it was a nice september afternoon. kk accompanied me into the city for a dr appt and afterwards we enjoyed some hard-to-come-by one-on-one time walking around xintiandi. she loved the yellow lines and i loved the undivided time with her. can you tell she likes being out and about?

they say time goes faster with each kid.  is it also true that each kid goes faster?  because my baby was up and crawling on her hands and knees during her seventh month, much earlier than my other two.  and she skipped the army crawling stage altogether.  i think she just wants to keep up with her two older sisters.  and here i am, just wanting things to slooow down a bit so i can take it all in before it (they) passes me by.  nonetheless, here is my baby on the move — not so much a newborn anymore.

footnote (behind the scenes): Isabella wasn’t the only one on the move that day as these photos were taken by me while rollerblading. sometimes the photographer is perhaps the more interesting subject to photograph.

a relaxing sunny morning, visiting relatives, picking oranges from their backyard, the bright colors, and a cute model = inspired.

Look who turned 5 last week.

At the age of five, she…

… has her own sense of style.
…loves pink – always picks the pink set of dinnerware, refuses to share it with her sister.
…has developed quite the love of princesses – she plans to live in a castle when she grows up and wants a tail like Ariel for her 6th birthday (she thinks ahead a lot).
…will automatically translate what she hears in Chinese into English or vice versa, depending on who she is repeating it to
…is very sentimental – i wonder where she gets it from…
…is generally very timid, but willing to hike mountains and climb along rocks in a creek to catch shrimp
…loves her family, traveling, hotels, the swimming pools in the hotels, drawing, craft projects, road trips, the snacks she gets to pack for road trips, dancing around, and even photoshoots (most of the time)
…our beloved first daughter and so excited to turn 5.

(the sign she is holding says “5 years old” plus her birthdate… my standard mugshot set up for these milestones)

People ask me how it is taking care of three kids.  It’s kind of like this…
The other day, it was a nice day out. I successfully got the 2 little ones all ready to go out and pick up big sister from the school bus stop on time.  And i thought after picking her up, we could take a nice stroll around the neighborhood. And the spring flowers are out, and we have been talking about taking pictures of them. So i grabbed my camera along with 2 kiddie cameras.  We pick up big sister, walk a few minutes, and stop at a nice tree to start to take pictures.  All is well. Curious neighbors immediately come up to us and ask questions about the girls.  I try to answer as I click. click. 2 shots with my camera.  Then – big sister is crying.  She tripped going down a small incline, face hit the sidewalk, mouth is bleeding, (thankfully) hasn’t choked on the sucker that was in her mouth.
So we quickly pack up our things and head home. Big sister ends up with a nice fat lip that scars up the next day.  Nice stroll lasted a good 5-7 minutes, perhaps, and no leisurely picture taking as envisioned. But I did manage those 2 quick shots shown above.
So life feels kind of like that right now – you never know what could happen.  Changing, adjusting, or scrapping plans at any given moment.  And moments – both the good and the bad – can be very fleeting.  Kind of like those spring flowers.  But beautiful, nonetheless.   Kind of like those spring flowers.

Went strawberry picking earlier this week.  This has started to become a happy annual tradition.  We picked almost 10 pounds of strawberries… and probably had almost as much in our tummies. Last year, kaylah was still strapped in the bjorn.  This year, she got to join in on the fun too, and ate the most strawberries out of all of us (while isabella was strapped in the bjorn).  It was a beautiful day to be out and to enjoy the nearby countryside.  I had fun playing with my macro lens too.
We’ve since had strawberry shortcake, strawberry smoothies, strawberry ice cream, and just plain fresh strawberries.  Yum.
We will be sad when strawberry season ends (soon).  But my friend has promised to invite me to whatever other seasonal fruit-picking outing  they go on.  I hear Jiaxing peaches are delish.

Thought I’d take a break from the newborn photos and show some of my older two.  I have mentioned before here that I took up a personal photo project last year with another friend to make an ABC Book for my girls.

Well, I finally did finish it and am so happy that I did.  Aside from it just being a fun way to go through your ABCs, I love how it captured my girls through the course of a year – things they liked, places we went to, particularities of whatever stage they were in.  There is a story behind each picture.

I printed it through Asukabook, who did an amazing job.  And I was surprised, flattered, honored, when they made it their Book of the Month in January.  Thanks Asuka!  If you head over to their site, you can see the complete book. (i.e. here are a lot of images to make up for all the blog entries i have wanted to post but never did)

I also had smaller versions printed and sent to all the grandparents for Christmas, and it was a huge hit.  A perfect brag book.  I think they’ve all memorized the book by now. =)

And I am realizing time really does go by much faster the more kids you have.  Can’t believe it’s almost April, and I am blogging about a January occurrence.  And we one quarter into 2011 and I am still writing about 2010.   Yet for some reason, I still fool myself into thinking I will catch up on everything eventually…

my mom (“popo” to the kids) was here taking good care of us for five weeks. isabella waited for her to arrive before making her entrance into the world, and popo also got to stay long enough for isabella’s one month mark or 满月， which is a big milestone in Chinese culture.  (side note: we celebrated by going to Pizza Hut… very chinese, wouldn’t you say?)  we loved having the time to spend with popo, and we were all sad to see her go.  the girls all had so much fun with her, can you tell?

and i love this other shot taken the same day as it captures so much at once that is typical of our family.  kaylah is running towards me saying “bao bao” (hold me!).  meanwhile, hannah is in the background mimicking her sister – the two of them are constantly copying one another for better or for worse.  and then you have the many random bystanders staring (at a very close distance) at our crazy family that is running around chasing each other.  we are a great novelty here being now a family of five, but we’re learning to embrace the extra attention it brings… at least on some days.   =)

thankful (though also pleasantly hard to believe) that we get afternoons like this where we can all nap at the same time.

hope your Sunday has been a rest-full one.

this may be one of my favorites so far.