We went over to a friend's Christmas party on Christmas Day.. and this was what we got for his present. We have packed it into a innocent looking mineral water box so that his mum won't nag at his drinking habits. Hahahha. But he just looked at the box and winked at us and said " Thanks! It's the USUAL right?"

On Boxing Day, hubby and I went down town for a shopping spree. He got himself a pair of weird toe sandals. Didn't get anything for myself as there wasn't anything I need or wanted to indulge myself in. Instead, we decided to get our little girl a post-christmas present. We got her another Lego set, but this time is a house-theme. We thought it would allow Yee Sinn to be more creative with a lego doll house then one that is ready built. Above is the doll house we helped her to construct, in addition with her existing lego bricks.

On Sunday, we had another Christmast celebration at Grandma Chang's place. It was tough work on my side cos I was running around preparing the food and all as my mum's maid was on leave. But at the end of the day, all the compliments on the food from everyone was worth all the effort. Think mum will be having turkey for her next few meals for the next few days...

The office had a Christmas celebration yesterday and we could all bring our family members and kids to attend. Decided to bring Yee Sinn along, together with hubby so that he can babysit her while I help the organising team with the food preparation.

They were screening "Up" and there were quizes and games for the kids. The company just disabled the bluetooth function on the laptop and I can't find the cable to transfer the pics I took during the party.... Will remember to post it up when I get the cables.

Meanwhile, Merry Christmas to all!

*Sigh*

Been clearing my annual leave and I'll be back to work tomorrow.... dreading it...

It has been a good break this time round... minus all the health issues that our little girl had earlier on. So in summary what have we been doing all these while? We did simple things like visiting all the various parks - Botanic Garden, Hort Park and West Coast Park. We thought of going to the beaches but gave it a missed due to the unpredictable weather. We also went mall hopping to catch all the free shows for the kids - Junction 8 (Bubble magic), Compass Point (Sesame Street), United Square ( Barney) and IMM (Carebears).

Hubby and I had some couple time yesterday. We left Yee Sinn at home with Grandma Lee while we checked out Mandarin Gallery and 313 Somerset. We had a nice, long and quiet branch at Wild Honey. Quite an interesting place that serves breakfast food all through out the day. Service and ambience was fantastic. It was such a huge portion that we weren't hungry till 8pm in the evening.

We mostly window shopped at 313 Somerset. They have quite an interesting tenant mix but we both didn't purchase anything. Saving money for bigger stuff. Hahahha.

Looking forward to the Christmas and the New Year break......

Have not been blogging lately cos I was clearing my leave at home and the network at home is pretty slow.. uploading pics took quite a long time. Our little girl has also been sick for the past few days. Her cough was so bad that we had to put her on the neubulizer. And as usual, she screamed, kicked and tried to wiggle her way out each time. Hubby had to hold her down while I hold on the respirator on her face. Guess it wasn't a good way to start my vacation leave....

At the beginning of my leave, we took Yee Sinn out to United Square to catch the Barney show. The crowd was CRAZY... though we were there like half an hour early, we couldn't get into the arena. But nevertheless, we managed to catch the show from afar and I'm sure our little girl enjoyed herself too. We did'n't want to spend anymore money just to get a picture with Barney and Friends so we just got Yee Sinn to pose infront of the Barney cutouts... What a cheapo parents we are!

There were days when we just went out to the playground just to have a breathe of fresh air. The picture on the left was taken at West Coast Park. Our little girl just love running around big open spaces. Guess it's really nice to be FREE.... hahahah.

There were a group of people nearby the open field at the park who were flying kites. We just sat there and watch the adults and kids releasing their kites into the sky.

On other days when we feel really lazy to drive out to the bigger parks, we make do with bringing her to the playground downstairs.

I realised that my little girl has grown quite a bit since. She can now climb ladders at the playgrounds effortlessly. She also loves to hang on the bars and swing herself... something that some older kids couldn't really do I realised.

This picture on the right was taken just before we headed out for my dad's birthday celebration. Yee Sinn nowadays also loves to doll herself up before going out. She'll wear her favourite hairband and sling on her little handbag before leaving home. Hope she'll not become too much of a vainpot. Hahahah.

Oh, check out my new sofa cover. One of our relative managed to sew it for us. Got the retro-indie-looking fabric from Spotlight during a sale. Am comtemplating getting a small sewing machine myself so that I can do all these craftwork on my own. Hee. Guess we'll be all ready for chinese new year soon with all that red.


And this was taken yesterday when we went to hortpark after the birthday party. We took some stale bread from Grandma Chang's place. It has been some time since we were there and the fishes have really grown.... not only they were bigger, they were also much much greedier!

We had a lot of fun feeding the fishes when it started to drizzle... so we didn't get to play ball at the lawn. We'll be there again this week, hopefully just before I get back to work.

We brought Yee Sinn to the Botanic Gardens after our usual visit to Grandma Chang's place on Sunday. It has been quite some time since we were there. We brought along a quarter loaf of stale bread to feed the fishes, the birds and the swans.

We brought along a little ball. Father and daughter had a great time with football at the open field. That's the main reason why we prefer going to the main garden compared to Jacob Ballas... there are more open spaces for everyone to run around. After a bit of foot ball, all Yee Sinn wanted to play was catch. So she just ran and ran and ran... and we adults "pretended" to chase her.

Thank goodness our little girl likes animals. She was very happy feeding the fishes and the birds. Sometimes when she sees little dogs and cats in the park, she'll wave at the animals and say "Hello dog dog! Bye Bye dog dog!" Her friendliness never fails to bring smile to the pet owners.

Here is a picture of both father and daughter kidding around. I saw both of them exploring this sculpture just as I was coming out of the washroom at the visitor centre and decided to quickly whip out my camera for this pic.

These few days, our little girl has been very keen to want to be photographed. She will pass us the camera and tell us she wants to 拍照 - Take pictures. And the funny thing is, she will be making all sort of expression and laughing at herself when she reviews her shots.

I took half day leave yesterday to bring her to Compass Point as they were having a Sesame Street show at the mall. This was taken just before we left the house.... and of course with her good pal -her papa! See her wide grin when I told her to SMILE?

While waiting for the show to start, she saw some parents snapping photos of their kids. She stood up and said she wants her pictures taken too... so here's another "Funny Face" she gave me.

Our dear girl totally engrossed with the characters on stage. Her favourites were Elmo, Ernie and Cookie BOMbster (monster).

Here's the both of us... with her famous "piggy face".....

For her good behaviour during the entire trip, I rewarded her with a Barney kiddy ride. She was absolutely delighted with the ride. She would have continued sitting next to Barney had there not been a queue for the ride. I was $1 poorer but the look on her face was priceless!

We had a wonderful Christmassy time in town yesterday. Since Yee Sinn has been pestering us for a bus ride the whole week, we decided to take her to town to view the light-ups via bus. We went down to orchard in the late afternoon cos Hubby wanted to check out the Gundam sale at the Takashimay Toy Fair. We had a slow dinner followed by a wild time viewing the lights.

My excited girl just kept going " Wow!!.... Wow!!!... Wow!!! Lights!!!" at every turn we made. For those who are interested but short of time, the light-ups viewed from Ion would be the best. Oh yah, my little girl just loved the window display at the Louis Vitton store too.... Hahahah. Guess she may be a potential shopperholic like her Ah Yi.

The lights just outside Ion were pretty impressive. Do remember to check out the huge Christmas tree.

Our little girl was being naughty by posing for the camera with a pouty lips with her papa.

Here's myself with my little girl with a cheezy raindeer...

We had our violin recital at Alliance Francaise Theatre yesterday and we all had a blast. We have been meeting up prior to our performance to practise a couple of times. Just before the actual performance, we had a dry run and it was horrendous. We were not warmed up, violins were not tuned and we were off sync with the pianist. So immediately after that, the 4 of us gathered outside the lobby and played the pieces through a couple more times. Thank goodness we got our act together for the actual recital. :-)

But there was a little hiccup though.... as we were crusing through our 2nd piece, we heard a "Thwang...." Apparently Marcus' E string snapped. He walked off the stage and we continued without him. It was a real pity cos he really practiced very hard. He even had a solo piece whereby we were supposed to play his accompanyment.

We're looking forward to our next year's recital. It's really fun meeting the folks once a year for practices and all. Meanwhile, we'll start seaching for interesting pieces and scores. Hee Hee.

I've been so terribly busy at work that I've not posted here for so long. Work sucks and I'm so tempted to quit and be a full time mother... but I don't think I can give up the comfort of having additional income in the family.. well, at least not now.

Another 2 months and my little girl will be 2 years old. Grandma Lee went on a holiday last 3 days so I was a stay-at-home mother for the weekend. I was pretty surprised how much Yee Sinn has developed in terms of her verbal skills. She saw a picture of some fruits and pointed them out to me one by one : "Liu Lian.... Star fruit... Kiwi.... watermeelon" The sad part? I wasn't the one who taught her all those. But nevertheless, it was a nice surprise.

So friday afternoon, after hubby came back from work, we decided to take her to Liang Court. Heard from a friend about a kid's gym (Royce's Kids) that was pretty well equipped and after checking it out, we must agree that it was pretty impressive. Yee Sinn was so engrossed in her playing that she refused to leave the place. We walked away $50 poorer though... cos we decided to sign her up for the membership so we can bring her to there more often.

Yee Sinn spent her Saturday and Sunday afternoon at Grandma Chang's place. Hubby and I had violin practice with our friends so Grandma Chang was kind enough to offer her baby sitting service. She had a blast at Grandma Chang's place.... after all, there were so many people keeping her entertained.

My daughter is growing up so fast!!

She called me on the phone while I was at work yesterday. I called home earlier to inform my folks that I'll be back late for dinner. Yee Sinn must have played with the phone and pressed the last number redial button.

My desk phone rang and when I picked up the phone, I was pretty surprise to hear her voice.

Our little conversation went something like this:

Me : Hello

Yee Sinn : Hello. 你好！Ma Ma?

Me: 你好. 你是谁？

Yee Sinn ：逸心

Me:你吃饱了没有？

Yee Sinn ：饱了

Me:你乖古乖？

Yee Sinn : 乖

Me: Have you been a good girl?

Yee Sinn : Goooo girl.

Me: What did you do today?

Yee Sinn: Jump! jump jump Mama! Jump Mama!

Me: Ok Yee Sinn, Mama has to work kay?

Yee Sinn: Kay? Kay? Kay?

Me: Where is Ah Ma? Call Ah Ma here.

And then I heard my little girl calling Ah Ma to come to the phone. That was when Grandma Lee figured out Yee Sinn has been playing with the phone.

We spent the Saturday afternoon with the sun, the sand and the sea at Sentosa. Seems like our little girl is a water baby. She really enjoys herself when in the water. When we were changing her into her swimsuit, she pointed to the beach and kept saying " I wan go swimming poo.... I wan go swimming poo..." Guess to her, "pool" means a place with lots and lots of water. Am thinking of we should bring her to the swimming pool tomorrow evening as well....

The weather was terribly hot so after applying sun block, I just sat next to Yee Sinn with my umbrella while she digged to her heart's content. Here's a picture of her seated on an inverted pail with a huge hole we helped her to dig.

I was on leave yesterday. Hubby took the car so I was a bit immobile but nevertheless, our little girl and I had quite a bit of fun. After the usual lunch and her afternoon nap, we took a bus ride to the National Library. She was initially a little reserved as she was used to visiting the Toa Payoh Community Library. But after awhile, she became pretty excited at the children's books section. Yee Sinn went around "exploring" the different genre of books at different shelves and kept showing me different books with great excitement. She even made friends with other kids there.

Found out that the National Library has quite a decent range of toddler and pre-school books. But the board books range were pretty sorry as compared to the Toa Payoh branch. We'll return for another visit soon... this time maybe with her Papa so that he can help us to luge our books home.

We didn't have an umbrella with us when it started to drizzle after our Saturday breakfast nearby. So we improvised and made do with a plastic bag. That's innovation! *Grin*

I was away on a shopping trip with a girlfriend last Friday. We booked ourselves a flight to KL via AirAsia... It cost us only $44 for a return ticket. It was indeed a big damaged to our pockets as we went around our shopping spree. The highlight of the trip was a spa treat that we gave ourselves at the end of the day to loosen our tired muscles from all that walking and shopping. The service was excellent. Oh yah, I hand carried back 4 boxes of Krispy Kreme donuts for CW! It was a blackmail cos I had to trade donuts for the children's books that I got him to buy. After all the efforts, I do hope he'll enjoy them... HE BETTER! WAHAHHAHAHA.

Brought our little girl to MacRitchie yesterday after Grandma Chang's. She had a super long nap at Grandma Chang's place so we thought it would be good for her to burn some energy running around. Both Hubby and I had loads of fun playing football with her. Here are some photos.. wished I had changed the camera settings to get a sharper picture.

We decided to head down to the mall yesterday afternoon as the weather was terribily hot. The air-con at the shopping centres was a huge relief. Since we'll only be going to Orchard Road, we decided to take the train instead. We have been doing this ever since we moved in to Toa Payoh even though we now have a car. It's only a short ride with 3 train stops away from where we stay. Also, it saves us the grief of looking for parking, paying for carparks and getting stuck in a jam.

Yee Sinn enjoys her ride with the public transport. So yesterday, we decided not to confind her in her stroller. Instead, we let her walked on her own and even took the opportunity to teach her to stand behind the yellow lines and let the alighting passangers alight first before boarding.

Yee Sinn is such a lucky girl. She is only 20 month old and already has her own Barbie doll. It was a gift from her grand aunt. Unfortunately, she didn't really show much interest in it as compared to her Gundams. Wondering if she'll grow up to be an engineer considering her fascinations with robots and gadgets.... only time will tell.

Grandma Chang bought a $2 ticket for Yee Sinn to attend RC's children's lantern festival gathering. So on Saturday evening, I put up the LED light into her lantern and off we went. It was a simple affair as compared to the welcome block party for the Blk 79 residents that was graces by Minister Ng Eng Hen.

The lantern party ended after an hour or so. There were quite a few kids from other races that took part. We were looking out for Yee Sinn's playground friends but none of them turned up. Here's a picture of our little girl being carried by her Papa with all the other kids.

Our friend Kexin came over to our place yesterday afternoon. We're having a recital in November this year so we decided to be a good and responsible member of the ensemble and arranged for a practice at our place in the afternoon. The adult students will be playing 4 pieces this year. Beside the pieces being more difficult, we'll be having the recital at Alliance Francaise Theatre so we've got to put in much more effort this time round.

Grandma Lee wasn't around so Yee Sinn had to struggle for our attention between practices. She entertained herself with the lego blocks while we played. Otherwise, she would be on my lap, trying to flip the scores for me. We realised that we do have a lot more to do to reach a decent standard.

Sunday was the usual..... we went off to Grandma Chang's place but this time without hubby. Hubby had to rush out his marking and we thought it would be good to keep Yee Sinn away from him so that he'll be able to mark in peace.

Yee Sinn loves going over to Grandma Chang's place. It's where she'll get truck load of attention from everyone. Of course, there are lots of toys there to keep her occupied as well.

Later in the evening, we decided to head to the Botanic Gardens so that the kids could run around. We decided the meeting point would be at the pond just next to the foodcourt. So while waiting for the rest of the folks to arrive, Grandpa Chang and Yee Sinn went around feeding the fishes in the pond and the piegons at the broadwalk.

My nephew Zi En has became much more sociable ever since he started school. He was pretty excited upon meeting Yee Sinn at the park so he just took her hands and they started running away from us. It was quite a funny sight.


As usual, the kids were so fascinated with bubbles. There was a family with a bubble making machine that churned out lots and lots of bubbles. It was a kid magnet! So many kids began to crowd round the machine, all running around and trying to catch the bubbles.

At the end of the day, the kids were tired out with all the running and chasing. It was quite a cute sight seeing them wanting to imitate each other. Yee Sinn was drinking water when Zhi En decided he wanted water too. Here's a picture of them having a water parade together. YUM SENG!!

It was the beginning of the long weekend so we decided to head down to the Sentosa Underwater World yesterday. Hubby and Yee Sinn, had alot of fun with the exhibits. Here is Hubby showing his little girl the starfish at the touch pool. Yee Sinn was a little scared and she refused to touch it.

Here is Yee Sinn infront of a huge tank. This particular exhibit was one of the brighter ones with many many colourful fishes. See the amazed look on her face?

There was a huge stingray patting pool. Hubby was very fascinated with the "soft and silky" texture of the fish. I asked him to buy some fish food so that I can take some pictures of him feeding the rays but I guess he was too stingy about it, considering it cost us quite a bit for the entrance fees already. Hahahahha.


Our faces were a bit too dark but I kind of like this picture of both of us at the jellyfish exhibits. It's amazing considering the light effects the tank had on the jellyfishes where it made them glowed in different colours.

This is a picture of the two of them kidding around a dome tank with fishes in between.

We went through the tunnel a couple of times because our little girl didn't have enough of the huge fishes and of course the sharks! But the sharks there were so well fed that they were a bit lazy... most of them were just lying around or swimming rather slowly.... not frightening at all.

Yee Sinn kept pointing excitedly and exclaiming as the huge fishes or sharks swam past us.

Here's hubby putting his hands into the fish tank.... waiting for the very bold fish to kiss his fingers. I had a go at it too....

What a way to end our little excursion.... at the gift shop! Yee Sinn wanted the pair of sunglasses but we didn't get it for her as it was pretty expensive. We walked home with some stickers though.