That was about as much collaboration that happened in planning this low key get-together between me and Kyu.  I heard his words…. I tried so hard to listen.  But ultimately, the little voice inside that adored beautiful details, planning tasteful events, and being around close friends & family won me over.  Plus, how many times is our 1st son going to turn 1?  That’s right, Kyu….  We owed it to Lyon.

So, of course I turned to my friend and designer Kristen Smith to help me plan a lovely gathering for Lyon’s 1st Birthday.  For Asians – especially Koreans, the 1st birthday is a pretty monumental milestone.  It was important to me to uphold as many traditions for Lyon’s birthday as possible.

We started with a color pallet:  red, white with a touch of gold.  I love the way his invitations turned out.

Kristen also designed programs for Lyon’s birthday party…  We knew that many of our guests would not understand the meaning and significance of the events that would happen that day, so we took some time to describe them.

The little buddha girls on the very right corner, leading the lion dance, is my younger sister and I in 1990.  I love that we are able to pass such a rich tradition from my family to Lyon…

We hosted the birthday party in our backyard.  Kristen had the idea of incorporating colorful lanterns, and I actually really love how it turned out.

One of my absolute favorite details of the party was the string of 3×3 photos from Project Lyon that lined the dinner tables…  My favorite 200 of the 365 photographs I took of Lyon’s 1st year served as the centerpiece for our guest tables.  If you walked the tables, you could chronologically follow Lyon’s 1st year through photos…  Such a meaningful touch that I loved so much.

And of course, there was a feast!  Traditional Korean cuisine and a golden roast suckling pig to add to the menu for our guests…

My background is Chinese-American, so I had to talk with Korean friends to learn about all of the traditions of the Korean dol ceremony.  I took my best stab of it…

One of the key ceremonies was the toljabee.   In short, we lay 5 items in front of Lyon.  Whichever item he crawls to first dictates the future he will have…

And a play-by-play of the action!  Even though Lyon skipped all of his naps that day, he excitedly took part in this event.  What a good boy…

And he chose money!  (I predicted money, actually – because I know of my son’s secret obsession with paper…)

The children had fun painting framed art to take home.  We had 2 versions (both Korean and Chinese) outlining the traditional characters of the word “Happiness.”  Some did a remarkable job!  Some just painted black on the whole frame!

It was a lot of fun…

And finally.  My younger sister and brother-in-law performed a very special Lion dance to close the birthday for Lyon.  This dance is significant to us because this majestic creature is what our son was named after…  He serves to protect the family from evil spirits and guide us towards a fruitful and prosperous future.

Benji and Irene learned the dance the night before.  And this is how it turned out!

 
It was a first lion dance performance for many of our little guests….  So special.

In the end, Kyu turned to me and commented on what an amazing year it has been for us and how special celebrating it was.  I couldn’t agree more.

Happy 1st Birthday, my little Lyon…

A very special thank you to Jon-Michael Sullivan for perfectly capturing this amazing day for us.

Meet the fabulous Fabers.  I’ve been photographing their family since the oldest Ethan was 3 months old.  Never then did we anticipate adding 3 to their family simultaneously next…

Owen, Dylan and Piper are triplets who arrived this past summer right around 5lbs each.  Triplets run in mom’s family but they tend to skip generations.  Kerri is a working mother who *astounds* me with her sense of calm and content every time I am near her.  Her babies were sleep trained by 7 weeks, their schedules were like clockwork at their newborn session, and Ethan feels like one of the proudest big brothers I’ve had the privilege of photographing.  Amazing.

Like every session, there is a bit of frazzleness when we began…

But then we move forward, and the really good stuff begins to surface…

Like how the lone sister of the family is quickly becoming the one who will lead the Faber siblings and show them who’s boss.

And how Ethan refuses to for anyone to forget just who he is.

They’re pretty incredible…..and soulful, and kind, and absolutely in love with their family.

And somehow, they make it all seem so incredibly easy…

When Atticus turned a week old, in a hormonal-mom-frenzy, Liana wrote to her Atlanta photographer friends stressed out about missing this newborn window for photographs.  So, 4 of us cleared our calendars the next day, headed to our friends’ home, and decided to collaborate together to make this as special of a session as we could.

Meet Atticus.  The photograph below was taken in his nursery against a geometric wall that Mike painted for Liana months before his arrival.  Love.

Joining me for this session was the very talented group below…  Elizabeth Smith of Libbie Wicket, Lisa Phillipson, and Jenny  Widmaier of Jenny Lauren Photography.  I took most of the portraits while Elizabeth, Lisa and Jenny posed and styled.

I think we captured some precious shots of this little one…

Posing newborns is truly a delicate art that involves a lot of patience and knowledge of working with these subjects. Lisa and Elizabeth below working their magic.

I’m really blessed to work within a community of incredibly gifted and generous photographers.  Our craft changes at a remarkable pace, and we’re fortunate to be part of this movement.

Liana & Mike – thank you both for all that you do for this industry, and we hope you love the photographs as much as we love you!

xoxo…

Elizabeth, Lisa, Jenny & Alice

Scouring the internet for home essentials and baby apparel is a busy mother’s simple solution to getting things done.  Who has time to get the pack the baby, his lunch and SHOP when we have nap schedules to follow and client appointments to keep?  I wish I did!  And can we throw in lunching with a longtime friend while we’re at it?

I’ve bookmarked some of my favorite sites and finds to share with you all each Friday.  Some you may have heard of, some might be new.  Follow me each week as I may have the chance to interview the creators or give away something cool that they offer!

My first favorite find is One Kings Lane.  What I love most about them is that the items featured on their site are beautifully hand-picked.  Well known designers carefully choose their favorite accessories and vintage furniture pieces and group them into tasteful collections.  For those of us who struggle to find the time, inspiration and guidance to beautifully finish our homes, this site is perfect.  Oh, and did I mention that these items are marked down as much as 70% from retail?!

Below are some items that I have my eye on…  It’s amazing how I could finish my formal living room from one online website.

Sources:

1.  Pair of Rococo-style bergères, circa 1870 - Sold out!

2.  Inlaid Chest, circa 1930.

3.  Rococo-style painted gold wood frame, circa 1850.

4.  Casanova illustrated book set, Paris, 1966.

5.  Boucher engravings on handmade paper, set of 3

6.  This piece sold out and was discontinued before I had a chance to finish this post!

Whether your style is modern sophisticated, rustic, French vintage inspired, or clean and minimalist, One Kings Lane has inspiring finds for everyone.  Be sure to visit daily and claim your pieces as they sell out quickly!

I love this baby boutique because of the wonderful people behind it.

Baby Braithwaite (formally b braithwaite) has grown tremendously over the last 5 years, and with the imminent move in the works for well, the last 2 years, Kyu and I got to witness the family behind the store come together in their next new exciting venture.  It reminded me a lot of my own family growing up…

In the spirit of their grand opening this past Saturday at 102 West Paces Ferry Road, Atlanta – I decided to blog the crazy, behind-the-scenes transformation of B Braithwaite. The footage below chronicles Chaffee & Nancy Braithwaite’s vision from an empty, cemented space to a stunning new baby boutique in the heart of Buckhead.

Here we are in January.  I love that they’ve taken on Baby Braithwaite as their new name…

Surveying the space, working with contractors, sizing the walls for the new visuals that would later complete the store.

Chaffee & Nancy:  Budget, practicality & deadlines.  Impact, perfectionism & details.

Some of the resulting favorites from our commercial shoot in January.  Going from the below to a collective visual for the store proved to be no easy task…

Nancy no doubt scheming up something wildly amazing.

And here we are in February.  Walls are up, custom shelving, floors and lighting in place…  Merchandise moved from their old location, but still so much left to do.

In the last week of February, the pressure to open became intense and the little people began to come out and help.  How adorably helpful are these guys?  “You guys are officially hired for life!” smiled Chaffee to her nieces and nephew…

And then on March 1st, finally.  The finishing pieces arrived…  15 stunning 36″x36″ stretched gallery-wrapped canvases adorned themed rooms around the store.  Many of these faces you might recognize as my clients and my BOY!  Little Lyon was thrilled to be part of the new store.

My favorite room – baby boy’s apparel.  Awesomeness.

Fun gear & baby essentials!

And Chaffee’s new favorite space – the Reading Nook.  She will soon place her favorite chair there and all of the children who have been coming for years will get to sit on her lap as she reads their favorite stories.  I love that.

The new store is really incredible…. my images certainly do not do the space justice.    You really have to visit the store yourself and take in the pure magic that surrounds you.

Pictured below are Chaffee and her supportive teams who worked incredibly hard to prepare for Baby Braithwaite’s opening day.  So proud of my friend!

The Royko’s have become dear friends of mine and their boys are like my own.  There is nothing more heart-warming than seeing the oldest at the edge of the street to greet you as you pull in for the session.  And then race you (Jack running, me driving) back to the house…

Here is a peak at Ben’s 1 year session at Chastain Park.  I loved that we chose the exact same location to shoot as Jack’s 1 year session two years ago.

The boys are so similar, and yet so different.  Jack and Ben, in the exact same swing…

As I photographed Ben’s 9 favorite things for his book’s Show & Tell page, I smiled when mom noted that big brother Jack was one of his favorites…  What a wonderful relationship they will both have growing up.

And then at sunset, my favorite image of the day…

Lyon is officially Sleep Trained, and I’m LOVING life right now.

Above:  my baby deep asleep for one of his two naps of the day.  Good boy.

If you missed my part 1, you can find a little bit of background info here about our need to sleep train Lyon.  In summary, we knew we had to bite the bullet when:

1) Kyu & I would play “Rock, Paper, Scissors” every night to see who had to take the 3 hour night shift that inevitably came.  Kyu almost always lost.

2) When it was my turn, I would go in with my iphone and headphones while I rocked him back to sleep.  Hey, might as well watch a movie on Netflix instead of going crazy out of my mind from boredom, right?

3) On the evenings that we stayed up until 1am doing work, we’d forfeit sleep & decided it wasn’t worth it to sleep for an hour, just to wake up again with Lyon from 2-5am.  Those made for rough, rough next days.

How did it play out?  Here’s a recap:

3 months old: Transition out of Swaddle.  I attempted crying-it-out (cio) with Lyon, but after 20 minutes and a good, hard cry for me downstairs, I ran back to Lyon, squeezed him as hard as I could, and vowed to never put him (and me) through this type of torture again.  I told Kyu – “If I have to, I will rock this baby to sleep for the rest of his life…” as my dear husband rolled his eyes at me.

Lyon started to get into a rhythm soon after that.  He was a great sleeper so long as I rocked him to sleep.  That lasted about 2 months.

6 months old: The waking up in the middle of the night began.  We thought it was a phase and blamed it on teething.

7 months old: Still no teeth, and the night waking worsened as getting him back to sleep proved to be harder and harder.

8 months old: I started to become an angry person.  Resentful to my husband if he got more sleep than me, frustrated at Lyon for keeping us up, mad at myself for allowing this to go on this long.  And so Sleep Training began:

Night 1

7pm – Went down for bed.  Rocked him for approximately 3 minutes until he fell into a very deep slumber.

10pm – Woke up crying hysterically.  Thought I could quickly comfort him, but I proved to be very wrong.  I ended up rocking him for a very long time…

1am – Finally fell into a deep enough sleep for me to put him back in his crib.  I vowed to not pick him up again that night.

4am – Woke up again crying.  I knew that if I picked him up, it would take him longer to fall back asleep, so Kyu and I waited patiently by the monitor as he learned to put himself back to sleep.

His voice was so coarse from crying, and it pained me so much to watch him cry.

I ended up turning off the monitor, crying in Kyu’s arms, and labeling myself as the absolute worst mom in the world.  “CRAP, THIS IS SO HARD.”

6:45am – Finally found his paci, rolled onto his comfortable side, and fell asleep.

8am – woke up for the day

Night 2

7pm – went down for the night easily.  He was so exhausted from crying the entire night before that falling asleep that evening proved to be quite painless.

10pm – woke up crying for 10 minutes

10:45pm – woke up again crying.  Somehow managed to do a 180 degree turn in the crib while having a fit!

11:45 – fell back asleep on his own

3am – woke up again crying.  I listened for a little over an hour.

4:20am – went to him thinking I could soothe him, but that proved to be wrong.  I realized that by being there, I was stimulating him further…

5:30am – finally went to sleep for the rest of the night on his own.

8am – woke up for the day

Night 3

7pm – went down for the night

10pm – woke up crying.  I turned off the monitor and let Kyu take over…  Could not bear it anymore myself.

11:30pm – found his paci, rolled onto his side, and fell asleep.

11pm – woke up and cried for 5 minutes.  Found his paci, rolled onto his side, and fell asleep.

Slept the rest of the night.  Started to see the light at the end of the tunnel as I began witnessing my baby learn to soothe himself back to sleep.  That night was a big turning point for us.

Night 4

7pm – went down for the night

Slept the whole night.

Kyu and I danced in circles out of pure parental bliss.  Success.

We spent the next few weeks fine turning his schedule, teaching him to fall asleep 100% on this own, and stretching out his naps during the day so that he was getting at least 15-16 hours of really good, deep sleep a day.

Lyon is now an amazing sleeper and is such a happy, well-rested baby.  We put him down awake now, and after about 30 seconds of crying, he can put himself down to sleep within 5 minutes.

It’s one of the most incredible things for us to witness.  We never thought that we could break him from his need to be rocked to sleep, but after about a week of hard Sleep Training and a couple of weeks of fine-tuning, Lyon was a pro.

Life is good.

10 Things I learned through this process:

1.  Have a consistent bedtime routine.  Babies thrive on routine…  Ours is bath, quiet play, read for 5 minutes, white noise, last bottle, then sleep.

2.  Enforce a daily schedule.  There is no use in Sleep Training if you do not follow a daily schedule.  Your baby needs to wake up at the same time everyday, eat, nap & play at the same time everyday.  The more scheduled his routine, the more his body will become like clockwork.  It’s hard for the mom & dad at times, but it leads to less surprises in the end.

3.  You are stronger than you think.  The hardest part is deciding to do this.

4.  Learn your baby’s sleep cues…then put him down for bed BEFORE that.  When Lyon is sleepy, he rubs his eyes and starts to get a little deliriously hyper.  Super cute, but we know the window of time before he gets overtired is soon after that.  We’ve figured out his schedule so that we put Lyon down to sleep 10 minutes before he gets sleepy.  He plays in his crib for a little, settles down, and falls asleep happy each & every time.

5.  Make this a team effort.  During waiting periods, do something enjoyable with your partner, like play cards or listen to music. If you find the crying intolerable after a while, let your partner take over so you can take a walk or a warm bath. When you’re refreshed, you can give your partner a break.

6.  Teach him to fall asleep in your arms, in a pack n’ play, in a carseat too.  There will be days when you’ll travel with your baby, and he’ll be away from his familiar environment.  To make it easier on everyone, it’s important that he gets as much practice outside of his room & crib as possible.

7.  Learn to understand your baby’s cries…  Hearing your baby cry is a horrible, HORRIBLE part of Sleep Training.  But what is so fascinating about what I learned through this process is that I’m now able to understand and hear Lyon’s cries.  I know when he’s hungry, when he’s got a dirty diaper, when he’s whiny, when he’s overtired, when he’s in pain, and when he’s just bored of being by himself.

There’s a lot more crying in our future together, I’m sure… So, I’m glad I’m learning this early.

8.  The 1st night is tough.  You’ll second guess yourself, hate yourself & feel like the cruelest mother in the world.  Remember why you’re doing this and lean towards the light on the other side…  If you need to leave the first night, do.  You can get through this, and every day you are strong, it’s one less day to teaching your baby a lifelong skill.

9.  Start when you’re ready.  I wasn’t ready at 3 months, not even at 7 months even when the rest of my family was.  I blame it on being a first time mom, but in reality – I know I’m just a wimp.  It took a miserable 3 months of no sleep, a little bit of pushing from friends & family, and an incredibly unhappy baby to give me the thick skin I needed to help him go through this.  But I was ready when we started, and I stayed the course through it all.

10.  Remember the long term advantages of this method:  a child who wakes up in the morning feeling rested, refreshed and ready to take in the world.  Lyon now naps better, eats more, feels more eager to try new things, is more alert & attentive to his surroundings… it’s really amazing.

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When chatting with Laura of Moms on Call after our Sleep Training experience for an update – I realized that I learned something pretty remarkable about life and parenting through this process… I realized that teaching my son how to soothe himself to sleep was one of the first lessons in life I would teach him.  Witnessing him learn to fall asleep on his own was like watching my baby climb Mt. Everest!  Truly miraculous and such a proud moment for us.

Her response was incredibly meaningful to me:  “There will be many times in life that we have to stand back and let them learn new things.  Sometimes when we continue to “Help” we are really just “standing in the way”………”

By letting go and allowing my son to flourish, I know I’m growing up a little bit as well.  Crazy how life can be like that.

Here’s a peak behind the scenes today with all of the babies, fun props, outfits, stylists, assistants, photographers, mommies, daddies and nannies!  I was excited that little Lyon got to take part in this project…crazy hair and all

Amazing how everything came together beautifully in the end.  Stay tuned for B Braithwaite’s big move next month to see the final images!

Here is a look at the cards we designed & sent out this year.  A fun way of remembering a pretty incredible year.

Happy 2012 Everyone!