in TODDLER years

okay, i know this is so late but I'm just doing a very late blog entry since the work occupied me too much - basically really super hectic. Hip Hip super Hooray! " Our baby" has turned ONE on 29th of November 2012! that is the tagline for tonight's blog entry as I also try to keep updated my blog so I won't lose my love towards writing. I still couldn't believe and living in denial that our baby has become a Toddler!  I swear I felt that we are running this business only for few months like half year only but surprisingly 12 months it have been and it's keep going awesomely. Of course running where we are today, full of struggles and never was as easy as it sounds nor looks. I know many could see lots of smile in our faces with so much happiness most of time but they did not see the parts where we cried, where we lost faith, hope and clinging to each other. And yes, we did cry a lot but its worth it. For each lesson HE gives to us is only to make us better, stronger and wealthier too. 

We cried, we laughed, but always be thankful for every little things HE gave even by means we didn't get any profit from the photo-shoot. Yeah, often we wondered "where's the money left for us" but at the end of the day, we always say "thank you LORD". At first, we were too eager in getting clients but who isn't when you are a new player, right? We ignored every little things and just pleased the client by following what they wanted and thank GOD, we decided to change our attitudes after bad experiences hit us! I wanted to act more cool, tried to stand up for my own right even Grumpy pushed me to do but I decided to hold on a little longer until I fed up anyway. I realized "you can't pleased everyone when yourself is on the verge". 

We did exhibitions in every months since April at the same place, Miniapolis, Plaza Indonesia and from there we learnt a lot especially me and our freelance marketing, Ferdinand. What we learnt is that "when client loves you, they make an effort and adjustment and yes we compromise at the end, but when they have no interest in you, they don't care about your offers even you give the cheapest price than the market, they would still say no!" which is true and you can understand those later when your business is starting to be steady. We are also like that, if we don't want to buy something, no matter how those sales tried to promote us with big discount, we will say NO. Luckily since we are growing up, we understand it all. 

Above all, I couldn't be thankful enough to have Mr. Grumpy in my life and helping me to run our business together. Too much fights we went through, too many mistakes and wrong decisions we made too, but through these down moments of Lil' Sunshine Kids Photography, we aren't giving up nor losing our faith. When I'm down, he becomes my cheerleader and become a reminder about not to lose my hope and faith. And when he is down, I also made him remember on how generous and awesome our GOD is. Although we are not breathing on the same belief but both of us are surrender in HIS hands. And look at where we were and are today's. Every little things we didn't expect to happen or least to happen, it's happened and a lot happened in an "awesome ways".

Of course, apart from our prayers and faith in HIM, there are awesome people behind us! Our families who are keep praying for us and our little brother who are praying so much for us, GOD bless all of them with tons of happiness. And our best friends too, their prayers are also heard by HIM. When I'm losing my faith, this bible verse from Matthew 17:20 keep me strong "... If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you. " Do you believe that Everything is possible when you've faith? And when we talk about "faith", we are talking about believing in something so strongly and feel like it's yours already even the reality is too far away from that. And in our case, it's actually those little faith we have that keeping us alive! Yes, often we lost those hope and faith when we faced the bitter reality, but never we forget to encourage each other and remembering HIS Grace. It's the little faith which as small as a mustard seed that made us where we are today and the prayers and supports from our best people too.

Nah, we haven't even planned for our "Birthday party" yet since our schedules are quite tight and everyone free-time is different than ours. Seriously, not yet we are still thinking to combine together with X-MAS and New Year but still, we are not sure on what to do and where will it be. Everything is quite a mess nowadays and so much things (but very little time) to do everything we have in mind. We are still looking for few people to join into the group but still haven't found the best ones yet. A lot of things needed to be planned and bunch of things need to be improved too but I just wish we can get those things done as soon as possible as creative as we can be too :-)

So what are our wishes? well, since we haven't even cut our birthday cake yet, then let the wishes be kept inside of our heart and mind ha-ha-ha! Even I'm looking forward for beer-toast moments first with our besties! Okay, the story ends here because whenever I recalled the past, our struggles, I still couldn't believe we are turning ONE year old already. Now, like always, at the end of the day, whenever we recalled those pains, tears, and the joys while we were getting through it, Its WORTH it for every tears dropped. 

Another lesson I also learnt while writing at the moment is that "Everything has it's own timing". Thank you to my best friend who kept reminding me that everyone has their own time to rise and reach their victory because the wheel of life is round and it's keep moving in the circle ; no one will stay at the top/bottom all the time. I remembered when he said this to me and of course, being patience isn't something we (as a human) can handle for long. But life itself decided by us but designed by HIM, is that right? The decisions are ours to choose and  while we are waiting for great things to happen in our life, you will found tons of "perfect-deals" that made us so tempted with shortcuts!  Often, we are using our own power or others' people extra power (let's say mystical belief) to make our road more smooth. For we, human, we designed and wanted everything exactly like how we'd wanted them to be in our imagination; Even for the unimportant things which we are blindly believe it's really important for us. but believe in none other than HIS plans because HIS plans are designed to prosper not to make us weak and what we must to do is COUNT on HIM. 

That's it and gosh, I'm pretty much turned myself into philosopher instead of writing about our achievement. See, the truth of where we are today is because of HIM. See, without HIS GRACE shines into our life and surrender in HIS plans every time, our baby couldn't be growing as fast as we ever imaged. The LORD is more than good but GREAT all the times, thank you so much LORD JESUS and SHUKRAN ALLAH :")

I quoted from Wikipedia that "the toddler years are a time of great cognitive, emotional and social development." and for our toddler, we believe that we will be a lot better in terms of managing the business and of course showing more of our creativity too. We are growing and we are in our toddler years, so it is time to develop ourself to be awesome. Of course, it requires lots of new learning and tons of improvements but we are willing to do so with wholeheartedly. Sadly, a week it had been since we turned ONE, we still have NO time to analyze ourselves yet as it requires "great quality time" to see our weaknesses.  I guess, next week, we will be having some free time and I can't wait to argue with Grumpy and we are fighting against new ideas =)