Racial harmony day. Again.

*Picture taken in Ikea
Joelle's kindergarten celebrates racial harmony day with the children wearing any ethnic costumes. We have quite a selection at home and she chooses the Vietnamese costume this year. This set was a gift from my friend Sharon when she came back from Vietnam. Last year joelle went in a Cambodian costume and a Chinese one the year before. Only when you have young children, such events are particularly interesting. I'm happy to be able to experience these occasions with my girls. At least I think I'm enjoying the many unknown "special days" now. Especially with these excitable and fun children. When people say "children are a joy to have...", they are so right.

Racial Harmony Day 2008

It's a yearly event in punggol. The racial harmony day parade! Since we had the girls we have been joining the party. This year isabelle could join in the fun. She enjoys the crowd and the colourful balloons and the huge "balloon people" walking around. They represents the different races. For the second time, joelle had her picture taken in the air force booth. I will post both picture together in a later post. This year however we managed to make her smile to the camera. Time flies...

There are some games for the children to participate and joelle managed to get some prizes for fixing a puzzle, spinning a wheel, matching some related pictures and answering a simple question. She's really good with fixing puzzles actually. There are some fishes to fish at a nominal fee but I refused to let them have a go at that... for the sanity of the fishes.

We had free drinks, free cotton candy, free popcorns, free kacang puteh and we bought ourselves some ice cream as it was a really sunny afternoon.

There are some play area for the children but we only allowed joelle to participate. Look at joelle's face when she slides down the inflatable giant slide. I guess she did not expect it to be that steep. But she wanted another go at it. The only thing that stopped her was the queue. There was this pretty big foam pool which I would like to dive in if not for the sign that reads "children's foam pool". I was tempted to let isabelle in so I could be the "accompanying parent" but the foam seems higher than her! There's so much so much foam. She would "drown" in that pool. We actually went home to shower, rest and hydrate ourselves before heading down again to enjoy the evening street parade by the schools in punggol. They were even distributing free food like laksa, mee siam, popiah and many many more but we did not join the extremely long queue since mary was preparing our dinner at home. Last year dave and I managed to get some food later into the evening when the queue subsided. This is a good event. Especially for a quiet town like punggol. There isn't much entertainment here and it's usually very quiet. So this event is a much needed and welcomed event for the residents of punggol. Cheers to the organizers!

Evan's 1st month party

Finally a nephew! Introducing you to Evan, the son of my cousin Benjamin and his wife Jessie. For three years joelle is the only child in the family. Then her sister came along and finally now a cousin. From my family because we have a niece from dave's family already. At least for my family gatherings now, I won't be the only ones tugging children along. We're now encouraging my brother to start a family so there could be more children and more "noise"! The girls are fine with me carrying the baby. In fact they wanted me to bring the baby home. Yes, even isabelle nodded and said "yes" when asked if mummy could bring the baby home with them. That of course started the aunties into their "then ask mummy to have another baby..." game which I politely declined with a "I've only got two hands" excuse. Anyway it was nice seeing my little cousin become a father and knowing that his decisions now will no longer be for him alone. In short... he's grown up.

The 1st month party was held in the aloha chalet in pasir ris. Before dinner starts, we took a stroll along the beach with my grandma, my mum and the baby's grandparents. We managed to enjoy the beautiful sunset. Dave joined us after his work.

Daddy's 34th birthday.

It's daddy's birthday again! Seems like yesterday when we celebrated his 33rd birthday with a homemade Bailey's cheesecake. This year he requested for a mango cream cake and this is what he got. A mango cream cake! The mango cream is fantastic but the cake is a little hard. We were hoping for a soft cake. Anyway we had fun making it since it was our debut cream cake. Made some mistakes along the way but generally happy with the experience. At least I know the next one will be better. Daddy told me that this morning he was awaken by the soft singing of the happy birthday song. He opened his eyes to find joelle "sayanging" his shoulders and singing him the birthday song softly in his ear. She didn't mean to wake him. She just wanted to be the first to wish her daddy I suppose. (I didn't tell her I wished him already at midnight) Daddy was touched by her little sweet gesture I'm sure because he was beaming with pride when he recounted the event before he left for work. I could tell how much he enjoys this display of affection by his firstborn, the one he agrees is "always so sweet". Happy birthday daddy! Your girls love you very much... me included.

Beauty and youth.

I found this beautiful picture in my computer. It has been enhanced by a friend and I thank her for that. Look at my flawless complexion and shiny white pearls. I look good right? Not that I look terrible and ugly without the glamour touch up. Just some freckles and black heads and "old-folks-moles" (yes, I get more and more moles as I aged) and I definitely do not have shiny white pearls. Nevertheless I enjoy looking this good and I will treasure this picture with my life. It's a reminder of my youth and beauty if one day I do lose them. Everyone will grow old and with age, beauty will take a different form. Mine will be in my children and how I manage to bring them up.   

Mummy's art school

   
Mummy is beginning to enjoy these wooden craft. Joelle likes it too. She would fix the thing and mummy would apply craft glue to secure the joint. Once it's dry, we would add colour to it. Mummy bought so many of these crafts. It is a great way to entertain both adults and children.   

Stylo Isabello

   
This little girl is turning two soon. She's running and jumping and insisting on her way all the time. She's almost "pain-proof" cos she can fall and hurt herself with cuts, bruises and scars but with little tears, whines or screams. That also makes it difficult to discipline her. She's not frighten by the cane or the rubber band or the spatula. With joelle, I just need to hold any of the mentioned and the nonsense would stop. With isabelle, it doesn't really deter her at all. But she's really comical, making many funny faces making us roll over and laugh. She just need to look "shock" and we would need to hold our tummy!. She's got this cartoon face. Oh, I love this girl so much. I pray she continues to bring that much laughter to our lives and be that happy all the time. 

  

Sushi rolls

   

California handrolls! Yes! Mummy likes these handrolls very much and now I can have it anytime cos we CAN make it. We're getting better at these. My only fear is I would not have the time and energy to do such stuff once mary leave our household. Whenever we want to do something new, we would take turns, usually with her preparing the ingredients and mummy doing the rest. It's the same with baking. Mary would get the ingredients ready on the table for mummy and the girls to start "messing" with them. Haha! It is great cooperation and it reduces the stress level for all of us including the girls. So when mary leaves... I might fall into "depression"! Sigh... got to enjoy every activities we manage to do now.

I need grace and understanding.

This is me. I hope my hair is like that though. Straight, coloured and styled. I have not been to my hairdresser in 10 months and my hair is now in a mess! Yes, the curls are starting to show, Colours are starting to show too. WHITE! This must have been a stressful period for me. I'm losing weight. I'm losing hair. Lots and lots of hair! I'm about to lose my sanity too! I want my house back. I need my privacy back. I'm not noble enough to show my girls respect for the under-privilege. I'm ashamed of my own inability to be graceful and understanding of other's disability. I failed as a model for my girls. I know I can't do it so I rather not jeopardized my position as a mentor in my children's eyes. How could I expect them to be respectful when I can't be it myself. I'm uncomfortable with someone eyeing my every move - INdiscreetly, repeating my every instruction and especially having to accept that anyone could possibly sit in one position for an entire day! Except when invited to eat or reminded to bathe or sent off to bed. This should not be happening. It would not happen if people are able to accept such disability and manage it appropriately. I'm sad for her actually and I blame the parents for this misfortune. Not her disability but rather her inability to be self-reliance. It's too late now. I just need to pray for more grace and understanding. And pray that my girls would fare better than me on this.

       

Live to Eat 2

   

Satay is our family's favourite food! Joelle likes it, Isabelle likes it, daddy likes it and I like it too. I really enjoy watching this little girl eat. She is very serious when it comes to eating. She would normally not join her sister's noisy story telling or our dinner conversations. She would just focus on eating... with her spoon or fork or even her hands. She usually ends up eating with her hands. Maybe she is still not very adapt at using her utensils. Perhaps the food tastes better with her hands. I don't know. All I now is she's enjoying her food and I bask in her enjoyment.

  

New playground

 

We decided to venture further one evening. We stroll to another big playground and the girls had a great time with the new structures. Though slides will be slides and tunnels will be tunnels but to them it's like a whole new adventure. They climb and crawl and slide like they never did before. It's nice to see them so happy and carefree. They are not afraid of the height, the steepness, the narrowness or the cleanliness of everything. Children will always be children and that's something unique to them. I can never be like them. At this age, I'm starting to fear many things. But I take comfort in the thought that I was like them once.   
 Cheers to childhood!

Balloon hats

   

Thank God for balloons! Such simple things can keep the girls occupied and happy for hours. I do have a bag of balloon in the store for parties and such but this is the first time I'm letting them use the balloons for playtime. Both of them are not afraid of the balloons and would twist and turn and make those horrible sound like it's going to burst any moment. Well, they did burst quite a few. At the end of the day, they had a very good time with the balloons.

Mate them?

   
Not possible. My Ritz is sterilized. 

Joelle's Godpa, to her delight, brought his dog raven over for a visit. We like his dog so much that we place an order for a pup if he's going to mate her with his friend's white Maltese. Our ritz is seven years old now and we're thinking of getting another SMALL dog into the family, hoping that his maturity can help settle the new dog. Rave is a very pretty dog and well tempered too. She's very playful and her favourite is fetch. Joelle had a great time playing with his dog that she's been pestering him to bring her over everyday. Joelle is an animal lover. Isabelle is a bully. She pulls ritz's tail all the time, sits on him when he's resting and bites his ear! Yes, that's not a joke. 

   

Good morning garden

   
Good morning! It's off to the garden for a ball game. This is currently the wallpaper on my mobile phone. The one on the left. A little off focus but nice. Shows the sisters the way I want. Loving and close. At this moment they are far from loving and too close for comfort. They could be loving at times, playing together and helping each other but most of the other times, they are just within each other's knock-out punches. I'm constantly praying that this pair can grow up loving each other more. After all that's all that they've got. Each other. 

Live to Eat.

   
This girl truly live to eat. She takes in her food with great enjoyment and excitement. Whatever is served to her, she would smile and dig in immediately. Most of the time she is able to finish the meal. Sometimes however she has no appetite and will then pick out what she likes first leaving the rice behind. Generally I think she is one who likes food and definitely one who live to eat.