[She's 3!!!!]

To the sweetest and most adorable little girl, to your funny funny expressions, to the cutest and cheekiest grins, to the way you will come over and hug us all the time, to the little attempts at being a 'big girl', to how you will slip in those grownup words - assume?! - and shock us with how much you know, to our littlest one, who is not quite so little anymore - HAPPY 3rd BIRTHDAY!!!!
1st off, she had her birthday celebration in school, her 1st in the school! Understandably, she was really excited!!!
We also had to prep G up as this was the 1st time she will have another person in the limelight in school... turned out much better than expected!
She's explaining to K what the various compartments in the plate were for. It's really sweet when she's a very good big jie jie.
Happy birthday song!
Goodie bags this year consisted of a kit for a cootiecatcher, some personalised stickers, and of course, a bag of candy! :) All the templates for the goodies are from HERE.....,In all her birthday finery!!
Homemade cake decorations.... :) Cake is the superstacked chocolate (gosh even typing that sounds so sinful!) from Awfully Choc.... VERY rich and yummy!
Celebration #2 was at New House, we had a smaller cake, also from Awfully Choc, but the banana and Choc one. :)
Finally, on her actual birthday, K's birthday present from an indulgent Kong kong is a full day at Universal Studio! She quite enjoyed herself, although she was too scared of the loud noises at some of the rides.

Look at all her different expressions!!! :)

LOVE YOU TO BITS my little 3 yr old!! :)

[Happy Birthday to me]

I'm now officially nearer to the big "4-0" than 30! :) This year has been such an eventful year, settling into our new home, getting into the whole Parental Volunteer program at RGPS, getting into the whole 'home / work' schedule as both girls are in Kindie now. Celebrations started last weekend when we had 2 birthday dinners at seafood restaurants! As I had the craving for crab, first we had the more traditional chillie crab at Jumbo dempsey on Sat, followed by the Beehoon crab at Long Beach on Sun! :) Yum yum... heh.
For my little own birthday treat to myself, we booked a photostudio at Chinatown (thanks to Tubbykat for her recommendation; incidentally, she has her own studio on the same street - they take lovely children & family pix too!) It was such an easy booking, just a few emails, and we were booked in for 1.5 hrs on a weekday. Luckily, K slept for a little bit before the shoot, and amazingly, they lasted for almost the whole shoot in good spirits!
Here are some of the selected ones (we took close to 900+ pictures in all, from there, I selected 100+, which for those of you who are interested, they are HERE)












1.5hrs later and a full flash card of pictures, we had a nice treat of icecream and chinese desserts at chinatown. I would definitely do this all again and maybe even with my girlfriends! It's such an affordable option, one of the best things to be doing while the children are growing up. :)
Loved my birthday present and maybe this will turn into an annual tradition!

[life is going too fast and the blog is lagging.... ]

So many things have happened in the week, I've been meaning so often to blog about it, and to at least put down in words my feelings, my thoughts, my reactions... But as will all things, the daily grind just gets to me and there just isn't enough minutes and hours in each day to just write them all down! Sigh. I will definitely try to revive this much neglected blog.... I've been looking at the archives quite a lot (hence the non blogging too!) and realised that there used to be so much I was posting! More about how it FELT like, not so much of what we DID. I know.... it's difficult to get into a particularly pensive frame of mind, to reflect and pen down all those growing pains. I really do need to do so though, as the days and years slip by so fast!

So... first off, THANKS for all the birthday wishes, on FB, via SMS, via email..... :) Feeling very loved..... Will post a separate post on the pictures taken!

Here's what we did over the weekend, we finally visited the Farmer's Market, at Loewen road. It is such a quaint little cluster of buildings. The girls loved the playground, the courtyard, and best of all, the "treat" sized samples of everything from pate to chocolate to honey!

Wire cars at the playground. Love the simplicity and the colours!
G on the slides....
Leg of lamb. I remember G asking me about this, she was very surprised that this is how ham and other cured meat came about. After explaining it to her, she then asked how the lamb was going to walk?! I said they will have to slaughter the animal before cooking it, and also that all our meat that we eat used to be animals too, and that's why some people are vegetarian. She was REALLY surprised! I didn't realise that she had no idea about this! Anyways, I finally asked her after it all if she would like to be vegetarian, and she said - erm, no more boney boney? then, NOPE! haha.....

K in the summery courtyard
They loved the courtyard and I loved the shop! :)


The protective daddy taking pictures of them through the door of the trampoline.
Made this in the afternoon, as K was napping :)

[Keppel Marina]

A little known (at least judging by the number of people that were there) small oasis of green and water is Marina at Keppel Bay. We have been there once before, but just had breakfast at the cafe (which incidentally does quite good but slightly pricey breakfast / brunch food). We brought along a picnic this time around, plus the girls brought along books and toys to play with. It's a good alternative for the girls from swimming or the beach, if they (or rather we) do not want too exertive an activity.
As G has started reading more and more, it was so great to have a quiet picnic, where we can all get absorbed in reading our respective novels. K is still too young for that, but was quite happy playing with her cooking set and pretend food!
Here are the pics:
G's really into Enid Blyton now, she has about 20 on her shelves and most of them have been thumbed through at least twice.
We were the only ones there! I guess it was also due to the slightly overcast weather.....

Silly K! She was pretending that her haversack was a camera! Went around like that shouting "say cheese"!
Love this pic of V and G. So happy that G has turned out into a really affectionate child, she loves to snuggle up to us and will usually want to find a lap to sit on or somebody to lean into to. Usually V indulges.... 2 little birkie clad feet
Aren't the tiny ones adorable! :)

Playing with the automatic sprinkler.





A good morning out... and just as well, as soon as we finished our picnic, the heavens opened and it poured!
We were trying to take a group shot with the timer. Unfortunately, in this shot, the background foliage is in focus and not us!
A slightly better one, but G is distracted... :P owell... we'll try again next time!