after so many years. We now have hopes of visiting him in Shanghai!

And a video of Annika singing her CNY song that she learned in Mandarin at school.

photo shoot

Yesterday we headed to Kowloon Walled City to attempt to take some family photos to make a New Year's photo card since I didn't get around to making one for Christmas. I made one and ordered it, and once they arrive, I will send them out. But it was a glorious day to take photos, and the girls were cooperating, and I was happy that we had lots of shots to choose from, so I decided to post the "left-overs". It helps that the Walled City is SUCH a gorgeous setting to be in! Also, it was nice and sheltered from the cold wind, and now the temperatures have dropped and will be cold for the rest of the week, so we were lucky we went out when we did!

(year of the Dragon shot!)

(and I don't even have an iPhone... haha)

When our friend Matthew fixed our computer, he was kind enough to put Aperture on for me, and I just discovered how to use some of the settings. Otherwise, I don't really know what I'm doing in Aperture, but it seems fun!
Thanks to our dear friend Jocelyn for being the photographer of the family shots!

Annie was born in the Year of the Dog.

As we left the Walled City to head to a playground as a reward for cooperation we came across this man walking around playing some Chinese tunes. He stopped and played for us, and then played for the girls "It's a Small World after all", which they recognized and loved.

Then, he took out some origami paper and tore little animals for each of the three girls. What a nice guy!

(I love this one!)

Year of the Dragon!

Happy Chinese New Year! Mike and Annie just finished their last day of school for 10 days. We are excited to see what life is like in Hong Kong for Chinese New Year (CNY as we see abbreviated often). Last Friday, CAIS had a CNY evening for families of staff to come and participate in a few activities and eat some CNY food. So we came- the girls looked the most festive of everyone! haha... actually the Chinese ladies all seemed to love seeing them in their Chinese dresses. First we learned how to make lanterns and fish from the red envelopes.

Oh Annika...it never gets old! Actually, I have heard her say "Do you want to see my funny face? My friends Jesse and Diana from Canada taught me how to do it."

I learned how to make dumplings, which probably isn't much different than perogies or vereneky. I thought it was a lot of fun to stand around as a group and make them.

The girls especially enjoyed eating the dumplings that we made, and the noodles that were cooked!
Lastly, Annika's class had a "twin day". This is her new friend Ruby who just moved here, and as you can see, she probably looks closer to Annika's twin than the rest of her classmates would have! Ruby is from the USA, but actually says she's Japanese since that's where she's lived her whole life! So cute!

Happy New Year!