Preparing for New Baby

For the last couple of months we've been pretty busy preparing for the new baby. We originally thought that hey, since this is our second one, preparing should be a breeze right? Well, actually, no. Since we are having a girl, all the baby boy clothes we have are now useless. Not to mention the blue car seat. Luckily though, my sister is loaning us her girls' clothes and they are in great shape. We just had to organize and wash them. Logistically, we also decided that baby girl will be staying with us in our room for at least a year (just like Lucas did until he moved over to his own room). This makes it easier to feed her and to put her to sleep. I also assembled a new Hello Kitty dresser drawer for baby's clothes and picked up newborn diapers, a new stroller, a pink car seat, and an extra car seat base. Most of the stuff we picked up from Amazon so that made it easier.

It's not just about getting things and stuff though. We also had to make sure that Lucas is prepared. We moved him several months ago to his own room but he still needs either me or Lediya to help him sleep (been mostly Lediya though). But with baby coming, he has to accept that mom will be busy with baby girl and that dad will be the one to put him to sleep. We've also prepped him by getting him a couple of books on being a big brother and on getting a younger sister. He seems to understand and I think he can tell that baby girl is coming real soon.

Other things left to do: clean the house from top to bottom, especially our room; last minute baby toiletries; swing set; rechargeable batteries; and pack for the hospital. For pictures, I picked up a new 35mm f/1.8 lens so I can snap away without having to use the flash. So I'm all set with that. Oh yeah, we still have to finalize her name. We can't wait to meet our little princess!

Nikon 35 mm f/1.8G AF-S DX Prime Lens

I just added a third lens to my growing collection, and this time it's the Nikon 35mm prime lens. My main reason in getting this lens is to be able to take better indoor shots without using the flash. This is important in that I plan to take a lot of pictures of our baby girl. In fact, we may even skip the professional photographer and just have me take her photos to save money. This lens produces sharp pictures and great color and contrast. It is also perfect for portrait and other general purposes. Being a prime lens, it doesn't zoom so I have to move my feet to compose the shots. I've had it for a couple of weeks now and it's been on my camera ever since. It's so light and compact too. I used it in Disneyland to take evening shots of the park and it performed excellent without having to use the flash. Fast and versatile lens!

Disneyland Annual Pass

We got annual passes, yay! This started when my sister told me that I could use the value of the birthday pass to buy an annual pass. A Southern California pass (which is good on a lot of days, even some weekends, except that it's blacked out in the summer and holiday periods) normally costs $194. But with the birthday discount, it drops to $122. Since a 1 day ticket is already $72, the cost of the pass is made up in only 1.5 visits! So that's exactly what I did for my birthday. When I went, there were no lines since it was a Tuesday. Lucas got in for free (until 3 years old) and my best friend Jimmy also came with us. Met up with my sister there as well. It was a great four hours there and I never felt rushed since now that I have a pass I can take my time. That's the best part since Lucas can only take a few hours before he gets tired. My plan is to go on my off Fridays with Lucas, park at Downtown Disney (free parking for 3 hours), take the Monorail to Tomorrowland, and have fun! We decided to get Lediya one as well because she can go on Sundays with us. We checked out their holiday decorations last week, and we all enjoyed seeing the holiday parade as well as watching Sleeping Beauty's castle light up. And it snowed! Seeing Lucas' face as he saw all of this was priceless.