We Have Moved

The Bitten Smitten Blog is now at:

www.bitten-smitten.com/iblogyou

Hope to see you there!

Still Here

Well, well, what can I say? I have been very bad at keeping this blog updated. And this is because some friends are helping me make a new one! Yes, very soon, this blog will be moving to a new home! I am very excited about it, as I have so many new photos to show from the sessions I did in the last few months.

On the home front, my little girl is now 19 months old–definitely not a baby anymore. Pictured here with her wild morning hair, this girl is officially a toddler now–walking, running, talking and all. Her favourite word to say at the moment is ‘stuck’, which is used a lot as she seems to find herself wedged in the most weird places. Her favourite food right now is marmite sandwiches (yuck) and her favourite game to play is “Call Daddy At Work”, where walks around the house with a phone on her ear as she pretends to have a very interesting conversation with her father.

Hopefully, the next time I update this blog, it will be to share the new home!

Christmas Rush

My poor blog has been gathering dust in the past couple of months.

I’ve been very busy with photo shoots since mid-October. I had the wonderful opportunity to partner with the local National Childbirth Trust (NCT) and provided mini-session packages for their members. Over two week-ends, I photographed 21 families with the NCT and it was really fantastic! I am looking forward to working with them again in the future.

And thanks to word of mouth, I managed to photograph 12 more families on top of the NCT mini-sessions. I just did my last photo shoot for the year last week-end and I am looking forward to finish proofing their set this week. And then it’s time to chill and relaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaax. Bring in the turkey!

I took an hour off today and went for a walk around the block with my little girl and my camera. The photos above were taken just this afternoon. Poor little thing–I’ve been taking pictures of what feels like a million other kids, except for her! Note to self: Take more photos of Aeyen in the coming year.

If I don’t get to post again until next week, let me wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year!

xox

Take a Walk with Me

One of the things that I enjoy about doing natural-light photography is discovering new locations to do the photoshoots. I always find myself being surprised that the most unusual places–like deserted fields, industrial areas and desolated buildings–look so great on photographs with children.

I found this little piece of grassland just beyond the park where we usually go for walks. It’s going to be my new default location for sessions in the next couple of months!

Growing Up This Week

Milestones this week:

• I was able to do her hair up in teeny tiny wispy pigtails for five minutes! Before she found out what I had done and took them all off in seconds. Oh well….
• She said “apow” for apple and “mo” for more. This is in addition to her repertoire of words which consists of mama, dada, din-din (for dinner), ta (for thank you), teg-teg (for when she brushes her teeth), bo (for ball), ba-bow (for bubbles) and na-na (for night-night).
• She can do the the first few hand movements of the song, “Wind the Bobbin”.
• All on her own, she climbed up the steps and went down on the slide at the playground we go to.

Sometimes, it’s hard to take in everything she’s learning and all the changes that she goes through. It seems like all of a sudden, she has stopped being a baby and has become a little girl. The transformation is so lovely to see, but at the same time, it wrenches my heart a wee bit. Some days, I wish for her to stay like the little baby that she was but then when I see her being so grown up, I feel a sense of pride–knowing that I taught her most of the things she can now do.

And I get excited when I wake up every morning, wondering and anticipating what it is that she would do next.

Curls

Central Park, NYC

That’s right–she’s got hair now! And it’s curly too! I am so smitten with my little girl’s locks.

This would have to be the last holiday post on this blog–there are just too many photos from our time in the USA! For those who want to see more, please redirect to our online album which is updated semi-regularly. My family constantly nags to me post day-to-day photos of Aeyen there!

There is going to be a lot of changes happening with Bitten Smitten in the next weeks! This blog will be moving to a new home soon and it will be more photo-focused with bigger images! I am still in two minds if I should still keep writing about my mummy experiences on this blog and keep it separate from my photography.

There are also new photos on the Bitten Smitten website galleries from the sessions I have done in the last few months. There will be a new category coming up soon too! At the moment, my webmaster (aka my sister) is on it so expect it to be up soon!

We R Back

Photos from Yosemite National Park, California.

We are back from our month-long travels in America! We had such a fantastic time. We flew across the country and drove 2,293 miles of Californian roads. It was such a great trip!

Aeyen took her first steps at a park in Manhattan and she walked for real when we were in Yosemite. Her second and third teeth said ‘hello’ when we were in San Diego.

I have so many stories to tell and so many photos to show! But because things have been so busy since we got back, these three would have to do for now.

See you in the next update!

Away on Holiday

We are in America at the moment and having a whale of a good time! I am not sure if I can update this blog regularly but I will definitely post photos when we get back after four weeks.

Get Bitten

A gorgeous family that I photographed a couple of weeks ago.

There were so many from that session that I liked, but I love this one of the little girl giving mum a kiss or a bite–depending on who’s looking!

One more week until we go off on holiday. My to-do list is a mile-long and I am not even halfway through getting the important bits sorted out.

There are plenty of things waiting for me to come back home to as well! These include a complete revamp of this blog and a likely move to a new blog home. My photography website is also in desperate need of updating– I thought I would be able to do it before I leave but from the looks of it, that would have to wait until I get back. There is a maternity photo session waiting for me–the expectant mum and I are both hoping the baby will wait for me and won’t come too early! There are also two baby/toddler group photo sessions waiting for me when I am back.

By the way, I still owe my family a photo post from Aeyen’s birthday party. I am going to get to that, I promise!

Oh Hello Summer

Where oh where did the days go?

I know I haven’t updated this blog in a long, long time! Things have been busy at the homefront and at work. We have been doing some work on the house–and when I say ‘we’, I mean that my husband did most of the work and Aeyen and I stayed out of the way! We haven’t finished yet, but our home is looking a lot better!

Aeyen had her 1st birthday party last week, which was loads of fun! We had a lovely time in our garden with some mums and babies. I will post photos soon!

I also had the lovely opportunity of photographing two beautiful families last week. The weather has been uncharacteristically good–perfect for outdoor photographs! I even squeezed some time to dress up my little girl in her cousin’s tutu and take photographs of her in the great outdoors.

We are going to America in two weeks’ time for a very long holiday. We’ll be visiting my brother and some friends in New York, and then heading to California to see more friends. We are very excited but slightly a bit panicky as there is so much to organise before we go. Yikes!

I hope to post a couple a more entries here before we go away!