School Holidays Again!

June school holidays are here! A month, loads of activities to keep Chloe occupied before she starts bouncing off walls.

Plays, movies, playdates, shopping and a little stay-cation on the to-do list with more lined up. We kicked off with a play 'The Gingerbread Man' at the Alliance Francaise, followed by lunch and a shopping trip.

'You are a monkey, Ooo-ooo ah-ah. I'm a koala.'

So happy that her Yis brought her to Toys R Us and went rounds with her checking out the toys.

Boy meets Dog

They make eye contact for a split second.
Sunny is bored. 'Another one?' Raphael is very excited, he squealed. 'Finally!'

Raphael crawled and reached out for Sunny

'Friends? C'mon, don't be shy. You have been eating my crumbs for months.'

Sunny break dancing for Raphael. Dance to friendship and more food crumbs!

Cold Storage Kids Run 2009

This is Chloe's first run, 750m for a start. Too much for a 2 years old? I figured if she can run from one end of T3 and back, she can do this, after all there is a Plan B - piggyback ride by Simon.

We chomp down some breakfast and set out early, drop Raphael at mum's place and off to the Padang. Mother hen shooing everyone out of the house, we don't want to be late for the excitement at the starting point, turns out I'm wrong. No fanfare, no countdown, just a honk and off we go. Okay, this is not the Bay Run or Standard Chartered Marathon.

A little disappointment, we got separated during the run hence no pictures of Chloe running. Simon was so excited when they sounded the honk, he grabbed Chloe and turbo charged ahead. Yes! All the way to the end, leaving me behind looking everywhere for them in the sea of green. Argh... He was very excited too as this is also his first run.

All ready to do 750m!

Her race tag with her name printed on - 70019. Alas, it was thrown away by mistake, sob!

May the force be with you, Cranston.

Her first finisher medal!

Recharging with her 'isotonic' cream.

Show Time!

I'm so extremely excited and proud when I received the email from Chloe's teacher that her class is going to sing and jiggle during their weekly assembly again. I bugged her the whole week prior to the big day for a sneak preview, 'Chloe, can you show me what are you going to sing for your class performance?'. All I got was a sheepish grin. So the big day finally arrived. (Hmm... if I'm going goo-goo gaga over this, I'll probably burst if she's going on stage for real.)

Singing her Mandarin nursery rhymes with lots of actions. She was enjoying all the attention, applause, all the mama-razzis with their cameras clicking away and all the cheering.

Charmaine giving out their certificates for putting up such a good performance. Well done!

Picnic at Botanicals Garden

Whenever there's an outing for the kids, we always prayed, hoped and keep our fingers crossed for great weather. This time, we had to double cross our fingers that the 'pigs don't fly', darn the swine flu. The outing was almost cancelled when the health alert was raised to the red level the week before the outing. That spells big trouble. Phew! Thank goodness, the alert was revised. Cheers to good health and good weather. The kiddos had a fabulous time.

Chloe's morning eyes - small and little puffy.

The teachers - Armed with books, keyboard and CD player. All set to entertain the children.

Surprise! Surprise! Little bottles of bubbles from the teachers. Chloe huffing and puffing for a bubble. She blew with all her might, trained from extinguishing numerous birthday candles. She was blowing soap suds onto my face.

There you go girl! Bubbles!

As usual, taking the obligatory group picture was impossible. The bubbles were the culprits this time.

Seeing stars!

This little person here loves his stars! That is his snack, Gerber stars and the Baby Bites. Here he is, picking his stars one at a time and by the handful which is more productive.

'Snack time!' Hoooooray! Attack!'

'Mummy's one at a time is too slow. THIS is better, do it the Singaporean style - by the handful.'

'And Mummy's way, one by one.'

'Real good!'

'All gone?!'

Our First Chinese Orchestra Concert

We attended our first orchestra concert, a casual one just for kid, titled 'The Musical Rainbow'. The orchestra played some familiar tunes like 'Do-Re-Mi' and 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' with Chinese musical instrument like guzheng, pipa and suona, very refreshing. The conductor introduced the different instrument and explained about different scales and notes too.

Chloe really enjoyed the concert and danced non stop with Cranston when the conductor invited the audience to boogie to the music. They let loose and go all the way out, the pair had their own audience, yes.... people were watching them, clapping.

We are definitely coming back for more!

The giant Chinese drum outside the hall.

Beating it with some help from Uncle Ronnie.

The 2 of them fighting for Cranston's toy camera.

Miss Cheeky

Chloe has a long 'To Do' list everyday. She has her day planned and will rattle off what she is going to do next the moment she is home from school.

'Mummy, I'm going to the park now.'

'No, too hot now. In the evening, ok?'

'I eat noodles, changed, drink milk, sleep then I go to the park. Yeaaaah!'

This is the brief plan, along the way, her agenda changed accordingly.

Here she is trying to get Sunny to do her bidding, without much success.

'Sit Sunny, sit. Siiii...t!'

'I'm spiderman!'

She likes climbing, I think all kids love this. She climbs gates, railings, rock climbing walls and recently, trees.

Who says you only stand on scooters? You can sit and let it roll down. Wheeeee!

Dummies Guide to Frying an Egg

Ever since we started baking, Chloe has been very fascinated with eggs. She realised that eggs can be eaten in many ways, in cakes, hard-boiled or scrambled. Today, she wanted to eat an egg, an omelette and she wanted to fry it herself. 'I cook it myself.', smacking her chest and looking at me in the eye proudly. Before I could say anything, she has ran out to the dining hall and pushed a dining chair into the kitchen, so that's it. Chloe in action...

1. We need a Dora bowl, a small fork and an egg. Knock the egg on the kitchen top, not too hard cos the first egg got smashed, and drop it into the Dora bowl.

2. Next, you beat, whip and stir it in all directions. Do a little teh tarik style with your fork and let it dribbles into the bowl. Add a little salt and shake a little pepper and beat it again.

3. Get an adult to pour it into the frying pan. Watch the egg and turn it when it's done on one side. Chloe did a good job on her first try, better than her dad. ;)

4. Voila! It's ready!

Enjoying the first omelette she cooked herself.

A Year Older

32! Time to celebrate getting older, more wrinkled, bigger eyebags, darker eye circles ... nay, what's life without all these? Hah! Fret not, there's always botox round the corner. I'm always so blessed to celebrate it with wonderful people, my family and friends. Thank you!

Eileen bought me this very cute panda bear cake. Ay, trying to tell me something? Thank you... :)

Chloe and I had fun posing, making funny faces.

'Wheet... wheet! I'm all ready to party!'

'Why am I still here? I'm ready to boogie! C'mon baby light my fire.'

Our friends bought me dinner at Bedrock. Steak!

Chloe very excited, birthday song, blowing the candles, the cake and the strawberries.

Thank you babes and the men (behind the babes) not shown here. :)

Start of May

One of those rare moments, which I was able to capture a nice picture of the 2 of them looking straight into the camera. Yee... haaaa! Giddy up!

I believe I can fly! I believe I can touch the sky! Fairy? Butterfly. Theme for the week in school was butterfly (蝴蝶) so she was singing her Mandarin rhymes, flitting around like a butterfly with her arms till we got her some wings. All of us got wings...

... Raphael too. Chloe never forgets her brother's share for anything.

The cheekiest smile! Yes... she has been correcting us every time we call her, 'Don't call me Chloe, I'm cheeky Chloe!' Wonders where that pops out from...

Book Week

Book week in school and the children are to come dressed in their favorite book character. As usual, the adults are more excited than Chloe, which means I'm searching for the character. The hunt begins... She has so many favorite books, favorite meaning she asked to read the same book 10 times non-stop on a loop for a week, maybe more. And every time you ask her to get a book, she whips out the same book.

Ta-dah! The book she read to death. And I think in a way, she do have that impish streak in her like the little princess.

The book given by Auntie Desiree, she so love and read to death, a little torn and tattered but still greatly treasured.

'The Princess' looking every bit high and mighty, giving her most sullen look.

Chloe wearing my white t-shirt back to front, with the collar stitched and the ends hemmed up a few inches. Simon made her the crown which fits to a T, custom made. All ready to leave the Royal Household for school!

Happy Birthday Mama!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAMA!

A happy mama and a very excited Chloe, who can't wait to poke the candles into the cake, sing mama a song, cut her cake and eats it.

A birthday kiss for mama!

Hmmm... at long last, tucking into the awfully yummy chocolate cake.