Blessings from Above

one of the many ways we entertain our two precious on weekends...

can't believe how long it has been since I last posted... there's plenty to catch up... will do the posts randomly (according to my memory!) starting with our most recent family studio photoshoot. actually even before li'l missy was borned, I made a mental note to myself about getting photos taken regularly for memory... but me being me with a goldfish-kinda memory (read: pea-sized brain for remembering things), this kinda got forgotten along the way. even for this recent family photoshoot, it was really because I need to get some 'mugshots' taken for work and the studio happened to have a promotion of sorts and well, you know me, I can never really resists promotions so... :) I chose to go to the studio on the day li'l Missy turned four for obvious reasons but you know what, the studio still has not sent me her personal shot (that reminds me that I really should be calling them up to check) - I've collected the rest and here are a couple: ...

Happy New Year! Isn't it amazing how another year just went by like that? hopefully 2010 will be a better year for everyone! the year started on a positive note for us so far - we managed to sort out the childcare arrangements somewhat and at the same time, found ourselves an (bigger) 'interim' home! looking forward to the move! we spent the first day of the new year watching birds... :P the lazy gal just refuses to walk when dh is around the penguin enclosure more coming up...

saw this in our local daily today.... well, lady if you need OFFICIAL reports to tell you NOT to leave your child unattended... here it is! how appropriate... :P if u need to read the article, email me - i have it in PDF.

our beloved fur-kid left us for a better place last evening and i've created a blog to remember him forever.... http://chewyourbeloved.blogspot.com

C's daddy, i.e. this is the 3rd year that C is celebrating with her daddy - as for me, well - we've known each other since 1997 or so... so i can safely say, more than 10 times? hmm... next year this time, there will be four of us. :) we are not that into big celebrations - usually its just dinner together as a family (and another two with the extended families) and we haven't even had a cake in years (dh is not a big fan of cakes)! thanks to a dear friend though, we have a cake this year! :P so here's our feast for today - the in(famous) Sin Huat Crab Bee-Hoon (Lor 35 Geylang) with garlic prawns & some healthy vegg... yum yum! close up of garlic prawns dh's slice of mango cake (excuse C's messy hair - she just took her bath!) some may argue that it is different when you do takeaways - maybe its the lack of ambience (of a dirty coffeeshop or waiting hours to order/get your food) or not being ripped off (the ave. bill per head drops to S$50 or...

can u count the # of candles on his birthday cake? Dad was very happy to celebrate his birthday with his 3 grandchildren... :) happy birthday dad! may you always be happy and healthy!

i had thought long and hard how to celebrate Claire's 2nd birthday : - a small, intimate home party with some close friends? -> then i'll need to prepare food (not sure if i'm up to it in my current state) - book the function room and invite the whole kampong? -> not sure if its a good weekend to have a function since its close to Easter and most pple will probably need to be in church. in the end, i decided to just invite Claire's regular play-date kahkis and some of my colleagues. for the children, i organised for them to spend some time playing at Frisk 'n' Romp (indoor playground with scheduled hourly programme). my next headache - the food! as the party room for Frisk 'n' Romp is only available between 3.30 - 5.30pm (and the food provided is only for the kids), i had to think of alternatives. i enquired at all the food outlets within the complex and finally decided on Starbucks since they had an outdoor dining area on the ...

she loves the barney cake (actually she chose it) with her two cheeky cousins with my sis aka her godma family photo (incomplete) serving cake to her godma since Barney cannot be the main lead in the main party, I decided to order a small cake featuring him and his friends for our family celebration - my sis' two boys are in afternoon session so they all cannot join us on the actual day and thus a separate celebration. it was nothing fanciful, just a simple cake cutting and present opening session at my parents' place... (in case you are wondering, two 'men' are missing - my BIL has evening classes and dh was away for reservist training) anyway, i think kids enjoy their birthdays tremendously since they are in the limelight (okay, maybe not all kids - some are shy by nature and only like to be surrounded by familiar faces) - Claire is definitely one of them. :) she keeps chanting... birthday cake, happy birthday to me, open presents... etc.

preview of our studio photos...

i've been asked this a lot recently - what's the gender of #2? when i give my answer, i usually get this response 'good! can close shop already...' funny how we have been 'brain-washed' by our gah men that 2 is the magic number (that was what our parent's generation were told) and the consequence? we have to import 'foreign talent' now... to make up for the 'lack of offsprings' - so much for having foresight! so i say, if you can afford it - have more! i know that we all want to give the best to our young ones - but i believe that we can make the most out of the limited resources that (almost) everyone has. we (dh & i) are far from wealthy but we do have the luxury of me not having to slog it out to contribute to the family finances (as with many of my friends who are SAHM). this allows me to spend time with our li'l ones in their formative years - sure, we can do with a bigger house, a bigger car or more luxury goods, who doesn...

GONG XI FA CAI everyone! hope that CNY has been great for everyone so far! we are still in stanley ho's land and i'm overloaded with 'wanton mien' - probably something i'm not going to touch/order for the next one month! the weather is fantastic (i *love* cold!) and its great to be enjoying quality time with dh and li'l one - this will probably be our last vacation in a long while unless we can squeeze in one more trip in my 2nd trimester (and i'm thinking 'taipei'! right now) we'll be on our flight back tonight and photos will be coming up soon!

since we stay in such close proximity to the airport, it is one of our fav. haunts - there's aircon (for hot days), good selection of food choices and plenty of space for li'l one to run around - what's not to like? we decided to have our breakfast there and also take the opportunity to bring li'l one to check out the mickey mouse display that so many of her friends have already gone to visit. see how happy she was to take photo with the mickey mouse!

our precious li'l baby turned 19 months old today and i invited all four gramps along with us to the Singapore Flyer. while we didn't get the cabin to ourselves, i'm glad that it was not packed to the brim so l'il one still had the space to roam around. after the 'top of the world' experience, we stopped to have lunch @ seafood paradise within the flyer bldg - the exquisite six course lunch costed S$88++ per pax (with the hsbc 1-for-1 promotion) & my fav. dish was the yummy lobster! as usual, i gobbled up the food and forgot to take photos! :P enjoy our photos...  

first up, i don't think any of us really enjoyed this trip - dh was totally exhausted from all that driving, li'l one was feverish the whole weekend, i didn't enjoy the journey coz of the space constraint (times like this i always wish that we had a MPV!) and my parents had to endure li'l one's incessant whining/crying in the car. saturday, 25/10/08 we left my parents' place around 11am and was caught in a (bearable) jam at the tuas checkpoint (as expected) - made a quick lunch stop just after we crossed over to malaysia. along the way, li'l one was grumbling/whining/crying/fussing as she was running a temperature. she didn't really want to be in the car-seat and i had to carry her most of the way, nursing her so that she could go to sleep. she had no appetite for any food at all and only want (breast)milk the whole weekend. i feared greatly for her safety since the north-south highway is infamous for traffic accidents even though dh is one of th...

i've been thinking about this increasingly as we inch nearer to what people term as 'terrible twos' syndrome but before i share about my own parenting style, here's the background on the way i was brought up. i'm the younger of 2 siblings and my sis is 7 years older than me. we are not as close as i'd like to be (probably due to the age difference). as far as i can remember, my home always had more than 4 inhabitants as my parents would take in foreign students (ranging from 2 to 6 at any time) under their care and thus, we always had a domestic helper at home. both my parents worked (my mom in the civil service & my dad, a businessman) and thus i was cared for, mostly by the domestic helpers - the good ones, took relatively good care of me, the others, made me do their chores. i spent a great deal of time in school as i was in one of the top ten schools in singapore that had a full day curriculum. i don't remember much of my childhood but in high sch...

our metal halide for the fish tank went down (apparently, the ballast short-circuited) and after searching high and low, we finally found someone who could help us repair it but we had to bring it to his place all the way north. since we were in the vicinity, we took the opportunity to check out the real estate in the area - its one of the areas in our consideration because its 'oh-so-outta-way-away-from-the-crowds' - dh and i actually dislike crowds (and obviously crowded places) so it would be nice to come home to somewhere quiet plus through flipping the papers, it would appear that the landed houses in the area are still rather reasonably priced. unfortunately though, we didn't see anything we liked (that was friendly to our pockets). what we did though, was to explore the park in the area. for such an 'ulu' area, there was really quite a fair bit of activity in the park - lots of happy campers & fisherman-wanna-be. and as always, li'l princess is al...

our little princess wishing her grandma a 'happy (grand)mother's day!' with a gentle peck on the cheek...

its one week before our little angel's 1st birthday so we took some time off to bring her for a photoshoot... here are some photos have a look!  

my baby has turned 6 months old! what a fabulous 6 months it has been. i never thought i'd say this but i am really enjoying motherhood! in fact, i am having so much fun with my dear gal that i really wonder why i delayed being a mother for so long! :) our whole family spent a couple of hours with Celeste of G eneration Design taking photos to commemorate the 6 month mark. we had so much fun and thanks to Celeste, we have lots of beautiful pictures to remember this special occasion! Check out the photos . here's my 6mths old baby! we love you so much dear!