[Xmas Crafting / Gifting]

Having some time to do some crafting, i finally dusted off the sewing machine and started crafting for some commissions and also my own gifting:Lavender scent bags
Bible covers
Patchwork pouches - i finally conquered my phobia for doing zippers so made up a lot of zipper pouches!
This one is my fav of the lot - using nice linen fabrics and a handembroidered patch (both of which I've been hoarding)

[RWS mini-staycation]

This December, the long awaited Club Med holiday for G finally arrived! She was so excited to be going on a 5 day trip with her favoritest cousin, che che E, for an 'only grandchild' holiday with my parents.V and his girls... they are growing up so quick!
Me and my 2 little princesses.G was at this point getting a little teary eyed about leaving us behind, but of course, her sunny personality shone through again once inside the ferry terminal.Left with only 1 child, we checked into Hardrock Hotel at RWS for a mini break. K was beyond delighted to be the ONLY child.... i believe this is the first time in her young life (that she remembers) where she had the absolute undivided attention of the 2 of us. And for 5 whole days!!! The room was spacious, the only grouses were that it had very bad local internet connection and also no long bath.
Totally girly girl, she was picking flowers and posing at every opportunity!This pix of her cracks me up everytime I see it.... so funny!
We took the trams and buses on the island, it feels almost like we were on holiday! Haha.
K doesn't really like sweet things as much as G does, but one thing that she can't get enough of is icecream!!! She will willingly eat up all her lunch / dinner, if only icecream is the chosen dessert. :) Here she is with the very 1st icecream of many on that mini vacation.
The pool at the hotel had it's own private beach! Artificial sand and wierd water pools, but the kids don't really care.
For the next 2 days, we also went to the "proper" beaches on sentosa.
K finally got to watch her fireworks display while I had my long awaited BBQ ribs at Coastes.
Reading, basking in the sun, eating icecream - that's basically all we did!
Group timer shot before digging into MORE icecream
It was really great to spend some 1 on 1 time with K. Sometimes she acts up and becomes all whiney and difficult, of course it helps that there is nobody here to drive that bad behavior even worse by taunting and mutual quarrelling!

Happy happy girl. She loved all the attention and couldn't stop talking about how fun it was at Sentosa!

The rest of the time, we had meetings to attend to because it was still a work week for us! So we took turns to have 1 on 1 time with K.
Having icecream again at Ikea where she finally bought her canopy for her bed.
Then V brought her to watch Barney at USQ. She was soooo excited and happy!
Will follow up with more pics of my crafting!

[Gap Casting Call 2011]

Even though we didn't take part in the Gap Casting Call this year (blame it on our inability to queue or wait anywhere longer than 10min!), lots of people with the cutest kiddies did! And after all that waiting and queuing and coaxing the little ones to take part, it is only right that we do our part to choose from the pictures - which really isn't hard given the cute pictures uploaded! So, go facebook.com/gapsingapore...... and to the following:
To view a child's photo, please follow the following steps:

"Like"the page and then click on the Gap Casting Call tab on the menu bar on the left
Click on the link "Click here to start voting"
Click on the photo of your favourite semi-finalist and then click on "Vote"

Voting ends 25th December, so go on.... make someone's day!

[movie nite!!]

Thanks to the nice people at Sony Pictures and the even nicer people at Qais consulting, we were given a whole bunch of tickets to preview the movie - Arthur Christmas.

Ever wondered how Santa manages to deliver the presents to every child all over the world? This movie starts with a really interesting question that is on every child's lips come christmas. It definitely was on the girls - same as the tooth fairy questions :) But I suppose because Santa is always depicted as some western big beard man, they don't really "believe" in his existence as much as those little kids in the west. It was a totally enjoyable show though, the girls totally loved the fact that it was in 3D - it was their first 3D movie - and they looked so adorable in the little kid-sized 3D glasses. I quite enjoyed it too! There were a lot of special effects, lots of fantastic sets, and the characters were great... totally believable and very heartwarming.
Here's some pix from the press pack :
The girls LOVED the elves, they all had little personalities that were really cute - there's even an "indian-sounding" IT elf! haha....
Santa's behind the scenes operations on Christmas Eve
The elves and Arthur - the protagonist who is Santa's youngest son
Arthur again....
Santa's command centre - it was a delight for the girls - i keep forgetting they grow up in a digital age and something like that is just so believable to them!

The more familiar Christmassey mood sets - the richness in colour was incredible in 3D
More elves
They loved this little elf best! Little packing elf.... :)
So, bring your little ones to watch Arthur Christmas this holiday, as G says - it's about Santa forgetting about 1 present, but it's also about how every child is important. Spot On!!

There's a current "Arthur's Mailbox" promotion going on at Cathay - Go HERE to see more details.

While we were there, these are the other movies that we'll also be catching this Dec hols :
BARNEY - mostly for K
PUSS IN BOOTS - another 3D movie

will be trying out this Moms & Tots promo too!!

[Junior Gymnastics Meet]

We attended G's very first Gymnastic Meet at HCJC today. It's an annual event that was organised by the girls' regular gymnastic centre. Of course, it took quite a lot of persuasion to cajole her into actually joining the meet. Plus we had to get there by 7.15am in the morning!! Too early.... we are so glad the girls will not be attending the morning session when G starts Primary school next year....
Understandably, she was equal part excited and apprehensive about the whole event. I think this photo captures that mood exactly!The event floor, this was during the warmup sessions.



Sample of photos of G's routines. They had to do 4 routines in total - Floor, Unequal Bars, Beam and Vault. Incidentally she won silver for this event!Receiving her medals
She was thrilled to receive 5 medals in all!
Her team won 2nd and she had an individual 3rd place overall! Not bad at all for a girl who "did not want to join the competition" a single bit! heh....
Whilst the older girls were busy at the competition floor, the little ones had a blast playing with their friends and running around the spectator stands.
Life is so fun when you're 4!
Giggly giggly little girls. They are all in the same class and have older siblings competing in the competition. Plus most of the parents were busy video-ing, taking pics of the competition, so these girls had pretty much free rein the whole morning!
After 4 whole hours, the competition was finally over and G could have her well-deserved sandwich! She was absolutely starving as she refused to eat in the morning due to pre-competition nerves.
Happy G with proud grandparents.
Group shot.

The girls
The competition was also a great place for making new friends - G with her new friend B. So nice to meet another 6 yr old of the same height! :)