Birthday Cakes

>> Matthew's birthday cake for celebration in school


>> Matthew's birthday agar agar for celebration at home


>> Joanne's birthday cake, baked and decorated by Mommy! :)

Joanne is one!

Dearest Joanne
The past one year has been a great one for all of us! You have brought us lots of joy and happiness, fun and laughter. From a little bundle of 3.3kg, you have now grown to a 10kg toddler.

As you turn one today, we wish you a very great year ahead, growing prettier everyday, slimming down (too fat) and growing taller (too short).

Happy 1st Birthday!

Love
Mommy & Daddy

I can do it!

Mike has been very busy at work and also trying to complete his last module of his course. I bring the kids back on my own or my parents would bring Matthew back slightly later, so that I can put Joanne to sleep without worrying about Matthew being alone in the living room or about him dashing into the room.

Matthew showed me that he could do things on his own. Like pausing his DVD to go pee and re-starting it to continue the show. I was washing up Joanne's bottles and stuff just now and Matthew was watching his LeapFrog Letter Factory. The aircon was on, so I had to close the kitchen door.

I heard him coming into the kitchen and peeing in the toilet. I turned round and asked him if he paused the show and whether he knows how to play it again. He said, "I can do it," and proceeded to take his place on the sofa with the remote control. Aiming at the player, he tabbed on the play button and the show continued. He happily placed the remote control in front of him and gave the show his full attention. :)

Matthew turns 3 today

Dearest Matthew
As the clock strikes 12, you turn 3 today! May you have a good year ahead, always happy and cheerful, throw less tantrums, be less naughty, learn to share with Joanne, don't fight with her so much.

HAPPY 3rd BIRTHDAY!

Love
Mommy & Daddy

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Time flies... Our dear no-longer-little Matthew turns 3 today!

The past one year had been a tremendous one for Matthew. Two days after turning two last year, he became big brother to Joanne. Then soon after, he was bundled off to half day child care and that was a very very drastic change for him... Seven months later, Matthew changed school again. This time it wasn't too traumatic for him and me, in fact he loves school so much that he wears the uniform the whole day (even after his bath)!

Other than that, with the addition of Joanne to the family, I miss the times when I bring Matthew out on my own, to the parks, shopping malls etc. When Joanne grows a little older, I'm sure it would be more manageable for me to bring both of them out on my own.


** after uploading, then I realised that there's a stupid rubbish bin in the background, but it's probably one of the better photos I have of Matthew these days...

Jo's 1st Lunar Birthday

Jo was borned on the tenth day of the Lunar New Year in 2007. Last Saturday, on the Lunar Calendar, Jo turned one. Ah Ma did the praying and thanking of the gods on Friday morning. On Saturday, I decided to cook a traditional birthday lunch - mee sua, with a big drumstick and two hard boiled eggs...


>> First up, the drumstick


>> Jo looking very serious as I held her hand to break open her eggs


>> Jo's lunar birthday lunch. Matthew ate one egg, I had the white of the other and Jo ate the yolk

At one stage while feeding Jo her mee sua, she refused to eat and kept pointing at something on the table. At first I didn't catch what she wanted. Then I realised she wanted a bite of the drumstick. This gal really knows what is good. She didn't want the chicken meat I pinched off the drumstick, she wanted to bite the meat of the drumstick!

Happy 1st Lunar Birthday, Joanne. May you have many good things coming your way! :)

Good Boy Bad Boy

This was one of the witty lines Matthew came up with while talking to my mom last week.

婆婆: Matthew 在学校是乖孩子。
Matthew: 在家是坏孩子。

Really don't know what to do with this boy. He is really naughty at times and can be so charming and witty like in this instance.

99th post

Just for the record, this marks the 99th post on this blog. :)

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

It's nearing the kids' birthdays. I got their birthday presents. I planned to make mini cupcakes for Matthew' birthday celebrations in school, but Mike said that Matthew wants a cake with picture on it, so there goes my cupcake plans. I have nothing planned for Joanne, which my forum friends said it's so unfair. It doesn't really help that the 2 kids' birthdays are only 2 days apart. Either I go for a big one the weekend before or just do a small small one on each day itself. hmmm.... with all the big datelines looming over my head, I wonder if I can still take the two days' leave I planned for.

Matthew in his new school

Matthew started Pre-Nursery classes in his new school this new school term. We also decided to put him in the school bus for the trip to my mom's place. This was partly because we did not want him to be pampered and expect to be "ferried" everywhere. Since he likes to take public bus, we thought it would be a good idea to start him on the school bus as well.

The initial 2 weeks were quite bad. He practically stuck to us and cried every morning we dropped him off at school. He got used to his new teachers and friends. Gradually he stopped all the fuss. These few mornings, he even took his own bag and ran to class for the morning assembly, even forgetting to hug and kiss me goodbye one day.

The school bus was a more challenging task to deal with. He's the 2nd last kid to be dropped off and he did express concern over that - "a little scared," he told his teacher in Mandarin. I always pack some snacks in his bag, in case he is hungry. He actually finishes all the snacks which I have packed so far, the tuppers always come back empty. Perhaps having some food in the bus takes his mind off the long journey. Actually it's not really long, only 30min. Well, I'm happy that he's happy to take the school bus.

The teachers all have similar comments about him. He is very very eloquent in Mandarin and is picking up English very well and fast. He is very smart and very quick to respond.

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Matthew has been telling us stories of a friend in school the whole of last week. The friend is a girl and her name is "Xiao Ming". He will get us to tell him stories of "Xiao Ming" which we made up. We have no idea who this little girl is. This morning, we finally found out.

We were early this morning and the school bus just arrived in school. We decided to walk to the area where the kids alight and look for this girl called "Xiao Ming". Matthew found her. They held hands and walked to class together! I saw on her name tag that she's actually called "Charmaine". I asked the teacher assistant whether there was a girl called "Xiao Ming", she said no. We concluded that Matthew must have heard "Xiao Ming" instead of "Charmaine", because his mind is more tuned to Mandarin pronunciation. It was so cute to watch the both of them hold hands and walking together.

Our son has a girlfriend and her name is Charmaine. Wow! kids really do start young these days!

MIA

Happy Chinese New Year!

Friends have been asking... no updates? Ya man, Busy Busy Busy. other than the previous posts, which were quick and short, I practically had no time to compose a long post and sometimes simply lazy. ahaahaha...

The past 4 weeks have been hectic for me. Since I returned to work in January, after my long break from work, I have been involved in the tenders for a new mega infrastructure project.

Other than that, January has always been a very busy month with lots of birthdays - Xiao Gu Gu Caiyun, GOng Gong, Por Por, Ah Ma. I still manage to squeeze in some time to bake cookies and cupcakes for the kids.

Then there was the long Chinese New Year weekend last week and now back to the crunch. Mad rush.

Promise to update as often as i can... :)