It was when I became a mother that I developed an interest in capturing children's smiles and moments through baby/child/family lifestyle portraiture. It was also when Mike and I became parents that we realized how blessed we are for having a healthy growing family. As a way of thanking God and paying it forward, every year, we decide on a children's welfare cause to support.

This year, I hit two birds with one stone by being part of "Nourish the Children," a feeding program organized by a friend's group, the Health Awareness Initiative. Like last year, Mike and I contributed towards purchasing bags of VitaMeal, a formulation specially made for malnourished kids. One bag of VitaMeal is enough to feed a child one nutritious meal a day for 30 days.

I also got to capture the grateful smiles of children by documenting the child feeding initiative as part of my donation. Here are some of my favorite photos taken during the event.

Truly a treat to have been part of this event.

Merry Christmas, everybody! Happy birthday, Jesus!

Hard to beat our Christmas photo card last year, but I'm pretty proud of this year's photo card since we pulled it off in under 20 minutes. Good thing the little kiddo was sound asleep.

I was worried about Hagupit/Ruby ruining our shoot. But the weather turned out great, and I had a blast photographing Gian and Chesa's two month old cutie, Hugo, at their home.

Here are some of my favorites from my morning with Hugo, Gian and Chesa.

Thank you so much, Gian, Chesa and Hugo, for letting me into your home and allowing me to capture your growing family!

Nate loooooves animals. So when we stayed overnight at a relative's house in Mendez, Cavite, we decided to swing by Paradizoo on our way home. But before going to Paradizoo, we had brunch with our Ninong Willy at Breakfast at Antonio's. The first time we were there, the little one was just three months old! Time zips by too fast when you have a tiny tot.

Anyway, back to our quick trip. Paradizoo is owned by the same group that runs Residence Inn. It has an Animal Farm (the farm boasts of some "special" animals like a 5-legged cow, miniature horses, a wild boar that they have tamed, and a hybrid goat lamb that we could not find), a Flower Garden, a Vegetable Farm, and even a pet cemetery dubbed as "Perpetual Park." You can purchase carrots and feeds to give the animals, ride the miniature horse for a fee, or hire a tour guide. Since we just wanted to see if Nate would be responsive to seeing the animals, we just paid the entrance fee and helped ourselves at the Animal Farm.

So did Nate enjoy Paradizoo? He seemed pleased and interested, but not as excited as I thought he would be. This is the same kid who would chase stray cats and dogs, so I thought he'd be a little more receptive to being that close to the animals. I think he found the farm animals too quiet for his liking, because when he saw the noisy ducks, he suddenly got excited. Then again, he just woke up from his nap at the time, so maybe he just wasn't in the mood yet.

Overall, I think Paradizoo was ok, but seems to have been neglected. It's worth checking out if you have children who are interested in animals. Is it big? Not at all. Did it smell? Yes, but then again, you've got animals all over, and they're bound to poop every minute. Also, if the sun is out and the weather is not too cool, going there mid-day may not be a good idea (you'll see trickles of sweat in some of my pictures with Nate, hehe..)