Random Brain Dump

The weather gods finally smiled on us, yesterday was beautiful. Taking advantage of the first dry & warm day in weeks, I took the girls out to the local park after work. The girls were happily enjoying their outdoor dinner with their Daddy, feeding & chasing the ducks, and had a blast at the playground. Obviously, they were couped up for too long. It was an absolute joy to see my girls having so much fun.

I barely managed to gulf down a burrito since the girls were all over the place; but I had a great time myself. 🙂 In addition to running around & playing with the girls, I managed snapped some quick shots of the kids with my 200mm zoom lens…

Katelyn: “When I grow up, I want to be a vet.”
Daddy: “You do? You’ll have to study hard but you can be a vet or anything else.”
Daddy: “What about you Allison? What do want to be when you grow up?”
Allison: “I want to be a tiger!”

Allison has a small stuffed tiger that is one of her favorite stuffed animals. She sleeps with it practically every night. I wonder if her stuffed tiger has anything to do with this…

A conversation in the car with Katelyn this past weekend:

Suzanne: “What’s mommy’s favorite color, Katelyn?”
Katelyn: “Your favorite color is yellow!”
Rex: “What’s Daddy’s favorite color?”
K: “Blue!”
R: “What’s Katelyn’s favorite color?”
K: “Yellow, white, black, pink, and red”
R & S: laughing
S: “Honey, you can only have 1 favorite. That’s what favorite means…”
R: “So which is your favorite color then?”
K: “All of them. They are all my favorite colors because they’re all in my heart…”

We were playing Hide & Seek with the girls tonite. We divided into 2 teams: Mommy & Katelyn versus Allison & Daddy. So at one point in the game, it was Suzanne & Katelyn’s turn to seek, so Allison & I went and hid in a bedroom closet. I closed the door and we sat there in the dark. I repeatedly reminded Allison to remain quiet. But when Suzanne came into the room and didn’t find us, she called out “Who wants candy?” Allison bolted out of my lap, flung the door open and ran to Suzanne yelling “candy!”

Game over… 🙂

The rainbow episode between Katelyn & I transpired as follows last nite:

Rex: "Sweetey, what did you do at school today?"
Katelyn: "I made rainbows today. Do you want me to make you a rainbow?"
R: "Oh, I’d love to get one"

Katelyn rushed to her table, broke out her markers and after a few minutes, returned with a sheet of paper with a rainbow drawn on it.

K: "Here you go. Do you like it?"
R: "Wow, I love it! Thank you so much…"
K: "You bring it to work tomorrow and hang it up okay?"
R: "Sure, I’d do that."
K: "Make sure you show it to your friends at work."
R: "I’ll do that too."
K: "Make sure you tell them to ask you who made it okay?"
R: "Of course!"

So this morning the first thing she asked me when she woke up was where the rainbow was. I didn’t see it on the cofee table. I was hurrying to get to work and didn’t have time to look around for it. So I lied and told her it’s in my car, thinking that’d be the end of it. That white lie quickly turned out to be a mistake, as Katelyn ran outside and peered down the window of my car.

K: "Daddy, I can’t find the rainbow in your car"
R: "It’s in there baby"
K: "Are you sure you put it in the car?"
R: "Yes, I put it in the car"
K: "Daddy, I don’t see it!"

She pouted a little and then got on her Grandpa’s car and headed to school. She looked disappointed. I better find her rainbow tonite or I’ll be in trouble. 🙁

If you frequent this blog, you know that I am a shutterbug. I know, I know… You’re thinking: "gee whiz, what gives that away." My main subjects are my two daughters. (Again, I’m stating the obvious.) If you view their pictures here, it’s really easy to spot how different my 2 models really are in front of the camera.

Katelyn loves to be in front of the camera–always flashing a smile, even when she was a little toddler. She’s a willing subject, posing for her shutterbug dad without asking. She is easily excitable. And she’s photogenic (well, her dad likes to think so), most of her shots come out great. It’s very easy to shoot Katelyn. She’s a pure joy to shoot.  

Now that’s not to say Allison isn’t photogenic or a joy to shoot for me. But she’s different. She’s more shy of the two, the serious one. She’s still a bit uncomfortable in front of the camera. She’d pose or smile if I ask her to, but she does it in the most uncomfortable fashion. She’d always lean her head to one side and say "cheese"; and breaking a half-smile once in a while. That’s her pose and it’s her only pose. It’s become a habit too. Now everytime she sees a camera, she breaks into her ackward pose. It’s rather funny. A perfect example is pictured here. Note the contrast of the two poses, the smile on Katelyn and Allison’s signature head tilt?

So I learned to shoot Allison differently. Most of the good shots I got out of her when she isn’t posing. I try to shoot her when she isn’t aware of the camera. Natural shots suit her more. I call these "private shots" because I feel like I’m stealing her private moments with these kind of shots. Now if only she’d smile more frequently, because she usually looks serious in some of these "private" shots. Allison is also a joy to shoot, abeit in a different way.

 My daughters provide me the motivation to learn photography. They’ll be my excuses for buying expensive equipments in the future when I become a better photographer. Now, if I can only coax my wife into a willing subject as well. 🙂

Katelyn spotted the moon outside her window while we drove home from dinner tonite. The sky just cleared up after pouring rain the entire day.

Katelyn: “The moon Mommy. It’s a crescent moon. It’s pretty!”
Mommy: “Yes, it’s very pretty”
Katelyn: “Daddy, the moon is following me!”
Daddy: “It is?”
Katelyn: “Yeah! It’s following me. Why is it following me?”
Daddy: “The moon always follows who it likes the best. So I think the moon must likes you the best!”
Katelyn: “Yeah, the moon likes me because it keeps following me”

At this point I smiled because the conversation reminded me of the time when my parents told us the same thing when my sister and I asked them the same questions while playing in the park one night. I must have been a few years older than Katelyn because my sister must have been around Katelyn’s age. That was so many years ago.

This past Friday, the preschoolers put on a holiday show by singing a slew of christmas songs. Well, I may be biased but it has got to be the cutest show I ever seen. Katelyn loves singing, but we were afraid that an audience might make her shy so Suzanne encouraged Katelyn to sing the songs out loud. Turns out that wouldn’t be a problem.

When we arrived at the classroom, the children were sitting and preparing for the program. We waved at Katelyn and she excitedly waved back at us. She wore her Santa’s Helper dress Suzanne recently got for her. I was relieved to see Katelyn seemed happy, knowing that at least she wasn’t too uncomfortable to perform. The parents filled in with each ready with a camera or camcorder. The cameras flashed the children almost non-stop— the parents turned paparazzi! I have to admit that I probably was the one who took the most shots but I minimized the flashes as not to startle them during their performance. (checkout the December monthly gallery for some of pics).

The program began and Katelyn started singing on top of her lungs. Actually, she yelled out the lyrics. Very quickly, the entire thing became a shouting match between the kids trying to outdo each other. Suzanne & I just looked at each other surprised & amused. Not exactly the type of renditition we encouraged her, but it was so funny the way the Katelyn strains her neck and screams out each song. We didn’t mean to ask her to yell out the songs. But Katelyn sang/yelled every word of very songs, not missing a single beat. She was so cute, all of the kids were.

The singing lasted a good 20 minutes. My favorite was when they sang It Must Be Santa. After the singing, Santa came for a visit and all the kids got to sit in his lap. When Santa asked what she wants for Christmas, Katelyn blurted out: “I want walkie-talkies!” Well, that was a different wish for sure. 🙂 I had no idea where she got the idea of wanting a pair of walkie-talkies.

Well, we certainly enjoyed Katelyn’s first ever performance. She was wonderful, demonstrated that she can follow instructions, memorize lyrics, work as part of a group and perform in front of a crowd. She definitely made me a very proud Daddy that day. And I’m already looking forward to her performances in her coming school years. Chalk this up as one of those pleasures of being a dad!

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Weather getting colder, malls getting crowdier, workplace getting quieter, my spending increasing… must be that time of the year. Merry xmas everybody! 🙂

We promised the kids photos with Santa, so Katelyn was very excited all weekend long. The line was rather long, but we managed to get to the mall early so we didn’t have to wait very long. I tried to coax Allison into it by giving her a view of Santa and told her of the goodies she’s going get from Santa. This santa looks pretty authentic, real white beard & everything. When it was our turn, Katelyn ran straight up to Santa’s lap. On the other hand, Allison just bursted into tears and screamed when I tried to put her in Santa’s lap. Oh well, next year for Allison I guess…

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The Planetarium @ De Anza College is putting on a laser light show this month. It has been ages since the last time I caught a laser show so I figured it would be fun for the family. But Suzanne felt like going to bed early with Allison, so I took Katelyn with me to catch the 8:30 show. It was Katelyn’s first laser light show. She was excited about it and, the whole day, she kept reminding me that I had promised to take her.

The sound system was great, I enjoyed the music; but the laser show wasn’t as impressive as I had imagined. The whole show felt so 80’ish, I can almost swear that some of the sequences were the same I saw years ago. For example, the star wars dog-fight sequence that seemed awefully familiar to me. Even the music was mostly 80’s (they were playing Major Tom for example). Space was the theme of the show.

Katelyn was enjoying the show at first but the show lasts a bit too long for her. She got antsy and lost interest in the end. She particularly like some of the sequences with space and animal characters. The show ended on a high note with a very entertaining sequence about the Milky Way galaxy. The song was pretty cool (it sounds like one of those funny Monty Python’s). I should’ve brought my camera. A slow exposure of the laser light dancing might be very interesting.

All in all, it was a fun evening outing for just daughter and father.