Kayla turns 1 (Actual Birthday Celebration)

26 July 2010

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO OUR DEAREST DAUGHTER!

On Kayla's actual birthday, both me and my husb took leave to bring her out for CELEBRATION!

First, we took her to a home studio (Dreamgarden) for her very first photoshoot!


It was our very first family photoshoot, and it was both tiring and fun! Seeing how Kayla reacts to the camera can really make us laugh! She would suddenly tilt her head to the side with a big smile, and unknowingly block my face! We also had to keep gaining her attention and make her smiles by using various toys when standing behind the photographer. When she was having fun, she gave loads of sweet smiles and wide grins! We simply love them! Toward the later part of the 2-hour photoshoot, she just stare blankly at the camera. We still love her innocent looks too!

Thankfully she didn't cry at all throughout the photoshoot, and just drank her milk and took her nap right after the end of the photoshoot. *phew*.

After the photoshoot session, we headed to United Square for her "dinner" treat!

Her dinner was at Petit Bowl (a place that specially cater puree food for babies and toddlers)

Eee.. What is Papa & Mummy feeding me with?

Unfortunately, she didn't seem to enjoy her first food experience at Petit Bowl. Thinking that she might find the beef+pumpkin bowl too chewy or the taste being too strong, we ordered a 2nd bowl of carrot+corn+potato bowl, but in the end she was not really enjoying the food.. Sighz.. in the end both my & husb finished her food on her behalf.

Next we brought her for her "dessert" treat!

Yeh! I am having a Firehouse treat!


The waiter singing Birthday song to Kayla

Um!

At the end of the day, the tired Kayla fell asleep on her car seat within minutes....

Sweet dreams... my dear girl... Hope you had an enjoyable birthday! We love U!!

Baby Kayla turns 1 (Birthday Party)!

25 July 2010

We celebrated Kayla's 1st year old party a day before her birthday on 26th. Despite that it was a mini celebration at home with close family and friends, it was a party which I planned whole-heartedly since months ago - The theme, the deco, the birthday cake, the invitation card, the party dress etc... I was really excited and enthusiatic in planning her party!

Theme: Farm animal barnyard bash

Invitation e-card:


Party Decoration: Set up a lil' corner for my scrapbook guestbook (but somehow got neglected sobz sobz... Have to go gather signatures and wishes from my friends...)


Birthday Cake: "Got Milk?" (A milk carton designed carrot cake from Room for Dessert)


抓周时间!

We placed a few symbolic items for Kayla to crawl toward and pick. The items she pick may "symbolises" her future career path. (This is just for the fun of it)

The items are:

• Calculator
• Red packet
• Pen
• Chicken wing
• Book

In the end, she chose "Pen"! Hope she will indeed become a scholar/writer in the future!

Some moments of Kayla & her guests...



And with her birthday presents!


We hope she had enjoyed her special day as much as we did! It is such a wonderful blessing to have her in our lives. Everyday we count our blessings when we see her grow up every day, and developing from a small baby dependent on us to a toddler who is learning to become more independent...

Baby Kayla is 11 months old

(Post-dated entry)

Before my memory fails and new ones override old ones, I have to quickly pen them down. So I cannot delay any further on her 11th month old blog entry!

At 11th month old, Kayla received her Certificate from Kindermusik class!

Crawling toward Teacher Angel to collect her certificate

Too interested in her Certificate that she refused to look at the camera!

We also brought Kayla to see her favourite Doraemon when he's in town!

"I've got the photo-taking pass!"

But in the end, she slept through the whole song & dance...

....and the photo-taking session too .

Baby Kayla is 10 months old!

Another 2 more months and Kayla will be 1 year old liao! How fast time passes, with a child in our life.

This mummy of hers has already thought of her 1st birthday party theme, have started work on a handmade scrapbooking guest book, sourced for the birthday cake and caterer, and ordered the party decorations! Haha.. Prefer to do it earlier, rather than having to rush through things at the last minute.

At Kayla's 10th month's old, she has learnt how to sit up by herself (thus making her very difficult to stay still during diaper changing/ clothes changing times ) and also making more progress on her crawling (actually looks more like pushing with her feet rather than with her knees). Hope she can crawl properly by her 1st birthday!

She has started on fish and meat porridge, specially prepared by her paternal grandmother. They are so delicious that she always finishes a big bowl! And she being "picky eater", prefers the more expensive cod fish to other types...Occasionally we'll also let her try some other variety of the baby food jar, e.g. pumpkin and sweet corn, pumpkin and beef. She likes them all!

We brought her to her 1st, and also our 1st family trip, to Bintan to celebrate her 10th month birthday!

On the ferry to Bintan

The Yammies in Bintan!

Well, this trip involves a lot of packing although its just a 3D2N trip! We've to pack her clothes, milk powder, cereal, washing stuffs, her toy, swim wear and float, and most importantly, her diapers! Lots of diapers! haha... This is more like a trial trip for us, and not any much relaxing one. The whole day we are busy with washing her bottles, sterilising the bottles, changing her diapers, making her sleep when she's tired and cranky..Most of the time we stayed in the resort room and seldom get to go out. Haiz... We didn't even go to the beach cuz she happened to fell asleep while waiting for us to finish breakfast, then next is we've to go back to the room to start packing and check out. Haizzzzzzzzzzz......

This is the only time we went to the swimming pool. 15 mins. The reason why we only spent 15 mins in the pool is because the winds started to blow and get chilly, so the father is afraid Kayla catching a cold, so we've to quickly get out. We should have chosen the morning time to go to the pool so that at least we have some sunlight... Haizzzzzzzz...


Regardless of all these, I find it a great bonding time with her! The 3 of us spent 24/7 with one another! Eat together, play together, sleep together.

Some of the shots of her in Bintan:

Sitting up by herself

Kayla's in her swimsuit!

Eating her biscuit while we eat our buffet..

Baby Kayla is 9 months old!

At 9 months of age, Kayla has reached her first 10kg (in fact its 10.1 kg HAHA!), equivalent to a packet of 香米. Well, she has never fail to amaze people who see her for the first time that she is actually not yet 1 year old, and keep thinking that she's of an older age! I should be glad that she's eating well and absorbing well! 

Some of her developments in this month happen kinda fast, and can quite take us by surprise when she demonstrated to us!

• Clapping hands! (She can also understand the instructions when we said in English, Mandarin & Cantonese version of "Clap Hands")
  

• Standing up on her own, when holding to the bed frame (and she being proud of herself when she did it everytime!)

• "Climbing" - she likes to use her legs to climb up our body whenever we carry her, as if we are trees!

Kayla's favourite weekend activity:


Watching Doreamon at 9.30a.m. every Saturday and Sunday! hahaha... She simply loves the song and will get very focused on the TV once the music starts! She even smiles to herself as she watches it! We think she's more of a Doreamon fan than Winnie the Pooh fan!

Kayla's first (independent) haircut session:


Giving a sourish face after drinking apple juice:


Kayla's at her first trial Kindermusik class:

Are you ready for your first musik class, Kayla?

Outside the Kindermusik

Realised that Kayla quite like music, and that whenever we sing song, it will calm her down and keep her quiet. So decided to let her go for a trial class @ Kindermusik and see if it interests her.

At her first lesson, she has been quietly observing the people and things and sounds around her.

Occassionally she will respond to the music instruments given to the students, e.g., the drum, the sticks, the 'egg' shaker. She likes the 'egg' shaker the best cuz she always like to grab things in her hands and shake it up and down. Other than playing the instruments, I dun really see her laughing/enjoying the class which I later come to read and understand that this is a form of "First Lesson Blues"- Some of the children will sit quietly and observe during their first lesson as they are unfamiliar with the new surroundings and people. So hopefully with more introduction of the music to her when at home, she will grow to like it and enjoy the lessons!
I've been trying to sing her the songs/play the music/read the book that are provided as home materials (included in the package when I signed up for the lessons). So gradually she has became more used to the songs, and we shall see how she reacts at her next lesson.

Baby Kayla is 8 months old!

It's an exciting month for Kayla! - She was selected for the Baby Idol Contest under the category of "Chubbiest Cheeks" and made her first overseas trip. More details to follow...

Her new developments in her 8th month:

• Waving hi/goodbye with her hands (imagine a 招财猫 hand gesture), and mimicing sounds akin to "hi" while she waved
• Calling "papa" very accurately and FREQUENTLY (*Note: Jealous tone), and stimes "yeye". Once in a blue moon she will go "Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa" (when she is constipated?!?) 
• Leaning forward from a sitting position to a crawling-alike position, in the end, flopped on her tummy on all fours. HA!

She still hasn't learn how to crawl yet, probably due to laziness or lack of practice bah. So we decided to buy her a new walker for her to "exercise" her legs when we saw this very interesting Chicco Dance walker at the Robinsons sale...

PAID!

In her walker, she has managed to move quite a number of steps and move around in the house. Who knows, she may skip crawling and go straight to walking stage!

"Hey! I can strike a pose with my new hp toy!"

As for solids, I've let her try more veggies over the wkends when I've the time to make:

• Broccoli & Carrot puree, with white rice cereal
• Spinach & Carrot mash with white rice cereal

We've also bought new toys for her to develop basic skills - a shape sorter and a stacking toy. I pose a challenge to my husb - to see who will succeed in training her on mastering the skills of either sorting shapes or stacking the toy.I chose the shape sorter and him the stacking toy. Wonder how long it will take her to know how to sort/stack them successfully?

Sitting on her new baby floor mat to play games (to watch TV actually)

Now more about the Baby Idol Contest!

I signed Kayla up for both the "Cover Baby" and the "Baby Idol Contest" held by Mother & Baby magazine when I happened to see the contest forms in a magazine sometime in February. After few weeks later, I was thinking that she must be not selected as I hear no news from them. Coincidentally on the very same day I received a call from them and came to know that she has been selected for the "chubbiest cheeks" category (there are 3 categories for this contest - Chubbiest Cheeks, Enchanting Eyes and Beautiful Smile) for the "Baby Idol Contest". I was so thrilled & excited when I heard the good news!

The semi-finals of the contest was held at Mother & Baby Fair @ Expo on 19 Mar and the whole Yam family, including her grandpa, grandma, cousin Dawn, cousin Dyan and their parents, made their way down to support her! What a big family event huh!


One of the parent has to give a 30sec introduction about the baby, and anything to make her chubby cheeks prominent to impress the judges.. Quite unsure what to say and was quite nervous on stage too. hee.. Luckily Kayla didn't cry seeing so many people & cameras in front of her. Instead she went dazed..... haha...

Before the final round of "catwalk" with all the semi-finalists, Kayla actually slept while waiting.. So... she is the only contestant who actually sleeps during the contest. See evidence below:

Even open mouth big big lor. Confirm sound asleep. Not aroused by any commotion around her at all.

Close-up of her sound-asleep-look in the arms of her favourite papa:

Lastly, her first overseas trip to.... JB!

Kayla with her passport (Picture taken earlier in Feb)

Kayla on the causeway

We went to JUSCO shopping centre and finally ate our long-missed A&W & had our root beer float! Yummy!
We quite like JUSCO shopping centre - big, clean & spacious. Kayla kept screaming and shouting at her top of her voice at the shopping cenre, does it mean that she likes it there too? Well, we would love to bring Kayla there again!