I am not a "showbiz" mom, but my kids do model. One month after we moved here we were approached by 3 different agents on the same day. A week after that the kids were called for their first job. Our first year here Kaleb and Noe did 17 catalogs. Last year they only did 9, since they started school I turned a lot of jobs down. This year they did their first Fashion Show for Taipei Fashion Week (Taiwan's version of New York Fashion Week), and it was so fun! And this year so far they have done 1 catalog job each, including Gavin- I can not wait to get his! Today I got back 2 for each of my big kids, so I had to share.
Noe is the Cover Girl for Moda In Baby New York, isn't she sweet?
Check out their website for more pics during the Autumn/Winter season here: http://www.modainbaby.com/index.htm Even though it's in Chinese, don't be afraid to click on the 4 different links to see the catalog.
Stylin' Kaleb in World Polo.
Lots of our friends from church and school model too, so it's so fun to do a shoot with them and to have their pictures in the catalogs too. It's also been cool to see Kaleb and Noe on billboards all over the island. The kids make $1000NT an hour ($30US), so their savings accounts are growing nicely. Mommy loves it for all of the beautiful pictures. The only question is: who keeps the catalogs when they grow up?
Kaleb and Noe have really been in to playing tag we each other after school. It's kind of hard with only 2, and they always play inside our apartment, even though I constantly remind them they can go out in our backyard (which is a luxury here in Taiwan). Anyway, whenever they play tag, all I hear from the child being chased is "I'm on Space!" as they grab any piece of furniture near them as their "base." I hope they never outgrow the "space" though.
Kaleb & Noe didn't sleep through the night until they were 19 months. However, once they did they were great. Kaleb had occassional wetting accidents, but he has since out grown that and sleeps like a champ. Even if he gets up in the night to use the bathroom, he goes back to bed on his own. Noe did great for 3 years, but after we came back from our summer vacation last year she started waking up every night and waking Len & I up too. We finally broke her of that habit, then went on vacation this summer. We've been back for 2 months and she has been waking up about twice each night again. The frustrating thing is she usually just comes into our room and asks me or Len to take her back to bed. Sometimes she has to go to the bathroom, and lately she's been wanting to sleep on the couch after she gets up. She's so sweet and prays each night that she will sleep through it, and I want to be there for her to give her security, but it's just hard because Gavin has yet to sleep through the night ever! He's 10 months old now, shouldn't he have outgrown this by now? I was hoping once he started eating solid foods he would be better, nope! He eats solids at least 3 times a day, sometimes 4, and he's still waking up to nurse 2-3 times a night. I don't think he's hungry, it's just habit. I want him to sleep and it makes me nervous about weaning him after his first birthday. I want to get my body back a little bit to prepare for having a 4th baby. Any sleep or weaning tips out there?
Today is Gavin's 10 month birthday- whoo hoo! I need to take his "puppy" pictures still, but I was reviewing the pics on my camera and the most recent were from his 9 month session with mom. How sad that a whole month went by without me taking more pics. I think this blog will help me get back on track. Anyway, here's one of him with puppy at 9 months.
When Kaleb and Noe' were babies, I took them to get their portraits taken every 3 months. Poor Gavin has to put up with mommy's amateur shots at home. For his 9 month session, Len & I decided to put his hair in a mohawk, or more accurately a faux hawk, but I always mispronounce it and call it a faux moche. Here's a couple pics of our little football player and future Mr. President.
This baby is just delicious!
I'm a little bit COUNTRY and a little bit ROCK & ROLL! I wanted to make a list of a few of my favorite things. Since I'm 32 years old, I thought that was a good number of things to name. Here goes: I LOVE...
1. being Leonard's muse
2. playing games with Kaleb
3. dancing with Noe'
4. snuggling with Gavin
5. ALL of our extended families
6. making new friends
7. keeping in touch with old friends
8. anything artistic-
9. such as painting,
10. scrapbooking,
11. beading,
12. interior decorating (I'm a Candice Olson wannabe),
13. photography,
14. designing my dolls
15. lots of COLOR
16. reading good books
17. visiting cool libraries
18. the TV show Lost
19. working out to Gwen Stefani CDs
20. empire-waisted shirts (great for camouflaging my mother-of-twins tummy)
21. that pants aren't fitting well (they're actually getting too big, instead of too little, yea!)
22. a touch of glitzy make-up
23. funky shoes
24. sparkly jewelry
25. The Children's Place clothes for my kids
26. Leonard in Polo shirts (the style, not the brand- plus it means it's Saturday since he wears a shirt & tie the other 6 days of the week)
27. cheesecake
28. bubble baths
29. going on leisurely walks with my family when the weather's nice
30. swimming
31. getting fun mail
32. living in different countries (lived in USA, England, Canada, and Taiwan now- hope to live in South America, Australia, and Africa too)
33. Disneyland
34. Castles
35. the beach
36. Cirque du Soleil
37. all of the HOLIDAYS
38. fall leaves
39. winterlude
40. spring flowers blooming
41. summer vacation
42. the gospel of Jesus Christ in my life
43. that I am a princess, because I know I am a daughter of God
44. serving in the beautiful Temples
45. hearing my kids sing
46. hearing my kids laugh
47. the scent of coconut suntan lotion
48. being organized
49. toys (it's so fun to live vicariously through my kids)
50. Hallmark ornaments
51. Nativity sets from around the world
So my brainstorm went past 32. Part of my obsessive compulsive self wants to now push the list to 100, but another part of me wants to be risky and just leave the list at 51.
So I have loved art since I drew my first smiley face when I was 3 years old. I got my first journal when I was 8 years old, and have written everyday since before my 15th birthday. For Christmas when I was 9, I got my first camera. I tinkered in scrapbooking as a teenager, but plunged in after I got married at 21. I made 8 1/2 x 11 albums then. In 2004 I decided that I would start making 12 x 12 albums starting in 2005. However, that Christmas I got my first digital camera. I did start the 12 x 12 albums, but only for our professional pictures (yearly family ones, kids' baby, school, sports, dance, etc.) I stumbled across Kodak picture books and decided to make those for all of our snapshots. Recently my friend told me that you can have your blogs bound into books. That sounded really cool, more personal than Kodak picture books, but still easier than full-blown scrapbooking. I had started something on MySpace, but didn't get very far. Leonard started something on FaceBook, and got a little bit farther. So now, here I am starting our first real blog with Blogger. My plan is to get it up and running now, so I can send out our link with our Christmas card this year. Once 2008 starts my goal is to update it at least weekly. Hopefully by the end of the year I'll be able to turn all of the posts into a bound book. By the way, any leads on how to do that, Natalie, anyone? One more thing, I'm actually posting this 15 hours ahead of the time it is showing. It's Tuesday, October 16th, about 12 noon. For some reason, it's posting in the Pacific time zone, showing that it's still Monday, October 15th, about 9:00 pm. I'll have to have my hubby try and fix that for me.
After 3 years in Taiwan, Jannis decided it was time to head back home to Canada. We have really enjoyed having an "auntie" here and will miss her when she goes!
Good luck Jannis! We can't wait to see you again!
Kaleb & Noe had the opportunity to be in the Les Enphants Fashion Show as part of Taipei in Style fashion week.
We arrived at the venue at 6:00 in the morning so all 80 models could do 2 dress rehearsals.
This was Kaleb & Noe's first fashion show and they did great strutting their stuff.
These pictures are from the rehearsals. When it was time for the big event to finally happen, every seat in the audience was filled! Noe got a bit of stage fright right beforehand, so her dresser came out and asked me to go backstage with her. I told her that I believed in her and I knew she'd do a good job, but if she didn't want to do it I'd see if another little girl could fill in for her. She said that she would do it even though she was nervous. I also told her I'd stay backstage if she needed me, but that I would love to be out in the audience watching her if she was comfortable about that. She told me to go back to the audience and watch her. It was so cute when she came out. I waved at her and she waved back at me. I winked at her and she winked at me. I blew her a kiss and she blew a kiss to me. Knowing I was in the audience gave her the confidence she needed, and it made me feel special too. Kaleb looked like he had been doing this all his life, he was such a professional cutie!
They had huge smiles for me when it was all over. Daddy, Gavin, and I were all so proud of them. Way to go kids, you are superstars!
*These pictures aren't the greatest quality, but I was happy to have been able to capture this experience. A while later we got a DVD of the whole event, what fun!
Now that Kaleb & Noe are back in school and Len is back to work, I'm so glad I have this little guy to keep me company during the day!
Daddy fed him his breakfast and he made a terrific mess, but isn't that smile the sweetest? I love this baby!
This year Kaleb & Noe picked out their own backpacks. They had wanted to get the ones with wheels on them, but I told them that I didn't think they'd need that for Kindergarten (you'd be surprised how many of their classmates have those, and what a pain they are when they have to go on field trips, anyway...). So instead Kaleb chose a regular CARS one and Noe chose a regular PRINCESS one. I think they did a great job choosing, I look forward to all the fun books they'll bring home for us to read together!
Last year they rode the little bus to school, but this year they have the huge grandaddy of a bus to ride. They love sitting up so high and watching scenes from the city on their way to school each day.
