Stormin' the Lion City!

Wen turns 4 - Part 3!

2012-01-18T22:09:00.001+08:00

We chose to have Wen's birthday dinner with the family at a traditional hokkien restaurant at Amoy Street called Beng Hiang that's near the man's office so we could get En home in time for bed. Yes, lifestyle changes as a result of having a Pri 1 child.

We got there early so the kids got to play at Telok Ayer Green, where there are these lovely statues that tell a bit about the history of the area and Singapore.

We don't usually buy birthday gifts for the kids, but I remembered that Wen had been wanting a musical box like the ones her sisters both have, and I managed to get a nice one for her with a dancing ballerina and she was very pleased, both at receiving a surprise gift, as well as getting something she wanted.

It was nice to celebrate her birthday with the family.

including Wayne shu shu, who's usually not around in January.

Blessed 4th birthday to our baby!

We love you so!

Wen turns 4 - Part 2!

2012-01-18T14:01:00.000+08:00

Wen got to wear her own clothes to school today, it being her birthday so she chose her favorite dress.

After morning assembly in the hall, the school celebrated her birthday with her self decorated cake.

Wen turns 4 - Part 1!

2012-01-17T22:30:00.000+08:00

Wen turns 4 tomorrow but my sister is going to Malaysia tomorrow for a school camp, so tonight, she came over to celebrate with En. As you may recall, our family tradition for birthdays since last year has been to go to the Icing Room to self decorate a cake to bring to school for birthday celebrations. But because En has to be in bed by 8pm, we bought the cake home to decorate instead.

Hannah was responsible for overseeing the decoration of the cake. She carefully drew in the butterfly and the words and then let the girls get to work.

the older ones had to be reminded that it was Wen's cake, not theirs, and to let her do it her way.

thanks to Hannah's guidance, it didn't become as much of an icing explosion as Min's cake last year.

here's the almost finished product which she will be taking to school tomorrow.

After that, we sang her the birthday song,

took a bunch of pictures,

lit and blew out

and relit the candles over and over and over,

and then enjoyed the very delicious frozen yoghurt cake we had bought her from our favorite frozen yoghurt shop at Katong Mall.

More celebrations coming up!

The Soons go to Chinatown

2012-01-14T22:14:00.000+08:00

After breakfast today, we decided to head down to Chinatown to soak in some of the Chinese New Year spirit. We got there at 11-ish and managed to find parking at Chinatown Complex.

the kids loved looking at all the different shops that were selling all manners of things from Chinese New Year couplets, to decorations, and even these sky lanterns.

we bought more decorations for our home, including these plastic cherry blossoms.

we also got to try lots of CNY goodies like these mochi

but the girls favorite was definitely the melon seeds! I was also very pleased because I managed to find short stalks of pussywillows that will fit nicely into my small vase!

It was fun and festive, and not too crowded, a fun excursion for all of us!

End of Week 2 of Primary School & a late night!

2012-01-13T22:03:00.000+08:00

Well folks, we've survived the second week of Primary School. En has not been so enthusiastic about school this week, mainly due to the early waking time of 6am. Almost every other day, when she's woken up, I can hear her crying from her room to the toilet and then from the toilet to the hall, where she changes into her uniform. And I'll get to hear her tell me, "I'm so tired, I don't want to go to school." So we realised that it was very important to get her in bed by 7.30 or 8pm and we've been quite strict about that this week, getting her in bed early so that she gets enough sleep and isn't tired when she wakes up. Today, however, being Friday, we let her stay up so that we could go to the funfair at Tampines Central.

the girls had a great time on this ride,

and their favorite was this ride, where they could go up and down on this space shuttle.

Oh, how much we all appreciate the weekend now that we have a primary school going child! Yippee that I get to sleep in tomorrow!

Soon sisters

2012-01-13T18:01:00.000+08:00

the girls this afternoon, waiting at the airport for papa to return from Vietnam.

En's buddy

2012-01-13T17:50:00.001+08:00

To help the P. 1 girls ease into primary school, MGS assigns a P.5 girl to each P.1 girl as a buddy. For the first two weeks of school, the buddy comes to the girls' class at recess time and will accompany them for the duration of the 30 min recess time. We met En's buddy,Kate, on the first day of school.

Since then, she's been coming home everyday and telling me about what she did with Kate that day, or some nugget of information she learnt from Kate. For instance, why is it that the buddy is a P. 5 girl & not a P.6 girl? Oh Kate says its because the P.6 girls have to take an important examination called the PSLE! Another thing she's been talking about every day is what she should give to Kate on the last day of the buddy program. So last night, we selected a gift for Kate, wrapped it up & wrote her a card. Today was the last day with Kate & when she came home, she proudly showed me the nicely wrapped gift that Kate had given her,together with this sweet card.

This gift giving & card making is really such a girl thing. I wonder if any of my friends with sons had your boys asking to make a card or give a gift to their buddies? Anyhow, I'm very thankful for the kind buddy that En had & she's already talking about how she will miss Kate on Monday!

Getting into the Chinese New Year spirit!

2012-01-12T23:58:00.001+08:00

It all started this morning because I had to go queue for the famous Lim Chee Guan bak kwa at Ion Orchard, not for my personal consumption but for work since my job as a Protocol officer involves getting gifts for our partners. Since I knew the queue was going to be long, I called Linda & asked her to join me. We got there at 9.30am (the shop was due to open at 10) and there were already about 15 people in the line. By the time they started serving customers around 1005, there were at least another 30 people in the line behind me!

At around 1040am, it was finally our turn. Each person is only allowed to buy 5 kg of the pork bak kwa, and as much of anything else you want. The both of us maxed out our allowance!

I managed to get off work on time and as I was driving out from my office, I decided to stop by at Far East Flora to buy some flowers for CNY to give a festive touch to our home. This is one of my resolutions for the year, to decorate my home for each major festival and holidays that matter to us. This was something my friends in the US would do, changing their deco with the passing seasons and holidays & that is what I'm aspiring to do!

At Far East Flora, which is a wholesale shop, I had a fun half hour in the cold rooms looking at the different plants and flowers and in the end, I got a bunch of eucalyptus and some Solanum Integriflorium, otherwise known as Pumpkin on a stick.

The kids were very excited to be doing this centerpiece arrangement with me! This is the first time we have tried doing something like this.

This was a very simple arrangement that's very appropriate for CNY! And now the house smells of eucalyptus too which I love! No need for water as these all dry out nicely & can last very long.

I also bought this small "good luck plant" at Far East Flora.

En told me that she needed to bring some CNY decorations to school to decorate her classroom. So after she & Min fell asleep, Wen & I headed downstairs to our neighborhood CNY fair where there was a great range of decorations to choose from!

While buying stuff for En, we also got some decoration for our home as well.

We got these cloth cuttings of the kids' zodiac animals (rooster, dog & pig) for their room door as well as my favorite one of the Chinese word for Sping, 春, surrounded by all the animals in the Chinese zodiac calendar.

Now the house looks so nice & festive for my favorite holiday of the year!

A new golf coach for the girls

2012-01-10T23:55:00.000+08:00

The girls were being taught by Coach Brett for the last few months. Min adored Brett because he was such a nice and nurturing coach, who never had a harsh word for her, never scolded her, always encouraged her and always praised her. Every shot she made was "good!" or "Excellent", even if it sucked. He really was an excellent coach and the two girls were developing nicely under him. Alas, he left Singapore on Christmas Day and that meant we had to look for a new teacher for the girls. Now they are being taught by Coach Mark, a young chap who's very firm with the girls and doesn't stand for much nonsense.

He calls a spade a spade and will always tell the girls how they can improve, and what they did wrong. Naturally, Min is really not so fond of Mark as she was of Brett. But I have to tell you, I attended tonight's lesson with the two of them. It was their second session with Mark, and Min has made such progress!

Credit to Mark because I think he's what she needs to do well. However, Min misses Brett's style very much and keeps telling me that she wants to stop her golf lessons now!

En is doing well too, just that after a long day in school and being up since 6am, it was definitely rather trying to be having a lesson at 8pm. But I'm trying to avoid any more of these late nights for them because bedtime is now 8pm.

Soon sisters together!

2012-01-10T23:44:00.000+08:00

Hard at work at the play dough factory! A perk of having all the girls in morning session is that by the time En gets home on the school bus around 2.40pm, Min & Wen are well rested & naps have usually been completed so they get to hang out together. I've been working hard to try and create large spaces of free time for them so that we aren't always rushing from one activity to the other. I'm trying to let my kids stay at home a lot more than we usually do. And this schedule is really helping my cause!

this afternoon, we took out containers of playdough that Hwee Ling had given us, as well as all our different playdough cutters, moulds, and equipment and the girls spent a marvellous hour or more working together, creating, and having fun! Yes, there was a lot of playdough on the carpet after their play was over, but it's ok, better the carpet than the floor! Playdough is so therapeutic! En really enjoyed playing with her sisters when she got back!

After school

2012-01-10T23:32:00.001+08:00

Yesterday was my first day back at work after almost 6 weeks. I don't think I've ever spent so much time with the girls being their full caregiver since we returned to Singapore in May 2009. During the holidays, my in laws were away in China for a good fortnight, while my mum worked most days. So I didn't have that many opportunities to outsource my kids as I often do. Was I tired? Absolutely! Did my kids sometimes drive me nuts? Of course! But did I enjoy my time with them, most certainly YES! I really wasn't looking forward to returning to work, and also missing their first real day of school. But as it turns out, my return to work was smooth, apart from the 788 emails in my inbox. And the girls seemed to enjoy their first day too. Today, I got to be there to pick them up after their second day of school. Here's Wen with her classmates.

the one I was worried about was Min, because I had uprooted her from the afternoon session where all her friends were, to the morning session. But it does seem that she is settling down nicely, and En's form teacher last year, Yang Lao Shi, is also her form teacher this year, and things seem to be working out there so far!

Very proud of my Min and how resilient and strong she is!

While mummy was at tea...

2012-01-08T23:59:00.001+08:00

Meanwhile, while mummy was out at tea with Auntie Elsa & Auntie Emily, papa was looking after the kids & here's where they wound up after naps!

The arcade at Changi Airport Terminal 3.

Min & her latest art project

2012-01-08T23:16:00.001+08:00

To say that Min is the most artistic and creative of my girls is an understatement. There's nothing like some art and craft to calm her down, regardless of how wired up she may be. Most mornings, after she wakes, you'll find her at her table, cutting, pasting, drawing, just creating works of art. She likes recycling things, so pieces of cardboard that were the backing for a sheet of stickers, or perhaps a piece of plastic that covered a present, these will all be hoarded by her and used in her art. Her latest collection is receipts. She picks up receipts from the floor of malls, or asks me for receipts of items I've bought, and she keeps them and sticks them on her work. Over the last few days, Min, together with her sisters, created this piece of work. While her sisters assisted her here and there, most of the work and the ideas were Min's. It started with one sheet of the black cardboard, and as it expanded, a second sheet of the cardboard was added on. Take a look at this video to see how she uses different materials. I would really like to get an art teacher for Min because this is really her passion. Anyone with recommendations?

My Evanston girlfriends!

2012-01-08T22:32:00.001+08:00

Elsa, Emily & myself met for coffee this afternoon before Emily flies back to the US tomorrow. These two ladies were part of my support network during my time in Evanston & I'm grateful for their friendship!

Always nice to catch up! Thanks, Elsa, for organizing this!

16 years today!

2012-01-07T23:14:00.000+08:00

the man and I started dating 16 years ago today.

We celebrated with dinner at a Japanese restaurant called Meii Sushi at Tanjong Pagar which was excellent and followed that with dessert at Antoinette along Penhas Street.

If you haven't been to Antoinette, it's definitely worth a visit. You feel like you are in Europe, because there are chandeliers hanging from the ceilings, plush sofa and very french furniture, and you get water in these lovely cut crystal glasses. We've made reservations for brunch in a week so we can take the girls here!

I was reminded today by our good friend, Simon, of some of the stuff that the man and I used to do when we first started dating. Back then, I was waiting to enter the university and he was about to go into the army for national service. I was working at a telemarketer at my mum's office and he would come meet me for lunch sometimes, and Simon showed us how to walk from the Concourse, where he was working, to the beach along the Kallang River where people dragonboat. I'd forgotten that till he reminded us! 16 years already!

En's 1st week of Primary 1 in review

2012-01-06T23:55:00.000+08:00

We marked the end of En's first week in school with sickness. She came home this afternoon very tired and teary. She told me that she started feeling sick during Chinese lesson at school after recess, but her teacher took her temperature and she was fine. But her head had been hurting, and she had tried to sleep on the bus, unusual, because for the last few days, she would get off the school bus in high spirits, telling me what a great time she'd had playing on the bus, and about the people she was talking to. I thought that perhaps, it was just a case of not having enough sleep as she had her golf lesson the previous night till 9ish and hadn't slept till close to 10. But after a shower and a snack, she was still feeling poorly, and I think she's come down with the same throat infection that kept Wen at home today.

But otherwise, En is enjoying school very much although she cannot tell me the names of most of her teachers, she doesn't have any homework, and she'd rather save her pocket money than spend it. Also, at the end of Day 2, having endured a day of her hair being tied up (and me having had to tie the hair early in the morning), we came to a consensus that she should cut her hair and keep it short for the time being. So she's back to having a nice short bob that Mrs Tay Poh Imm would approve of. No pictures, alas. This week, we also managed to find another couple living in Tampines who's daughter goes to MGS to car pool with us. Thursday was the first day we tried carpooling and today was our turn. This is a great burden off both the families, as it halves our travel to MGS in the mornings! Hurray! Thank God for this provision! This week, En also came back with her first 听写sheet for the next few weeks and I was rather surprised to see that the kids are actually going to be tested on the hanyu pinyin rather than the 汉字. Purists like my mother-in-law really object to this, while I have heard others praise this system. We shall see how that works. Meantime, we're all very glad that we've come to the end of the school week because we get to sleep in tomorrow! I've been sleeping so badly this whole week cos I'm stressed that we'll oversleep and be late for school and I have these vivid dreams that cause me to sit up in bed and talk. Also, I have been waking up while it's still dark outside every day, amazing for me! Hurray for the weekend & I hope my poor En gets better soon so she can enjoy it!

Min's date night with papa - Carnival!

2012-01-06T21:03:00.001+08:00

Min had date night with papa this evening. The man & I had been thinking about where he could take her and I remembered that the Uncle Ringo Carnival had just started at the field across from Tampines Mall, and Min had been wanting to go there.

and so that's how they spent date night, at the carnival, with Min having fun alone at the various rides and bouncy castle, and ending off with yummy prata at Century Square. I do think she missed her sisters at the fair though. A carnival is someplace you want to have your sisters with you!

Wen at music lesson

2012-01-06T19:57:00.000+08:00

Wen loves her weekly 15 minute music lesson with Auntie Felicia. After her first trial class in December, she would ask me every day when her next piano lesson was going to be. Today was her first lesson since the trial, and she had a marvellous time! Her sisters were waiting enviously outside the room, watching her playing with a bunch of different instruments! here's a short video I took from outside the room.

Advice on hamsters from rodent child pet extraordinaire!

2012-01-05T23:59:00.000+08:00

After reading my last post on the return of Sass Soon, my friend, Weylin, texted me a series of hilarious SMSes, educating me on hamsters. Turns out that she's a rodent child pet extraordinaire, having had 15 hamsters and 4 mice over a period of time and the info was too good to keep to myself, so I thought I'd reproduce them for your reading pleasure below!

Lost and found....

2012-01-05T23:26:00.000+08:00

Of course, it had to happen this way, we lose a hamster, we wait, can't find her, and buy a new hamster. Then we find her. So for those of you still following the saga of the missing hamster, you would know that so far we lost Sass sometime in the early morning of 1 Jan. We searched and waited for two days, and couldn't find her. And so we bought a new hamster on 3 Jan. Then last night, I walked in the dark to the kitchen to get a drink. I turned on the kitchen light, and was drinking from my cup when I spied, from the corner of my eye, something that looked like a giant cockroach crawling across the kitchen door in slow motion. I turned and looked carefully, and saw - SASS SOON! I walked towards her, grabbed her and quickly stuffed her in our back up cage.

Who knows where she has been these last 3 days, and what she's been surviving on? All I can tell you is that she's very upset to be back. she's been clawing at the cages, performing these stunts I've never seen her try before, like scaling the sides and trying to stand on the wheel. I've never seen her so energetic before. she's desperately trying to escape again. she chews at the cage furiously, trying to chew her way out I reckon. it's quite a sight.

And of course, I can't put her in the same cage as Snowy because 1) hamsters are solitary creatures 2)Snowy is male, and Sassy is female, and I DO NOT want baby hamsters. So I have to go buy a new cage and new stuff for another hamster! aargh! of course, the girls cannot understand why I don't want baby hamsters, and they ask me questions like, "You mean if Sassy touches Snowy, she will become pregnant?!!!" Yes, lovely, we've got to do the birds and bees talk (a simplified one) thanks to my hamsters! Yes folks, we are now the owners of 2 hamsters. JOY! But here's a funny story. this evening, the SPCA calls me to do a follow up on Sass and find out if everything is going fine. Thankfully, I was able to report that yes, everything was fine, except that Sass was desperate to escape, to which the lady on the phone tells me is very normal. Phew! I'm really impressed that the SPCA does follow on calls even for hamsters!

Min & Wen's 1st day of school!

2012-01-04T23:55:00.001+08:00

Today was Min & Wen's first day of school.

Because I didn't think about it, I didn't make the girls try on the uniforms before school started. So Min wound up wearing her uniform from last year, while Wen put on En's uniform from last year. Clearly, Min has grown taller. I did not quite realise. She does look somewhat trendy in this short skirt, and she does look like she has legs that never end. muah ha ha.

Look at my 2 little models! they created those necklaces and bracelets in the morning before we headed out!

Actually it wasn't school proper, but orientation. Both the morning and the afternoon sessions attended school at the same time from 9am to noon, and while the kids were in their classes being entertained by their teachers, the parents sat and listened to many many people, including the principal and extra class vendors talk about their programs.

Over the holidays, I had already become aware of the fact that many of Min's best friends were going to be in Kindness class for K2 while she had been posted to Gentleness. But today, when I got to school and looked at the name list, I realised that in fact, every single one of her BFFs were in Kindness, and she was going to a class where she hardly had any friends.

So I asked about whether there were vacancies in the morning session, which runs from 8-11am, and they were able to accommodate me, thus I decided to switch both the girls to the morning class in light of our new schedules given En going to Primary One and Min entering it next year. I thought it would just be logistically neater to have all of them in morning class and everyone could get used to the Primary school hours and also sleep early every night.

Min, while a little apprehensive, seems mostly cool about the idea. Wen doesn't really know any better. In fact, one of her classmates from BMCK is in the morning class, so she'd actually have a friend already! Only thing is that she won't be in the same class as En's best friend, Alysa's younger sister, Maegan.

They have a new art vendor this year and their programme seems a lot more enjoyable. More art and craft and pottery type things, instead of just drawing. My kids enjoyed the session they had with them today.

Here are their completed creations!

Wen has always been in a different school and session from her sisters for the last year and a half, and it will be interesting to see the new dynamics between Min and Wen without En around as Min steps up to the role of the big sister. Min and Wen fight a lot. Both of them don't give way to the other, and they love to push each other's buttons (and boy do they know the buttons to push). At the same time, they have become closer recently, and when they are not fighting, they actually play very well. The power balance between the two is more equal unlike when En's around and is clearly the alpha. So I'm looking forward to seeing how the relationship between the sisters will develop this year!

En's 2nd day of Primary School

2012-01-04T23:45:00.001+08:00

Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays are PE days, and this is the MGS PE attire. Thank goodness they got rid of those awful bloomers! When I was in Primary school, I had bloomers, and subsequently, they introduced the trendier shorts, but my mother insisted that I should continue wearing the bloomers cos I could fit into them and they were perfectly fine. She did not care about me being a fashion pariah. So PE became a dreadful time for me because most of the girls would be in the cool shorts, and I would be in my bloomers and trying to hide. most unfortunate.

The man was sending En to school today, and since it was Min & Wen's 1st day of school, I thought I should accompany them. I had asked En if she wanted me to go along and stay in school or something but she looked at me like I was crazy and said, "Of course not!" so yay! Here's a picture of her in her classroom when papa brought her up. After her initial seating yesterday, the teachers moved all of them and now she has a new partner and a new seat.

And in case you were wondering how come her hair is tied up today, it's because yesterday, we were walking up to the classroom when I met my old teacher, Mrs Tay, who exclaimed that En's hair was too long (touching the collar). So today, we had to tie up her hair. Also, I was informed that earrings with gemstones are another no no. So I had to go buy her simple studs. I'd forgotten how strict MGS is about these things! Day 2 went well and she's still loving school....

Welcome, Snowy Soon

2012-01-03T23:37:00.000+08:00

It's been 3 days, and Sass has still not been found. so after we left MGS, we took the girls to buy a new hamster.

Meet Snowy Soon (named by Min). He's 8 weeks old and a Safyr hamster. He's larger than Sass and so far, he's been very active and acrobatic, amazing us with his ability to climb the cage, hang upside down, stand on his hind legs (very Narnia!) and is just very boy like in terms of energy level. After some investigation, I am of the opinion that Sass escaped through the roof of her cage, which is a plastic cover that was slightly loose. So I have taped that down, and hopefully, we won't have another disappearing act!

En's 1st day of Primary School!

2012-01-03T23:11:00.001+08:00

Today was En's 1st day of Primary School! For the first 3 days of school, the Primary 1 kids start school at 8.30am, instead of 7.20am, and end at 12.30pm, instead of 1pm. Parents are also allowed to be in school for the first three days, I think.

We left the house early and got to school at 8am. When we arrived at the classroom, En saw Sophie, the girl she had made friends with during Orientation in November, and the two of them, together with Janaine, a girl En got to know at Jon's birthday party, sat together. I think this definitely helped En feel better.

Min & Wen don't start school till tomorrow so we had dragged them along with us for this momentous occasion. I'm not sure they appreciated it.

So here's what the classroom looks like.

After the girls were in the class, the parents were asked to go wait at the canteen, so that's where we went to sit and wait until 930, when the girls, accompanied by their Primary 5 buddies, came down to the canteen. Here's our first sight of En after searching through the throng of girls in blue and white who all looked alike!

this is En and her buddy, Kate. MGS assigns a Pri 5 girl to each Pri 1 girl who will accompany the junior every recess time till the end of the second week of school. En is in awe of this big girl. She seems like a very sweet and responsible girl.

And here they are, off to find a place in the canteen to sit and eat. Can you spot them?

After that, we didn't bother to stay on and wait some more. We just left to go home. I really wanted to be there at 12.30 when school was dismissed to meet En and send her home, but she's taking the school bus home and the man reminded me that if she missed the first day of school bus, she would miss meeting everyone, and then it might be harder to fit in consequently, like arriving late at a party. So En stayed in school till 1.30, waiting for the older girls to be dismissed and arrived home at around 2.45pm today in this snazzy school bus.

She, unsurprisingly, loves being on the school bus and loves school. And while her bag this morning weighed a ton, because the teachers had asked them to bring all their textbooks and workbooks and exercise books, she came back with an empty bag cos the girls get to leave their books under their table.

Meantime, here's a bit of education about the MG uniform. Many people think that the MG uniform is a skirt & blouse. It isn't. We wear our pinafore (pictured above) under our blouse & we have no belt. Our pinafore is held up at the shoulders by two buttons on each side and so this allows us to be very good at changing in public (much to the shock of my male classmates in JC). By wearing our t-shirts over the pinafore, shorts under skirt, we just hv to unbutton the shoulder buttons, unzip at the side & pull down the pinafore to have our PE attire. When it's time to change, we can slip the unbuttoned pinafore under our t-shirt, pull up the straps from under the top of shirt, button up n voila!

Jolene is 10!

2012-01-01T23:55:00.001+08:00

Jolene was born on New Year's Day 2002. For the last few years, Lin & Jo have been hosting a picnic for their church mates at the Botanic Gardens to celebrate the occasion, and this time, we were invited too!

As you can see, everyone's familiar with this routine. There were picnic mats aplenty, as well as lots of fruits, drinks, frisbees,

balls

and skatescooters.

For dinner, the younger kids had McDonald Happy Meals, while everyone else had the yummy Adam Road nasi lemak.

For En, one of the highlights of this picnic was that she got to play soccer with the guys. I wasn't there, but Linda told me that she was chasing the ball, and enjoying all the running around and if you see the pictures below, you will see that the grown men showed no mercy and made her fight for the ball just as hard as everyone else!

She would probably make a good soccer player. ha ha. she's our athlete.

My younger girls, meantime, were busy having a great time with the two 10-year-old jie jies, who were very sweet to them and played lots with them. For some reason, this soccer net provided them with much entertainment, especially when placed over their heads!

Blessed 10th Birthday, to a wonderful young lady. Has it been 10 years already? I can still picture you in my mind as a little bald baby we used to watch playing in the bath tub while we sat at the toilet door trying to do bible study! How you've matured and blossomed.

Thank you for being a big sister to my girls who love and adore you! May your friendship with them always be as close as that of mine with your mummy!

(all pictures courtesy of Linda, cos the man and I were out on a date)

Hello 2012, Welcome more butterflies!

2012-01-01T23:09:00.001+08:00

Happy New Year everyone! We had a great start to our new year because overnight, the other 3 cocoons hatched and now we have 3 butterflies, one for each Soon sister! Last night, we weren't able to see the first butterfly clearly and it definitely didn't look like the postcard of the Malayan Eggfly we were supposed to be having. but this morning, in the light of day, and when the butterflies unfurled their wings, we were able to see the beautiful royal blue and white speckles and marvel at God's wonderful artistry!

We brought them to an open field and released them there.

In other sad news, Sass has disappeared. Wen came to my bed this morning to announce that Sass was not in her cage. I figured that Sass was just hiding in the long kitchen cardboard roll we had placed in her cage, but it proved to be true indeed, she had disappeared. We have investigated and taken the statements of all the suspects, and it appears that I was the last to see her last night before I went to bed. How she escaped we do not know. The cage door was not open when the girls discovered her missing. sigh. now I need to go find a missing hamster. joy. should I be concerned that the girls seem rather nonchalent about their missing hamster? the one who's most affected right now is papa, who's been busy googling "how to find a missing hamster". Also my sister.

Butterfly No. 1!

2011-12-31T23:59:00.001+08:00

We came home from dinner tonight to discover that one of our 4 cocoons had hatched while we were out today! You can see the picture of the empty cocoon below hanging on the stick. After their bath, the girls brought the butterfly out to the corridor, opened the cover and waited for the butterfly to fly away.

What a lovely way to end 2011! Looking forward to meeting the other 3 soon!

An outing to SPOM

2011-12-31T23:43:00.002+08:00

It's New Year's Eve and we had nothing planned. I didn't feel strong enough to brave the crowds anywhere, so I thought we would go to the Senior Police Officers' Mess (SPOM) at Mt Pleasant Rd for dinner because it's always empty there and the food is good! We had a delicious dinner here and they got to hang out at the rather sad playroom and pose on the "police car" and afterwards, since it was their first time here, I brought them around, showed them the portraits of all the different Commissioners from years long passed and who my big boss is. heh heh. Min had many questions about what this place was, whether I was supposed to be here, how come I could be here, and yes, my girls (and their friends in school) think that it's pretty cool that I do what I do, even though I don't really wear the uniform much or carry a gun! But eh, I have a warrant card ok, and I still have to do my IPPT and pass my shooting every year!

I was clearing En's Kindergarten schoolbag and found this drawing that she did where she writes in Chinese that she wants to be a Police Officer, and that's a picture of En in her blue uniform.

Pretty sharp looking officer eh! And in case you were wondering, yes, I was very pleased and proud when I saw it!

Girl power!

2011-12-31T22:29:00.000+08:00

The Soon sisters spent the day with the Tan sisters today!

You can just imagine all the fun they had watching Barbie DVDs, and playing dressup and doing the things little girls do when they are together!

A camping we will go!

2011-12-28T23:18:00.002+08:00

Some months back, 3 families in our DG decided that we would go camping together during the December holidays. Except that two of these families (that would be the same two that went to Koh Samui) wanted camping the easy way out, by using the wonderful services of Big Bear Camping. So the last family, the one with the 4 boys (who will one day have to go and serve National Service and as such should know how to pitch tents?) were forced into our version of camping, where in truth, the only thing that had to be set up was our hammock.

What Big Bear Camping does is that for a certain cost (less than $100), they will come with all the necessary equipment, pitch a nice sized tent for you at a place of your choice, complete with thin gym mats, pillows, even lights,

and you even get a gazebo outside your tent with a table and 4 chairs! Now how about that?

all we had to do was to go online to the NParks website, , fill in the application for a camping permit, and then print out the permit from any AXS machine. simple as that.

We had already decided that we were going to camp at Area D.

So yesterday afternoon, the Laus and us got there before the tents were set up and the kids wasted no time in changing into their swimsuits and playing in the sea at East Coast Park.

they picked shells, and even managed to find sand dollars on the beach here! amazing!

But I think what really thrilled them was climbing this "mountain".

The kiddos thought that the breakwater would make for good climbing, and it did. With some help from Bim the first time, the kids cautiously made their way up and then down.

soon, we had a bunch of goats going up and down the breakwater quite effortlessly!

at the end of our camping trip today, I had asked each kid what was their favorite part of our camping expedition, and Wen told me without hesitation that this had been her favorite part!

it's a lot trickier than it looks because some of the rocks are wet, and it's not always easy to find a good foothold, especially for little hands and feet, but the kids were so determined, and it was great watching them work at it, and get better each time!

the man has had this hammock since his army days and it's followed us from Singapore to Evanston and back, and it's hardly been used. But on this camping trip, it was a hit with the kids. They loved climbing onto it, swinging, and trying to push each other off. Of course, it was a source of many squabbles too, but they had many marvellous moments on it as well!

At the last minute, we managed to get another family to join us on our camping trip, and our friends, Emily and Zhijian, who had just flown in from the US that day, came to join us in the early evening together with their kids, Janine & Nathan. So we had lots of kids having a great time!

Look at us, enjoying our dinner facing the sea! And the sight of our 4 large tents on that stretch of beach was rather impressive, I must say!

here's the chief cook for the night. Funny story though. Bim was getting the fire started and there was a lot of smoke, and Theodore looked at the sight and exclaimed, "Fumigation! Fumigation!" hee hee. clearly hasn't been to many barbeques!

Unfortunately, because I had many many months ago bought tickets to watch Wicked with my sis and cousin, I had to rush off at 7pm, so I wasn't present when they were toasting marshmallows for S'mores, or when they were giving out lightsticks and fighting over the number each person could have, or to watch them change into their PJs and settle in for the night. What I do know is that when I returned around 10.30pm, the parents were all seated outside our tent, chatting and enjoying the night air, and all the BOYS were fast asleep, while in my tent, there were 4 little girls who were very much NOT asleep.

In all fairness to them, it was rather stuffy in the tent, and this was even when we slept with the door open. There was also a rather big and loud group behind our tents, having a night long barbeque, with the singing of a birthday song at midnight, among other things, as well as another group further away who were playing the guitar at 4am, and then, part of that same big group later in the early morning, around 6ish, swimming and chatting at the beach outside our tents. ha ha. yes, very peaceful.

but sleep did come, even if not as much as they usually have. Poor Jolene, to be sleeping next to my En who was tossing and turning and kicking all night. And then I had a Min who moved an entire 360 degrees in her corner of the tent in her sleep, and Wen, who would wake every once in a while to cry and then go back to a fitful sleep.

Well, we survived the night. I brushed my teeth by the beach this morning, and then we walked to the nearby McDonalds at the East Coast Seafood Centre for breakfast and AIRCON!!!

then we headed back to camp where everyone was busy blowing up balloons using straws with those small packs of gluey substance that Ruth and Bim had bought. Kept the kids super entertained. I'm pleased to say also, that before we went camping, I had read that talcum powder very effectively and easily removes sand from your body, and with that in mind, I had brought along powder on this trip, and it was indeed true!

While waiting for Big Bear Camping to come and tear down the tents at 10am, the kids picked up large branches and tried to do some building, with Uncle Ken being the chief architect.

And then, a group picture to remember a very very enjoyable camping trip.

We are so thankful that the weather was fine during our camping trip because in the past week, it's been pouring with rain every day! But perhaps next time round, we might do it in June instead. Less chance of rain. We had such a great time, and the kids are already looking forward to the next camping trip! Of course, I wouldn't do it without the professionals! This is my idea of camping!

Making S'mores at Gardens by the Bay (East)

2011-12-26T22:36:00.001+08:00

Our friend, Lawrence, had told us about the beautiful Gardens by the Bay (East) and told us to check it out. It'd been raining these last few days, so that wasn't possible and we'd been stuck indoors a lot. So when we awoke to beautiful weather this morning, we headed there right after breakfast.

Gardens By the Bay (East) Bay East Gardens is accessible via public bus service no. 158, or by walking across from Marina Barrage, which is just 5 minutes away. Parking facilities are also available at Bay East Gardens, just before the entrance to the Marina Bay Country Club. Entry to Bay East is via Tanjong Rhu Road.

the 2 km waterfront promenade is mostly unshaded, and on this blazing hot morning, rather trying, especially for the girls on their scooters. Thankfully, there are the occasional pavillions here and there to seek shelter. I think this area will be more enjoyable when they trees grow and provide more coverage. But the view is beautiful here! And there are interesting plants to see here, and ponds with lotus, lilies, cats tails and more.

The Leongs came to join us about half hour after we got here and brought along the S'more kit that we'd given them for Christmas. However, they hadn't brought along a lighter so we had to stop this NParks contractor to borrow a lighter to light the cooking fuel!

after much effort, we finally succeeded. Why effort? Because it was super windy along the waterfront and the fire kept getting extinguished!

We huddled together in a circle along the pavement, trying to block the wind. What a sight we must have been to the people going past!

But yes, we did manage to toast the marshmallows and make our S'mores and it was a very enjoyable experience, and a great treat to be eating our S'mores here with this lovely view in front of us.

then it was time for the kids to work off the sugars. We made them scooter to the base of the ECP (Bridge in the background) and back and they did!

The Soon Leong kids!

And here we are at Ampang Niang Doufu for lunch afterwards.

A great way to spend Boxing Day!

(most of the pictures here courtesy of Linda!)

A Soon Family Christmas

2011-12-25T23:58:00.001+08:00

Merry Christmas everyone! We began Christmas morning with papa reading the story of Christmas to the girls before we headed to church. They were also each allowed to open one present.

After returning from church, they got to open the rest of their presents! Joy!

Using the new musical instruments presented by Uncle TL & Auntie Angela, the girls put up their own song and dance performance in the study. I did not quite realise till my friend pointed out that we do have a "stage" at home. ha ha. this is certainly not what I had planned for back when we got this platform built.

We hosted our annual family Christmas lunch today after church with contributions from everyone. A nice potluck.

One of the girls' favorite Christmas gifts was a nail painting kit from Uncle Chris & Auntie Elsa. Godpa kindly sacrificed his nails so that Wen could paint them!

Meantime, my cousins experimented their latest nail painting techniques on my girls.

my cousins also kindly played Monopoly Deal with my girls

and there was also some building and construction going on.

And as always, my family always leaves my house cleaner than it was before they arrived. Everyone chipped in to vacuum and mop and do the dishes, and my mum cleaned and reorganised my kitchen cupboards. Wonderful people!

One of the highlights of our Christmas party is the turkey porridge we have for dinner with the remnants of the turkey.

Yummy turkey porridge with century & salted eggs.

There was enough for everyone to stay for dinner.

Always fun to have the family over!

My 2 yee's family.

My 3 yee & her son.

My 4 koo and his clan (minus Ling)

The Yeo-Soon gang

After everyone but my parents and sis had left, we were craving durian, and my lovely daddy kindly walked to his favorite durian stall nearby to get us these 3 super durians! A most excellent end to a great day!

Merry Christmas from the Soons to all our friends and family across the world and here in Singapore!

More pictures here.

Merry Christmas from the Soon sisters!

2011-12-25T09:21:00.000+08:00

Merry Christmas

From the Soon sisters!

Christmas Eve brunch at Weylin's

2011-12-24T21:11:00.000+08:00

The Stanford gang had brunch at Weylin's place this morning. And we got to meet the newest baby - Baby G!

Yummy bagel, smoked salmon breakfast together with lovely baked goods by Wey. The girls were thrilled with the plastic wine glasses, downing glass after glass of OJ!

here are the girls with Baby K!

Art & Craft at Changi Airport

2011-12-23T23:56:00.005+08:00

Changi Airport has this thing going on right now where if you spend $50, you can sign your kid up for an art and craft session, and today, the 3 girls got to attend this.

they were each given a t-shirt and templates and got to decorate them.

I had free babysitting for 45 minutes! whoo hoo!

Meet Sass Soon

2011-12-23T11:47:00.002+08:00

Here's a close up of Sass that I managed to snap last night while she was eating her dried food and wheatgrass.

After her sisters had gone to bed, En crept out to play with Sass. We fed her a bit of grape (hamsters like fruits and vegetables) and the man continued to lament at how sad it was that the hamster was all alone! he finds it impossible to think how any creature could choose to be alone.

this, by the way, is the space age mansion that Hannah bought for Sass.

When I was pregnant with En, Hannah used to make up all these funny/rude names we could name my kid given her father's surname, Soon. One of the ones she had come up with was Vidal Sass Soon. Well, looks like we've gotten ourselves a Sass Soon and the next one we need is Vidal. ha ha.

The Zoo and Oh Farm with Alysa!

2011-12-22T22:58:00.001+08:00

En and her best friend, Alysa, have been keeping in touch these holidays via their parents' facebook and whatsapp accounts (see photos) and by calling each other to chat. Today, we brought Alysa with us to the zoo. It was a happy reunion for all the girls. Though Alysa is En's best friend, but Min and Wen treat her like she's theirs too!

they pored over maps together, posed for lots of pictures, and had a great time at the water play area.

After the zoo, I thought that we would swing by Oh Farm to get some caterpillars for the girls since it was on the way. We bought caterpillar kits for all our friends for Christmas last year and really enjoyed it, though I did wind up killing a few caterpillars. This year, I bought just enough for myself, Alysa, Linda and Weylin, the last two having messaged me their interest upon knowing I was headed to the farm.

For $4, you get a plastic container with two caterpillars and a small mulberry plant, which the caterpillar feeds on.

The caterpillars we got the last time were leopard lacewings, I think. This year, we got the caterpillars that will become Malayan Eggflys, which is pictured below.

So we had a fun day with Alysa as well as new pets to join Sass!

The Oh Chin Huat Hydroponic Farms is opened every day from 9:00 a.m. to
5:00 p.m. The farm is located within Singapore's Agrotechnology Parks at Yishun/Sembawang. You just have to go to the office and tell them that you want to buy caterpillars!

Happy 6th Birthday, Jon!

2011-12-21T23:46:00.000+08:00

Blessed birthday to our dear Jon Jon,

who turned 6 today!

The Soons adopt Sass

2011-12-21T22:26:00.003+08:00

Last night, papa walked into a pet shop with En & Min and somehow got it into his head that we should buy ourselves 3 hamsters. But after getting the look of death from me (the one who'd probably be doing all the cleaning up), he agreed that we would go home and think about it. So when I got home, I decided to do some research, and together with my sister, over Facebook, decided that we would accept a hamster into our home, but only just one, so as not to have any unwanted pregnancies (and also because hamsters are solitary creatures!) and also, we decided that we would adopt from SPCA. We thought this would be a good way to educate the girls about responsibility towards animals. After our sugar cookie baking this morning, the girls and I, together with my sister, who was going to be the sponsor of all the hamster equipment, her Christmas gift to the girls, set out to the SPCA. We saw many abandoned animals, including hamsters, rabbits, cats and dogs. We were offered a 2 month old hamster named Sass, the only catch was that we had not come with a cage, so they could only release her to us when we did so.

So off we went to the nearest mall where we bought an incredible amount of stuff for the hamster! We meekly followed the pet shop chap who walked us around the aisles, picking out items to put into our basket and explaining why we needed what we did - hamster food (lots of nuts and grains type), wheat grass (cos they constipate from the hamster food), a cooling pad to place at the base of the cage (a silver sheet of metal so the hamster stays cool), bedding to place on top of base (basically processed recycled paper that's a bit like crushed & compressed tissue paper), stress powder to place into food of hamster to ease its transition in a new place, a chewing thing in the shape of a strawberry for the hamster to file its teeth on, a bath for bathing sand that the hamster needs to bathe itself in, scented bathing sand, and of course, the space age cage! Armed with all that stuff, and my sister's wallet signficantly lighter, we headed back to SPCA, where we signed the adoption papers, welcomed her into her new cage (we have two cages, the small portable one that's the standby cage, as well as the big grand one!), paid the $10 fee and set off home. Our first real pet, every single one of us. I think my sister may actually be the most excited one! Welcome to the family, Sass Soon!

Christmas baking with Hannah yee yee

2011-12-21T21:57:00.001+08:00

My sister tries to do a spot of baking with the girls at the Christmas season every year. This morning she came over to make sugar cookies with them.

Thrilling for them since mummy rarely uses a recipe that requires a mixer! ho ho. they helped to measure and spoon out things and add things to the mix. I just concentrated on taking pictures and washing dishes.

They got to roll the dough into little balls.

They made one batch of choc chip sugar cookies and another with sprinkles.

And with the leftover dough, they made a giant Sprinkle cookie with an S made out of choc chips for Soon!

Thanks for baking with the girls, Hannah!

Min meets the fairies

2011-12-20T23:33:00.000+08:00

Min and I were having our special date time together at the new Katong Mall while En was having her sparring lesson.

Lucky us because we were just in time to see these Christmas characters who were singing and talking on stage and she was thrilled to be able to take pictures with them!

Soon Leong kids build & decorate a Gingerbread house!

2011-12-20T22:47:00.006+08:00

So in mid November, I was at Ikea with Wen and chanced upon their gingerbread house kit. I have only ever decorated a put together gingerbread house, and that was in 2007 at the McKinsey holiday party, pre-Wen. So it was with some trepidation that I bought this kit. But it was only $8, so I figured it would be fine even if I never made it.

So today, I decided to be brave, and brought this kit to Linda's place so that our kids could work on it together. Linda's kids had no clue what a gingerbread house was so they, especially Jolene, were very excited about this project. The girls were all involved in helping with the construction of the house, using icing as the glue. We placed icing in plastic bags, cut off the tip and then piped away.

As for Joel, I think he just couldn't quite understand why so much candy was being placed in front of him, but he couldn't eat any of it!

The set comes with the instructions above, as well as different pieces of gingerbread to form this house. It doesn't come with icing or decoration. So I had gone shopping at Cold Storage before. And while I could attempt to make icing, I decided that it would make my life easier just to buy a tub of vanilla icing from Cold Storage. One of the pieces of the roof was cracked in two when I opened the package, so we had to try and glue the two pieces together. You can see the crack below where the white line is below the chimney.

So here are the kids, getting ready to start on the decoration of the house.

Among other things, we had M&M, Skittles, mini oreos, Fruit Loops, gummy worms, wafers, and gummy rings. Here's a video of the enthusiastic decoration taking place.

The kids decorated every square inch of that house! Artistically, it was certainly not the prettiest house on the block. But the point was to have fun and let everyone do their own thing. So each kid managed to just focus on one area with another kid & decorate it.

The marshmallow heart for instance, was Jolene's idea.

Alas, the house COLLAPSED because I think we hadn't waited for the icing to dry properly, and also likely that the weight of all the candy made it sag.

Surprisingly, the kids weren't devastated at all! They had had such a good time up to that point that I think they were very satisfied and pleased already! And it was actually a good thing, cos now we could divide up the various pieces between the kids, and let them decorate it without getting in each other's way!

Min was by herself decorating these pieces.

Wen and Jon were very good friends today and decided to pair up to decorate this piece.

actually, for the two of them, I don't think the intent was so much to decorate the piece as it was to pile it as high as they could with candy!

Jolene and En worked together on this piece, the prettiest looking of the lot, no surprise.

Wen, with what I call, her fortress.

6 happy, sugar filled kids at the end of the decorating exercise. Linda and I fled for lunch after this picture was taken so I cannot tell you just how much of it they consumed, but I suspect, quite a lot!

this was enormous fun though, and I think this will be our new Christmas tradition with the Leongs. Except that maybe next year, I'll get the Gingerbread House kit from Icing Room, cos for $16, or so, you get the parts for the house, as well as icing, and decorations.

training in progress

2011-12-19T14:36:00.001+08:00

Some days I wake up and I'm seized by a need to clean and declutter. today was one of those days. It started with me deciding to wash my sheets and pillowcases. Then I decided that I should wash the girls' as well so I enlisted their help to strip their bedding. While doing so, I saw how dusty it was under the mattresses and at the sides, so I got out the vacuum, and En decided she wanted to help me.

so here she is with me in my bedroom, vacuuming all the nooks and crannies after we moved the mattress. She really enjoyed it and after she was done here, proceeded to vacuum the rest of my house for me as well. yup, training in progress, may she have more domestic skills than me!

DG Christmas social!

2011-12-18T21:05:00.000+08:00

The Yeos hosted our DG Christmas social today, which began with the singing of carols in their home. Today, we had 2 budding pianists, Dan & Ben, playing for us.

They are both very good, thanks to the fine training of Ruth's mum! Check Daniel out here.

While we carolled, it was raining outside, thereby foiling the swimming plans of the kids.

But the party carried on nonetheless, with this wide spread of food!

You can check out the rest of the pictures here.

Simple pleasures

2011-12-17T17:12:00.000+08:00

it's my sister's birthday today, and Wen and I headed to Changi Village this afternoon to collect her cake. On the way back to the car, we came across this old machine. It's the type you see in arcades where you're supposed to hit the gopher on the head with the hammer. Wen asked if she could please play, and since we were having a special date time together, I agreed. For just $1, she had a great time pounding on the little skeleton heads that popped up with some help from Mummy's fist.

Big grins after the game was done!

Saturday morning

2011-12-17T14:07:00.000+08:00

Saturday morning ritual - breakfast at Jalan Tua Kong mee pok.

Today, we went to a playground opposite the Marine Parade Library that we'd never been to before.

any playground with a sand pit is a winner in my girls' eyes!

My idea of a nice relaxing Sat morning!

Door Plates for the Leong siblings

2011-12-17T02:39:00.002+08:00

One of the projects I intended to work on during my long leave was to make door plates for Linda's three kids as a Christmas gift. This was something I had promised her some time ago, but hadn't found time for. But a few weeks back, I managed to go to Spotlight and got some wooden letters, frames and other trinkets to personalise each plate. Two days ago, I began the painting process, not quite sure what I wanted the finished product to look like or the colour combinations I would choose, but just slowly making it up as I went along. En helped me paint some of the letters while her sisters were napping.

the finished products, which I've just completed and am really excited about! Can't wait to give it to them!

Now to work on a new door plate for my girls!

Fun at Changi Airport

2011-12-16T23:46:00.001+08:00

We had dinner at Changi Airport tonight, and afterwards, the girls wanted to take the giant 3 storey slide and we had some vouchers left from the last time we were here, so we let them go sliding umpteen times. Then we discovered the bouncy castle on the 2nd floor which is here for the Christmas/New Year period. Every same day receipt of any amount grants you one 8-minute entry to the bouncy castle.

thankfully, we had three receipts so the girls could go, and then the man and I bought coffee from Wangz Cafe, and bottles of water from Watsons to get 3 more so they could go a second time. And then a nice lady who had 6 receipts she didn't want gave them to us, so the girls got to go another 2 times!

As we were walking to the car, we found a great booth that was selling cute kids' clothes and we managed to get the girls their Chinese New Year dresses from there. We had spent enough to redeem one free Angry Bird soft toy. So the special they are having at the Airport this season is if you spend $50 using VISA (YAY!!!) or $80 using any other means (BOO!) in one receipt, you can get this Angry Birds plush toy. And the great thing about shopping at Changi Airport is that GST is absorbed here so it's 7% cheaper! So the man needed a new suitcase which he managed to buy there as well, which got us a 2nd Angry Bird, and of course it wasn't possible to just have 2 Angry Birds so I went to buy $50 worth of groceries from Fairprice using VISA (YAY!) and got us one more Angry Bird, which made for 3 very happy Soon sisters, who weren't expecting this at all!

So remember, shop with VISA at Changi Airport! ho ho ho!

Soon Sisters Christmas gift assembly line!

2011-12-15T23:03:00.001+08:00

Because most of our good friends have so many kids, and are not particularly in need of anything, we don't usually give individual gifts at Christmas time, but a gift for the family to enjoy together. Last year, our Soon gift/curse to our friends were caterpillars, that if well taken care of, became butterflies. This year, I had stumbled upon this clever idea of a home made S'more kit. A s'more (sometimes spelled smore) is a traditional nighttime campfire treat popular in the United States and Canada consisting of a roasted marshmallow and a layer of chocolate sandwiched between two pieces of graham cracker. So over the last few weeks, I purchased the various items I needed for our S'more kit and today after piano lesson, we headed home to start up our assembly line!

I had already cut out enough wrapping paper to cover the cans of fuel and the kids were tasked to glue the paper onto the cans. Min's next job was to cut open the packages of Hershey bars. We had bought them in packs of 6 from Mustafa and she had to snip open each package so we could have 6 loose bars. Wen's job was to paste each of the "Light Me Up!" stickers on each can of fuel. I had to resist the urge to restick the ones that she stuck on lopsided, but I didn't.

Miss En was responsible for opening up each box of graham crackers to get 3 loose packages of crackers.

Then into each of our clear bags went one package of crackers, 2 bars of Hersheys (with the packaging facing outwards) which would then be tied up by En. After Min & Wen were done with their tasks, they assisted En in hers.

The completed packages of crackers and chocolates.

En's next assignment was to divide up a big pack of marshmallows into 3 smaller packs.

While she was busy with that, Min & Wen were tasked to remove the fondue/BBQ sticks from their packaging, and put 3 or 4 sticks in each of these boxes I'd gotten from Daiso. Once that was done, they had to place a package of the cracker/choc combo into the box, together with a pack of marshmallows and a container of fuel, all placed in the particular way I wanted them done.

Then they helped me to stick a Christmas poem and candy cane on the underside of the lid of the box before closing up the box.

it was incredibly fulfilling to be doing this together with my girls!

they had such a sense of ownership & pride in what they were doing and what they were giving to their friends! It made the whole gift giving so much more meaningful, and it was just wonderful for me to see how helpful my girls could be, and watch them work together as a team!

I got to give out a bunch of them today to the first lot of recipients, and they were mostly really quite excited about the gift!

Another fun thing the girls and I were able to do together because I'm on long leave!

En loses her first tooth!

2011-12-15T14:46:00.000+08:00

This past year, En has been watching with envy her classmates who've been losing their teeth. In particular, her best friend, Alysa, has already lost three of her teeth so En has been anxious to have a shaky tooth too! When we came to get her from the overnight camp organised by Holy Grace on Nov 19, she happily announced that her lower tooth was shaky and began showing us how it could move. Since then, she's been daily obsessing about when her tooth was going to come out, and alternating between wanting me to take her to the dentist to get it out, and being afraid of my threats of pulling it out myself.

This morning, she was complaining, again, about how that tooth hurt, and how she wanted to go to the dentist. So I handed her a pair of tweezers and told her to go stand in front of the mirror and try to pull it out herself. And believe me, she tried. But the tweezers were small and it was hard for her to get a good grip. So I offered to pull out the tooth, and she agreed. Within seconds, I managed to pull out the tooth with the tweezer. She was delighted! Can you see her happy face above? Despite the fact that blood was oozing out of the gap, she just happily stood there and grinned at me with her mouth open so I could take pictures. Then she announced that she wanted me to tell Alysa. Afterwards, she just walked around with her tooth (which she washed herself) and couldn't stop smiling and telling me, "I'm soooo happy, Mummy!" yah, my kid's rather interesting. No crying, no pain. It was just great fun for her! And of course, all today, the gap in her mouth is the topic of conversation! Of course, Min and Wen were morbidly interested in the blood and gathered around to examine the hole as well as the blood coming out from it. Thereafter, Min informed me "Next time, I want my teeth to come out on their own. I don't want you to pull out my teeth!" and Wen announced, "I don't want you to pull out my teeth cos it's very painful!" despite En's repeated declarations of "It's not painful at all!"

Wen's 1st piano lesson

2011-12-15T12:38:00.001+08:00

For the last few months, En & Min have been taking piano lessons with Felicia, mother of Ernest, En's good friend from school. Today, Miss Wen joined them for her first lesson!

En began her lesson first, followed by Min, so Wen was last, and she was so impatient waiting for her lesson to start. But when it was her turn, she excitedly went into the room and exclaimed, "Now it's my turn!" I looked in through the window during the lesson, and she was having a great time with Felicia! After the lesson was over, she couldn't stop grinning and telling me how much she liked her piano lesson! Now she keeps asking me when she can go for her piano lesson again!

Day out at the Asian Civilisation Museum and Merlion Park

2011-12-14T23:10:00.001+08:00

So as most parents have discovered, your mummy friends were usually made with your oldest child's friends, and it's not common that you make good friends with the mums of the classmates of your subsequent kids, nor have play dates with them. However, today we had a rare playdate out with one of Min's friends, L, initiated by her mum.

The plan was to spend the morning at the Asian Civilisation Museum and then go for a bumboat ride. We had an early lunch at the Fullerton Hotel, and then we headed to the ACM, the girls' first visit there.

They had a Design Your Own Elephant station which the girls spent some time at.

There were many other stations for kids around the museum, so they had fun dressing up as a coolie and a rice planting farmer, or to see the set up of a West Asian tent, among other things!

We got to find out more about other cultures, so educational!

Afterwards, we walked along the Singapore River to go for the bumboat ride, only to discover how expensive it was! Being unwilling to spend close to $50 for the 4 of us to be stuck on a bumboat for 40 minutes, I bribed them with ice cream instead! ho ho!

Since we had their Micro scooters in the car, and they'd always wanted to see the medium and baby sized Merlions at the Merlion Park, I suggested that we scooter to One Fullerton and check them out.

As it turns out, it was a great place to scooter. There's this gentle slope leading under the bridge which was great fun for the girls to scooter down.

And yes, the kids did get to see the medium sized and baby sized Merlions and they had a great time too because the medium Merlion was spouting all this water out and the wind was so strong today, so they were getting wet from the spray. They loved getting themselves soaked!

So that was a fun outing with L and her mummy, and perhaps now, I should try to have more playdates with Min and Wen's friends! ho ho.

Making our own Christmas stockings!

2011-12-14T09:46:00.000+08:00

After Min's big day out with me yesterday, she was very tired and went to bed before her sisters did. After she slept, the other two girls and I began making their Christmas stockings. I had bought these $2 stockings from Cold Storage, as well as felt from Daiso.

I cut out letters for their names, and then left them to do their own decorating.

For simplicity, we used craft glue instead of sewing!

Here're En & Wen's completed stockings.

Of course, Min threw a mini fit this morning when she woke and saw the decorated stockings hanging on the wall. Thankfully, En helped her with hers and they were soon done!

Presenting the Soon sisters' stockings!

Min's Day Out with Mummy!

2011-12-13T17:10:00.004+08:00

Min's passport is going to expire and today, we had to go down to ICA to pick up her new passport. I left En & Wen with my in-laws while the two of us went to do that. Since my in-laws are leaving tonight on a 2 week trip to China, I was going to take Min straight back when we were done so she could hang out with Nai Nai. But then since we were done at ICA very quickly, I thought we could head to the nearby Mustafa to buy a cheongsam for a friend's daughter. Mustafa is my new hangout! They have everything you could possibly want/need there and more! I've had so much fun in the last two weeks visiting Mustafa 3 or 4 times! I did manage to get the cheongsam, as well as these pretty bangles for Min. We saw a lot of Indian costumes at Mustafa, but nothing that Min or I liked. So she asked if I would take her back to the shop where she bought her first Indian costume, a beautiful dress with bells on the edges that rang everytime she moved. She wanted to get another.

So off we headed to the shop in Little India. Except that after we parked and were walking towards the shop, I spotted Rupini's, this Indian fashion parlour that does, among other things, eyebrow threading, so I popped in there to get mine done. After I was done and paying, I saw that they also did henna painting there. So I enquired and it cost $5 to decorate one hand. I asked Min if she'd be interested, and of course she was!

the very skilful beautician used a tube of henna dye to artfully paint these flowers and designs on her left hand, freehand! You have to wait for the black stuff to dry, and then when it is dry, it begins to flake off, revealing a layer under that looks like this. The colour will deepen over the next two days and then get lighter and fade away.

Oh! My little girl was soooo thrilled! She patiently sat and waited for the henna to dry. She enjoyed peeling off the black bits and was so pleased with the final result. That done, we were finally able to head to the shops to get her Indian outfit. Min wanted bells, so these were the two shops with said bells. Doesn't she look adorable? In the end, we chose the one on the left. It's a skirt and blouse. I'm not quite sure what she will wear it for, but I know she can't wait!

we also stood along the walkways, watching these men string together their awesome flower garlands.

Then it was already lunchtime, and I decided to check out L' etoile at the nearby 160 Owen Road, which Ruth had recommended. It's a lovely two storey shophouse converted into a cafe/lifestyle store and we had good sausage rolls, quiche and tea here. It's a great place to chill out and very kid friendly too. Min loved the chocolate chip cookie here so much she requested that we buy one back for her sisters.

And so a trip to collect Min's passport became an unexpected day out with fun discoveries for both of us!

Angels we have heard on high!

2011-12-11T23:02:00.000+08:00

I was leading the kids' program at DG today and we were covering the birth of Jesus. For the craft, I taught them how to make angels. First, you take half a paper plate and fold it into a cone shape, which you then staple/glue/tape down. For the head, you draw a circle and stick it on. And then for the wings, you get the kids to trace out their hands on paper, cut it out, and glue/staple it on. Look at all their creative and colourful angels!

After DG, we gathered around the piano and sang Christmas carols as Ruth played and led us!

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas!

Lunar Eclipse!

2011-12-10T23:15:00.003+08:00

after a yummy chicken rice dinner tonight at Changi Village, we headed to Changi Beach to play at the playground there.

As it got dark, the moon became visible and we noticed that it was a lovely full moon.

Then I remembered reading on a friend's Facebook post that there was going to be a lunar eclipse tonight. So we googled it and found this information. We left the beach just at the start of the penumbra eclipse.

Later that evening, as I walked to the supermarket, I saw that the partial eclipse was happening!

It was rather enjoyable to get home and watch the eclipse slowly happening from my kitchen window, all the while messaging all my friends so they could also catch it!

En's 3rd Poomsae Competition

2011-12-10T21:38:00.000+08:00

For the last month, En's been preparing for her 3rd Poomsae Competition by attending an extra lesson once a week. This afternoon was the competition, and this time, there were 3 competitors in her category (blue belt for A Div, i.e 6 years and under).

Her first competitor scored 6.300.

Her 2nd competitor scored 6.266. So when it was En's turn, we knew that she had to do better than 6.3. She had been quite anxious in the car, asking us, "What if I don't win?" But we managed to ease her worries and her papa took her to a quiet corner in the sports hall to practice her steps and record it on his iPad so she could play it back and watch her own performance to see how to improve.

As it turns out, she scored 6.666, getting the top score in her category, and the gold medal.

here's a video of her performance.

En after her performance, sitting happily with her two new friends.

as always, very proud of my strong little girl!

Celebrating Xuande's 3rd birthday - Under the sea!

2011-12-10T20:56:00.000+08:00

Today we celebrated XD's 3rd birthday! It was a sea themed party as the birthday boy loves ocean animals! JX's birthday is next week, so this was also kind of a celebration for her.

And as always, with Angela's fabulous parties, she really carries through with the theme thing! Check out the cute decorations around the house!

Even the food was sea themed! (Check out the fish and chips)

When the kids got there, they were put to work decorating paper fish with little metal bits thru them.

We soon discovered that this was for a fishing game that the kids were going to play.

Another highlight of Angela's parties are the home made/decorated cakes! In keeping with the undersea theme, her cake this time was an octopus with Oreo eyes. Absolutely adorable!

afterwards, the kids got to pull apart the home made shark pinata

and collect lots of goodies!

Said goodies, along with other souveneirs from party, were placed in these red buckets provided for each child! ever thoughtful!

Happy Birthday, XD & JX!

For these and more pictures, check out this album!

2011-12-09T22:35:00.000+08:00

Leaving, on a jet plane,

we know we'll be back again!

bye Koh Samui, it was a wonderful vacation! And I don't need a vacation to recover from this one!

Koh Samui: Day 5

2011-12-08T22:37:00.001+08:00

The Laus & the grandparents left this morning.

Here's the buggy taking them to the main transport to the airport from our villa.

Bye grandparents! the building to the left of Min is the annex to our villa, that's got a large bedroom with an attached bathroom, and that's where the man and I were living in the last 4 nights. But now that the grandparents had left, we had to move back into the main house. Alas.

We had so much fun at the Paradise Park Farm yesterday that we just had to go back there again this morning after breakfast.

this is how you attract birds to your head - pin the leaves they like on your hair!

here's a video of what the scene is like inside the aviary.

It poured with rain shortly after we arrived, when we were inside the aviary. So we stayed in there. The staff there kindly brought us an umbrella each to get around. After the rain stopped, we hung out with this monkey, Coca Cola, or Cola, as the keepers affectionately call her. The keeper brought over the guinea pig and handed it to Cola, and it was really strange cos the guinea pig and Cola are good friends and they just hung out together peacefully. Cola "mothered" the guinea pig and it didn't try to escape at all! The girls also took Cola on a stroll! Incidentally, Cola doesn't like women, only men and kids, I got bitten by her!

While it was raining, the older girls hung out in one of the rooms with all the rabbits. They do enjoy them so much.

They also exercised at the playground.

Afterwards, we went to Tesco Lotus and had steamboat at MK Restaurant. This was a fun lunch for the girls.

Later in the afternoon, papa and En had a nice time together at the beach, catching fish. That's them in the picture below. Isn't it absolutely beautiful there?

Overall, it was a relaxed day, although we certainly missed our friends and the grandparents!

Tomorrow, we return to Singapore. See more of today's pictures, including my grand tour of our villa, in this album.

Koh Samui Day 4: Sunset Cruise to the 5 Islands

2011-12-07T23:29:00.002+08:00

Yesterday afternoon, my father-in-law, mother-in-law, and father took the car and headed out to explore the island while Ruth and I were at the beach. When they returned, they showed us on the map a beach that they said was beautiful and that they wanted to take the grandkids to. So after doing some research, Ruth and Bim discovered that we could actually go on a "cruise" from that beach and then have dinner there.

As the sun sets earlier here, around 6pm, we had to be in the boat, and out at sea around 5.15pm for our private long-tail boat to the five islands – known locally as 'Koh Si-Koh Ha', meaning 'four islands - five islands', as one is hidden behind another when viewed from the five islands beach.

here we are, setting off from the beautiful shores.

We were off to chase the sunset and see the 5 islands.

It was interesting to pass each of the islands, and see some form of life on some of them, such as this house built atop some rocks. The kids had fun imagining pirates in the caves with treasure as well as waving to the inhabitants of each island anytime we saw some!

En & Min sitting on the deck with papa and ye ye, enjoying the sea breeze.

this island, when viewed from the side, looked just like a whale!

Our "Captain" timed the ride perfectly, so that we were able to catch the sun setting, dipping below the horizon! We were in awe as we watched the beautiful sunset. Check out this awesome picture taken by Bim!

As we headed back to shore, we started singing

"From the rising of the sun, to the going down of the same

The Lord's name, is to be praised!"

and it was just great to be praising God together with one voice on that boat and teaching the song and actions to the kids!

relaxing as we made our way back to shore.

Grandma saw lots of dead coral on the beach, and she began to pick them up, and together with Wen, they began to look for different shapes and letters formed by the dead coral.

All the kids began to get really excited about this activity, which was great cos the rest of us were able to order dinner while the kids were entertained before the food came.

Bim managed to capture this group shot using his tripod.

Dinner was at this beautiful beach side restaurant called Five Islands Restaurant.

They serve Thai Fusion cuisine here.

We really enjoyed our dinner here!

when the kids were done with dinner, they headed back to the beach to play. It was dark by then, but they brought along the candles from the tables, with permission from the restaurant.

we were really pleased to see how they recreated the 5 islands using the sand, rocks and dead coral.

The Laus as well as the grandparents return to Singapore tomorrow, so this was our last night together as a group. What a lovely holiday this has been, with wonderful friends and family!
You can read more on Ruth's blog.

Koh Samui: Day 4 - Paradise Park Farm

2011-12-07T22:28:00.012+08:00

This morning, we headed to the fabulous Paradise Park Farm. Located at the top of a hill, it wasn't very far from our resort, but took about 25 minutes to drive there as the road there was winding, and steep. We were practically the only ones there!

So the place is like a big petting zoo, and it's very well maintained, without the smells you normally associate with the zoo.

when we first got there, the first enclosure we entered was the aviary. They gave us a stalk of some type of leaves that the birds like, as well as some mixture of seeds.

And sure enough, the birds came flocking to us. It was very enjoyable for all of us!

They also have these colourful pigeons roaming around and a peacock who loves to preen and squawk. All are very tame and will come up to you to be fed.

One of the highlights for the girls was this small petting area with one guinea pig/giant hamster, one hedgehog, one chicken and several very adorable rabbits. They could pick up the animals and carry them, pet them, stroke them, carry them around in these woven baskets. En would carry one up to me and tell me wistfully, "I really want a pet!"

the grandparents relaxing!

there was also this huge area where deer roamed freely, yes deer, you heard me right! Armed with baskets of food for them at 20 baht per basket ($0.80), we walked among them and fed them. Except in this case below, Wen is not pleased with how close they are getting to her and her food and is beating a hasty retreat!

Paradise Park Farm also comes with its own infinity pool, overlooking much of Koh Samui, with a view of the tiny islands around it. The view was amazing, and the pool was very clean, cold and deep!

That didn't stop this bunch from having a great time here!

We forgot to bring along Wen's float, so she was quite upset initially but then later, after she got used to it, she managed to swim in the enclosed smaller pool.

The buddies before they leaned backwards and plopped into the water!

You can't see from the picture but there are actually these boat shaped cabins located near the pool and I think they are actually rooms that people can rent and stay in! The man thinks it would be fun to come and stay here next time we are back in Koh Samui!

There's a restaurant on site as well that serves pretty delicious and affordable food so we had a hearty lunch here after all the swimming.

there's also a small playground here that's just perfect for the kids!

After lunch, we managed to enlist Bim's help to take some family portraits with the picturesque view behind us!

After lunch, the Laus returned to the resort, but our girls loved the place so much we stayed on for another hour so they could feed the birds and pet the rabbits etc.

You can read more on Ruth's blog .
For these and more fun pictures, check out this album.

Koh Samui: Day 3

2011-12-06T23:15:00.001+08:00

I awoke this morning and found En in the kitchen busy making french toast, a new skill that grandma had just taught her! Standing on her tippy toes to reach the stove. So cute!

The men had left early this morning to go on an all day dive trip. Both of them haven't dived in ages and this was something they had been planning and looking forward to.

This morning, we headed to the Coco Water Park at Lamui Beach. Run by a French couple, this place is not a large water park, but it was exactly the right size for our kids. It opens daily from 10.30am to 5.30pm (except Mondays) and it costs 200 Baht (About S$8) for every person who is going to be in the water, so none of the grandparents except my dad-in-law had to pay and Baby Esther also didn't have to pay. There's a nice mix of exciting slides like the yellow one which I screamed my way down and felt like my heart was going to jump right out of my body. There are also the more fun slides like this curvy blue one below which the kids had a lovely time going down over and over in various positions! There were also shallow areas suitable for young kids like Esther, and even a mini flying fox over the baby pool. there are also some animals around the place, like monkeys and rabbits. You can imagine what a great morning we had here!

I was attempting to take a nap with Min & Wen when Ruth messaged to ask me to come to the beach and join her and her boys. I thought she was mad because it was so hot, but she told me that it was nice and beautiful and great for photo taking! So off En & I went to the beach and we were joined later by Min & Wen after their naps. Ruth was right. It really was absolutely beautiful. Blue skies, blue sea, so shallow you could walk out forever and still not have the water rise up very much! And there were schools of fish darting about in the water! En & I sat in the water with bread in our nets, quietly & patiently waiting for the fish to bite and I'm pleased to report that the both of us managed to catch a decent number of fish as well as a small crab. The younger girls caught many many hermit crabs.

You can read more on Ruth's blog here and here.
For a whole lot more pictures and commentaries as well as videos, check out the album below!

Koh Samui: Day 2

2011-12-05T23:41:00.003+08:00

It was raining this morning so we headed to a mall, Tesco Lotus, that had an arcade with a decent sized indoor play area for just 30 baht per child for 30 minutes. This kept the kids nicely occupied while grandma and I shopped at Tesco for groceries. Then lunch at MK Restaurant which has fabulous roast pork, duck and char siew!

The rain cleared in the afternoon, allowing us to do a half hour elephant trek followed by a hike up a steep hilly slope next to a waterfall.

So proud of the grandparents for taking on the elephants and the steep waterfall climb!
You can read more on Ruth's blog.

Pictures and commentary here in this album!

Koh Samui: Day 1

2011-12-04T23:37:00.002+08:00

So today was the start of our week long holiday to Koh Samui with both sets of grandparents as well as the Lau Family. We have never travelled with both sets of grandparents before, and so far, it's wonderful to have so many more adults than kids, especially our grandparents who are all so sporting and hands on! Our 4 bedroom villa has its own pool and the girls jumped in once we arrived and checked in! There's also a beach 100 metres from our villa and we spent much of the afternoon there before proceeding to Lamai at night to check out the market and have dinnerI probably won't find the time to do a detailed breakdown of our day, so you'll just have to check out this album and the captions for my running commentary!

Christmas craft: Button trees!

2011-12-03T23:55:00.000+08:00

After breakfast this morning, the girls chose to come home instead of going out. So I decided to do a Christmas craft with them that I had read about on another blog.

Last week, I had gone to Spotlight and bought white yarn as well as styrofoame cones and a whole bag of buttons. First, you apply craft glue all over the styrofoame cone and then wrap yarn all around it, as neatly or messily and with as many layers as you like. Only En was able to do this independently. It was a little harder for Min, who needed help to get started, but was able to do it after I settled the base. Wen just refused to get involved after trying for 5 seconds. ha ha.

Once that's done, the kids get to pick buttons from the plate and fix them onto their yarn tree with craft glue.

They can put as many as they like. This was the part that the kids really enjoyed - choosing the different sizes, shapes and colours and deciding which to use as a tree topper, or how to spread them out. Wen usually wound up putting too much glue and then touching all the rest of the clean buttons with her sticky hands. Ewww.....

For the base, you can use tiny terracotta flower pots which the kids can paint, or an easier option, which I chose, was to use our clean yoghurt cups, which were the perfect size for our cones.

Around the cup, I wrapped a sheet of checked gingham paper, cut to size, which made it look very festive.

If we had used a larger cone and the terracotta flower pots, it would probably have looked more like Christmas trees covered in snow, but in our case, I have to say they looked like ice cream sundaes! ho ho!

the girls were very pleased with their creation, and even though it was very messy, cleaning up was fairly quick and more importantly the girls had a great morning, and I've just scored a zillion mummy points for doing a fun craft with them! So yah, I'd say my ratings are at a high right now!

New Christmas decorations for our home!

Big Apple Adventure: Parents' Night

2011-12-02T23:57:00.002+08:00

The past few days have just passed in a flash! We've come to the end of the Big Apple Adventure and tonight the kids performed some of their songs for us. Before the concert, there was an exhibition in the classrooms of the kids' handicrafts from the last few days.

I love to see the kids on fire for God, and excited to worship him!

There were so many kids and even more parents but each child was looking out eagerly amongst the crowd for their parents and when we managed to make contact with En & Min, they were thrilled! It's so nice that they still feel excited about having us around at these things!

Afterwards, we headed across the road to Swirl of Art for yoghurt!

The kids will miss this camp! Looking forward to next year's already!

Advent Calendar Day 1

2011-12-01T23:47:00.000+08:00

Not wanting to make an advent calendar this year, I had, months ago, bought this Lego City Advent Calendar on sale.

Today, I whipped it out and showed it to the excited girls.

Today's project was a Lego snowman.

a very easy and quick project for them to do under the guidance of En.

Looking forward to the next 23 days of surprises as we count down the celebration of the birth of Jesus!

The life of my sportsgirl, En!

2011-11-30T23:22:00.000+08:00

So last night, En & Min slept over at Linda's place. As with most sleepovers, I don't think much sleep was had. And then today, the girls had a full day of camp. Ruth picked up the girls along with Dan and I fetched them from her place. I had to rush En for her taekwondo training despite the already full day she'd had (cos camp is 9-5). Her competition is a week and a half away and we are away for most of next week, so she had to go today. The poor girl was so tired she knocked out in the car and managed to take a very short nap.

And then it was on to practicing her movements for the Poomsae competition!

The red tip pattern is really quite beautiful to watch. It's almost a dance!

She really didn't want to be at practice tonight. But no choice la! Excellence cannot be achieved without hard work.

All by themselves!

2011-11-29T23:17:00.002+08:00

So after the mummies dropped off our older kids at VBS, we headed to the Tiong Bahru Train Park with our remaining kid(s) to play.

So apart from Ruth, who had Ben & Esther, the rest of us had just one kid each. Elsa with Aaron, Christina with Mark, Linda with Joel and me with Wen.

the kids had fun playing and we had a nice time catching up with each other!

Life is so easy with just one kid!

The Big Apple Adventure: VBS 2011 Day 1

2011-11-29T22:59:00.000+08:00

Today was the first day of Vacation Bible School at Kay Poh Road Baptist Church. En had attended the camp with Daniel last year. This year, Min was able to join them, as well as all the other kids in our DG who are in K1! We also had friends from church, school, and Jolene and Jon join in this camp. So many familiar faces for the kids. Drop off was super easy. No separation anxiety at all. It was just drop off at foyer, bye bye, see you later, and off I went!

This year's theme is the Big Apple Adventure and I managed to come early at dismissal time to catch the kids singing the theme song as well as the other songs for the camp. Lots of actions and movements, it was a rollicking good time!

The groups are all named after places in New York so En is in Madison Sq,

Jolene is in Grand Central,

Min is in Battery Park

and Jon is in Central Park.

Min was in the same group as the Yeo triplets. En knew another girl from church in her group. She was rather disgruntled that once again, she and Daniel were in different groups. (there were two K1 and two K2 classes) Based on the feedback I've gotten from the 4 excited kids in my car at the end of camp today, I think they've had a great day! 3 more God-filled days to come!

The Soon Christmas Tree 2011

2011-11-28T22:57:00.000+08:00

The kids have been really excited about setting up the Christmas tree. I've been nagged countless times in the last few weeks. "Look mummy, they have already put up the Christmas trees in the shopping centres. How come we haven't put up ours yet?" I was reminded of myself and my sister when we were kids, bugging our parents non-stop about when we were going to set up the tree, and the looks we got from them, and over the years and now, I understand what my parents feel, but at the same time, I also remember how I felt back then, and so tonight, we finally found some time to dig out the tree and the decorations and get to work!

Wen was already aware and excited about decorating the tree last year. Difference is, this year, she didn't need to stand on a chair to be able to hang the decorations almost everywhere on the tree.

Also, whilst in previous years I had been mainly responsible for decorating the tree, this year, I let the kids take charge and apart from stringing the lights, and assisting En with draping the chain of red balls, I pretty much left the decorating up to them. Of course, I provided some advice from time to time, like how to space out the colours and the different decorations, but mostly, I let them do their own thing. And they did a great job. Next year, they'll be doing it all themselves! ha ha.

My in-laws were at our place for dinner and were able to join in the fun.

these are some of the precious personalised ornaments we've collected/received since 2006, and I'm hoping we'll be able to have a new one every year. Counting on my sister to get us something when she's in Europe next week!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Sunday evening at the Bedok Jetty

2011-11-27T23:55:00.000+08:00

After we got the older girls from church camp this evening, we took them to East Coast Beach as we were having dinner with my family there. Since we were early, we thought we'd let them scooter to the jetty but En decided that she wanted to ride a bicycle to practice her bike riding skills and Wen also insisted on riding a tricycle. So in the end, we had 2 bikes and one scooter.

the jetty was really crowded and the girls kept their eyes out for interesting catches

On our way out, we saw this man's catch - a garouper. First time we've seen someone catch that here. But this was the guy's 4th or 5th one for the day!

God is in control! ARPC Kids Camp 2011

2011-11-27T22:16:00.000+08:00

For the last two days, En & Min, together with their friends from church, were at the ARPC annual Children's Camp. This year's camp theme was "God is in control" and the kids learnt more about our sovereigh God through this camp as they went thru Genesis 37-50 and found out more about Joseph and his brothers and how God was able to use the circumstances of Joseph being sold into slavery in Egypt by his brothers for good and for His glory!

The kids were grouped according to their age group. Min was in Asher and En was in Dan. The kids learnt about God's faithfulness in keeping His promise and His saving work thru the life of Joseph. They learnt that it is important to trust God in good or bad times in life and continue to follow God's ways. They memorised the camp theme verse that was simplified for their level, by rearranging the puzzle below.

"You (Joseph's brothers) meant to hurt me. But God turned your evil into good. It was to save the lives of many people. And it is being done"

Genesis 50:20

Praise God that He is in control!

Arts Gals reunion

2011-11-26T22:30:00.000+08:00

Ivy has been trying to get the lot of us together for the longest time. It's hard when we all have 2 kids each at least and weekends are so precious. But finally, we managed to find a good time this morning and had a lovely 2 hours together! This was April's first reunion with us in years!

The only one missing today was Cheyanne. Alas. Looking forward to the day when our group will be complete!

Kazu & Christmas lights

2011-11-25T23:47:00.000+08:00

The man and I have been coming to Kazu since before we had kids. It's our favorite sumiyaki restaurant. Tonight we thought it would be fun to take the girls here for dinner. We figured that eating grilled food from sticks would be a fun experience for them!

And we were right. They certainly enjoyed trying the different things we ordered like the grilled chicken wings, and the crispy sticks of chicken skin (don't ask how many we ordered) and they even tried stuff like chicken gizzard and liver, even if they didn't like it. But the favorite item of the night, without a doubt, was the grilled quail eggs. Each stick has 3 eggs. At first we ordered 2 sticks. But those were gone in seconds. seriously. so we had to order more, and each time they just disppeared. so we ordered more. When the bill came, it turns out we had ordered 10 sticks of quail eggs in all. yup, between the 5 of us, we had consumed 30 of those! And I can assure you that the man and I had at most 4 of those eggs each only!

Our dessert, the grilled Japanese sweet potato that takes almost an hour to cook!

After dinner, we decided to walk down Orchard Road to check out the Christmas lights. So we walked from Cuppage Terrace next to Centrepoint, all the way down to Orchard Ion, and then from there we took the train one stop back to Somerset and walked back to our car. Really pleased that the girls walked so far and didn't complain!

what can I say, the Christmas lights were rather disappointing this year. Everything was very simple or dull. There were no vibrant displays. I thought last year's was better.

Perhaps its too early in the season? I dunno.

But a memorable outing, nonetheless! And yes, the girls do want to go back to Kazu again!

Playdate with DG mums & kids

2011-11-25T23:11:00.003+08:00

Some of the mums in our DG decided to meet up at the Botanic Gardens this morning for a playdate. We had mats, scooters, snacks, fruits, and even remote controlled cars which kept all the kids well entertained.

Most of the time, the older kids were off exploring the gardens, having discovered some kind of "secret" area, and I didn't follow along to take pictures. But from time to time, we managed to lure them back with fruits and snacks.

The younger ones got to try their older siblings' scooters, undisturbed.

And us ladies sat in the shade and chatted while keeping an eye on our kids.

here's Ruth and her clan making their way back to the car. At about 11am, it was starting to get very hot, and those of us who could decided to head to Ruth's place to swim.

So here, we parted ways with Elsa and Gin's families, and Chris joined us with her boys at the pool. I usually carry around our swim gear in the boot of our car but today I only had two swimsuits and no floats. So Ruth lent En one of Dan's old swim tops and a very small pair of shorts. I thought this look really worked for En! Makes her look like a surfer chick! Must go buy her more such swimsuits!

Here's Dan instructing En on the finer points of snorkling in preparation for our upcoming trip to Koh Samui together in a week's time!

Initially, the plan was just for us to swim and then leave but Ruth's amazing helper, Julie, prepared enought spaghetti for all of us, and so we were invited to stay for lunch, which the kids loved of course! Anything to extend their time together.

Over lunch, Ruth and her boys were entertaining us with jokes and riddles and before we left, Ruth kindly offered to lend my girls two of their riddle/joke books. I declined, as I didn't think my kids would be interested, but they insisted on borrowing the book. And I was amazed because En actually spent the entire journey from Ruth's place to our home reading the jokes and riddles to her sisters and me, testing us all, entertaining her sisters, and never once complaining about reading too much or motion sickness! This is their first time reading joke/riddle books, and I would never have introduced these to them if not for Ruth!

As you can imagine, my younger two both took great naps today!

All the pictures available here.

Soon sisters perform a dance item

2011-11-25T07:46:00.003+08:00

For your Friday entertainment, here are 3 videos of the Soon sisters from two nights ago as they decided to dress up and perform a dance for the man and me. it was really rather entertaining. Modern dance with ballet, all self taught and created! These 3 videos are actually one long continuous performance.

Min learns putting

2011-11-24T23:22:00.000+08:00

Min & En had their golf lesson early this evening.

Today, the coach wanted to teach Min how to putt so they went out to the greens to learn.

here's a video of Min at it.

Unfortunately, after about 15 minutes, the skies began to darken and the siren sounded, calling all golfers into the sheltered areas so that put an end to their putting adventures.

Jack & the Beanstalk

2011-11-24T23:12:00.004+08:00

This morning, we watched Jack and the Beanstalk with Linda and her boys, as well as Angela and her boy.

After the show, the girls followed Linda home while I had some time to myself at Plaza Singapura, trying to find materials to make Christmas crafts with the girls. Here are pictures taken by Linda of the fun our kids had together!

Jolene is really good with the kids. She's the leader who unifies everyone and has a game plan. Under her charge, the kids had a picnic outside, and she even put them thru netball drills, which I'm told them loved, even if they kept getting their heads hit by the ball!

A visit to the Peranakan Museum

2011-11-23T23:27:00.001+08:00

So on this cold & wet afternoon, after En & Min were done with science camp, we decided to check out the Peranakan Museum, which we'd never been to before. This is located very close to the Philatelic Musuem, at 39 Armenian Street.

I was thrilled to discover that due to the new collection on Sarong Kebaya that just opened recently, it was free entry for me (and all women until Dec 15 and 50% off for men accompanying women!) and it's free for kids under 6. So we didn't have to pay a cent.

Each of the girls were given one of these activity sheets entitled Family Treasures.

There are 8 stations located on the 2nd and 3rd floors of the museum and at each station, the kids can use the embossing machine there to stamp the relevant section.

Each station explains a treasure of the Peranakans and their symbolism, for instance, the Kerosang, the Peony, the Phoenix, etc. Of course, my kids just rushed around madly, trying to find all the stations, until I stopped them all and told them that if that was all they were interested in doing, and not enjoying the museum, I would take away all their activity sheets.

Must again highlight how the toilets at our museums try to carry the theme of the particular museum. The Philatelic Museum for instance has stamps at the doors of their toilets, and here, they had Peranakan prints done very tastefully.

The gallery on the first floor displayed pictures of many different Peranakans, and also explained a bit more about who the Peranakans are.

Then we moved up to the second floor where they had this giant magnetic dress up exhibit for the kids to change the outfits of the bride and groom.

Around the museum, they also have several of these Stop & Touch stations where they have exhibits displayed in these cabinets with holes for the kids to put their hands thru and feel the exhibits. Nicely done!

Here's what a Peranakan wedding procession might look like. They actually had video footage of an actual Peranakan wedding ceremony from the 1960s as well as the 1990s (a mother and daughter pair actually in Malacca). It was just fascinating to watch.

Here we are at the Kebaya exhibition. We saw lots of intricately designed kebayas that were just lovely. They have a whole section dedicated to white lace kebaya tops.

they had a dress up area too where the kids could try on outfits, except that they weren't kid sized, so the clothes were too big. But it was mainly Min, the fashionista, that was interested in this.

hello hello? picking up these ancient phones, you get to hear what the Nonya ladies would probably be saying to each other over the phone. Wen puzzled over how to use both these phones!

Now the thing is that the stairs in this building are wooden, and on a weekday, there aren't very many people here, so it's really quite quiet, and kids don't walk, they run. So you can just imagine the noise my kids made as they ran up and down the wooden steps. They got shushed by the guards quite often, which was a pity. They tried, but seriously, getting kids to walk lightly on wooden stairs is really hard.

at the end of our visit, the girls showed their completed activity sheets to the front desk and were each presented with this souvenir - a magnet of the Peranakan Museum.

I cannot say enough about what a wonderfully educational and entertaining museum this is! We had such a great time here, and I'd like to come back again cos there were so many things to see and we didn't get to see them all. I'm really proud of our Singapore Museums, now that I've actually started making an effort to visit them!

Peranakan Museum

Opening hours:

Monday: 1 to 7pm

Tue-Sun: 9am to 7pm (9pm on Fri)

Date Night with Min - Ice Cream Skool

2011-11-23T22:08:00.002+08:00

Due to our busy schedules lately, there haven't been many opportunities for papa to have date nights with the girls. But tonight, there was some time, and it was Min's turn to go out with papa. I was trying to help them think about where to go. Min wanted to skate scoot and she wanted ice cream. And then I remembered seeing an ice cream shop very close to our place that I'd been meaning to try for ages, but never got around to. So I told the man how to walk there (Min scootered) and here are pictures he sent me from their date.

The place is called Ice Cream Skool, and the gelato here sells at $3 per scoop. They have board games and card games so Min got to play Monopoly Deal and Uno with papa without any interruptions from her sisters. I'm excited about this new date night venue so close to our home!

Completed project No. 1!

2011-11-22T21:48:00.000+08:00

The last few weeks have been really hectic at work. I'd been working long hours and more days than usual due to several back to back major events. But now that most of that has been completed, I needed to clear my leave. I have 11 days of leave from last year that cannot be carried forward and will be forfeited if I don't use it by this year. So essentially, I will be working just one more day next week and that's about all till the second week of January! Today was the first day of my leave, and it felt great! I went to Ikea with Wen this morning while her sisters were at piano lesson, and we bought this frame so I could finally put together all the polaroids that we took at the man's company event in June!

So that's one project down and many more to go! Looking forward to spending lots of time with the kids, as well as reading God's word, and having me time!

Min the Fashionista!

2011-11-22T21:43:00.001+08:00

Today, Min was out with me and Hannah. Min & I sat in Topshop, bored, playing with our iPhones as Hannah was shopping. And then, Min spied this pair of glittery high heels. And it was love at first sight. She held them gingerly, asked in a whisper if she could try them, and then beamed in excitement as she tried them on!

They really are quite gorgeous. If I had a nail polish this colour, my kids would be asking to have their nails painted this shade all the time. It's rainbow glitter.

If only it were edible...

2011-11-20T21:40:00.001+08:00

En's Pri 1 Orientation

2011-11-19T23:43:00.001+08:00

So today was En's Primary One orientation. This is her future classroom, and these are some of the 31 girls who are going to be in the class next year! She was very nervous when we first got here, and wanted to hold on to my hand and have me next to her. I don't blame her. This can be rather overwhelming. It was overwhelming even for me, looking at all the strange faces around me, knowing not a single person!

For over two hours, En was with her classmates and some of the teachers, playing games and getting to know each other, while the parents sat in the auditorium, listening to many talks and briefings to get us ready for Pri school, important stuff like the traffic conditions, and understanding what life in MGS is going to be like. It's heartening to know that they are going to work together with us parents to grow Godly women of Excellence with a Heart of Love! I was very reassured by the talks and the principal, who happens to also be my English teacher from Sec 2. We bought textbooks, and socks and school badges and my man managed to talk to the school bus operators, and we were able to get a school bus that will take her home in about the same amount of time she would have being driven home. So that's an answered prayer! We really like her bus driver and feel like she'll be in safe hands. I have many fond memories of riding in the school bus in my primary school days, and I'm sure En will have fun on hers too! When I went to get her at the end of the session, she was very hot and sweaty but happy, and informed me that she'd made 2 or 3 friends, among them, a girl named Nicole.

And so, a new chapter is about to unfold!

En's K2 camp and sleepover

2011-11-19T22:23:00.000+08:00

Every year, Holy Grace has a 2 day camp for the K2 students on the last day of school.

Unfortunately, many of the K2s were having their Pri 1 orientation yesterday or today, so the attendance was very poor. Initially, I too, hadn't wanted En to go for the camp. But they were planning to visit the Underwater World on the first day and En really wanted to go, so I agreed that she could go for the first day of camp, and I'd come get her after dinner. However, two days before the camp, she informed me that her best friend, Alysa, was going to stay over and she begged me to let her stay over too. How to reject a plea like that right? They won't get a chance to do something like that again!

So I agreed. These are the only 4 students from En's class who stayed overnight.
Lunch on the first day. Managed to snap this picture before I brought Min and Wen home.

After lunch, the kids headed to Sentosa.

I'd passed En my old iPhone so she could use it to take pictures.
She got this shot of her friends at the Underwater World. I was told they watched the Dolphin Show and that they fed the sharks. And then it was back to school for more activities, dinner, bath and then the sleepover. They camped in the classrooms, sleeping in the sleeping bags each of them had to bring. En told me she slept next to Alysa, of course. So when I was looking through the pictures En had snapped, I was hoping to see lots of pictures of the various activities they had done, pictures perhaps of the sleepover etc. But alas, my child's camera just mostly had pictures of herself and Alysa. ha ha. she said something about the teacher not allowing her to take pictures. I can believe that. oh well, these pictures are precious nonetheless!

thankfully, Alysa's sister, M, is going to be classmates with Wen next year! So they are still going to be in touch! Hurray!

the petite park

2011-11-18T22:56:00.000+08:00

En is having an overnight camp in school today. So I had just the younger two today. After school, we had lunch and then came home and slept while it rained outside. After naps, I decided to take the kids to an indoor playground, and thanks to a recent Facebook post by my friend, A, I discovered that a new mall called the Changi City Point, had been built next to the Changi Expo MRT station and was newly opened. Who knew?!! And in this mall was an indoor playground called "The Petite Park" which is meant for kids aged 7 and below. Till the end of Nov, they are having a special where you only pay $8 for unlimited play (Usual price $16) during weekdays. I saw some of my friend's pictures and the place looked like a cross between an indoor playground and the Kohl Children's Museum, so I decided to give it a try.

Remember to bring along socks cos this is a shoe free environment, but socks are required.

so they have this big bouncy castle as well as other interesting tunnels to crawl thru like the one below.

One of my girls' favorite was the spinning carousel. When the kids grab one of the "ball and chains", the machine slows down so that the kid can safely climb onto the ball and sit on it, and then once the kids are sitting atop the ball, the carousel starts spinning around again. They really enjoyed this!

There was an area there that had play kitchens, train tracks, a supermarket type set up, as well as instruments, and this was great for pretend play as well.

The girls stayed here for an hour and a half, while I went walking around the mall exploring. Changi City Point is almost like an outlet mall. I saw an Esprit Outlet, Crocs outlet, G2000 outlet, and quite a few others, with a Nike Outlet mall opening soon. They also have some good eating places like Ootoya and Ichiban sushi, as well as a large Cold Storage at the basement. I rather like this mall because it's really spacious and there are some interesting water features in and around the place.

Last day of school!

2011-11-18T22:23:00.000+08:00

Today was the last day of school so it was party day and everyone got to wear their own clothes.

As you can see, there was a gatecrasher at the party, Miss Wen! En's teachers kindly let her stay for the party and she was super pleased about it! I've been working everyday this week, but thankfully not today, and so I got the chance to go to school to say goodbye to this bunch of kids below. I've watched most of them grow from little ones in Nursery, all the way through to K2, and I have grown very fond of them! They are all such spunky personalities, and I have memories of each of them and I'm so going to miss them next year!

Last week, I asked En if she had enjoyed her time at Holy Grace and she replied, "I loved it! I'm going to miss all my friends and teachers sooooo much!" And so we close this chapter in En's life.

Blading & Scooting in the Rain!!

2011-11-16T23:46:00.000+08:00

This morning, Yeeyee promised me (Wen) that she was going to bring me to go skatescooting in the evening after she was done with school. I was super excited. However when 4pm came, it was raining cats and dogs! So Yeeyee and I prayed for the rain to stop, and guess what? At 5 thereabouts, the heavy rain became a slight drizzle only, and Grammies, being super progressive and cool, decided to allow me and jiejies to skatescoot in the drizzle to Sunplaza Park!!

By the time we reached Sunplaza Park, the rain has nearly stopped! It was super fun because there were so many puddles for us to zoom through! And I was so impressed with my Yeeyee because she didn't fall a single time!

After we were tired from all the skatescooting, Grammies allowed us to play at the awesome swing that looked like a net and all 3 of us were on it and she swung us super high. We had so much fun. All the photos and videos were taken by Grammies! Can you see how much fun we had today?

WE LOVE RAINY DAYS!!! :D

Pirates & How to make a pirate hat!

2011-11-14T11:53:00.005+08:00

Over the weekend, we were at Tampines One and we discovered that Times the Bookshop was having a big relaunch with many activities for the kids and freebies. Each child was given a map with 5 stations and they were supposed to go to each station, complete the task and then at the end of it all, they got a prize. There were also goodies at most stations, like packs of milk, bars of chocolate, stationary etc.

At the first station, the girls learnt to make pirate hats and here they are with their creations. This was a pretty simple and fun activity I thought I'd share with you how to fold your own pirate hat. I got these instructions and pictures from this site.

~
Start with a piece of paper.(A sheet of newspaper makes a nice, big hat!)

Fold the sheet of paper in half.

Fold the top corners down towardsthe center of the page.

Your paper should look like this.

Lift the front bottom flap and foldit up.

Flip the paper over, then lift the bottom flap and fold it up.

Your pirate hat is complete!