I took a day off work yesterday, just to spend some time with our little girl. We decided to take her to the Bi-annual Singapore Garden Festival cos it was the last day. Boy, am I glad that we went there the last day of the flower show. There were a few shops selling plants and gardening stuffs and they were all heavily discounted so that they can get rid of their stocks.

I managed to grab a few potted plants at $2 each... which was a steal. They are all sitting nicely in my office cubicle.

Our little girl really enjoyed herself yesterday. This is a picture of her looking earnestly at the rubber snake at the "Rainforest" exhibit. The volunteers there allowed us to take a walk into the exhibits and we were all so fascinated at how they put the little potted plants together to create a jungle feel! Wish I can replicate that at my lift lobby at home. Hahahhaha. If only we have more sunlight there...

My favourite picture of the day! We sneaked into this exhibit to take this picture.... after which we were promptly ushered out! But hey! There were so many people infront of us doing the same thing too!

They had a bazaar of a sort on another floor with all the nuseries and stalls selling gardening tools and plants. We came across a pot of strawberries which Yee Sinn took to a liking. We moved a few pots away so that she could come up close to the pot and have a "feel" of the plant.

Here's Yee Sinn looking intently at the terrarium that was made into a coffee table. The exhibits there were truly inspiring. In the end, both hubby and I signed up with NParks to be part of their mailing list in case they have interesting workshops on plants etc. It's nice to know that our little girl is comfortable to be aquainted with plants and nature.

The exhibits also included some interactive booths explaining about plants and their life cycle. They also had educational materials on recycling and saving our environment. Yee Sinn was quite entertained when some electronic drawing devices that were on display.

Our little girl has grown up so much over the past 2.5 years. She now has a mind of her own and very much has a strong opinion on certain things.

Her favourite colour is now pink. And she loves everything pink... She was so delighted to be given a pink kiddy cup at Riders Cafe when we pop by on lazy Saturday morning for brunch. If she can help it, she will be wearing pink dresses/shirts/ shorts or whatever pink stuffs she can lay her hands to.

We have been trying to convince her that there are other colours in the specturm that are just as beautiful... but she's still not convinced... "My favourite colour is Pink" she would insist proudly to us.

She also enjoys doing more grown up activities these days. Recently, she became very interested in flower arrangement after having a go at it at her play group. I decided to buy a bunch of flowers for her to arrange as a gift to Grandma Chang as her birthday present. She could put together a "decent" arrangement (of course with my help in cutting the flowers into the correct length).

Another activity she enjoys a lot is watching TV. Beside her usual Seseame Street, Barney and Hi-F, her favourite programs are now Ben Ten, Pokemon and you'll never guess it.... Ninja Worriors! She and Grandma Lee will be sitting infront of the TV every Wednesday from 8 to 8.30pm watching the competitors in Ninja Worriors very intently.

Now that she's much older, she is able to articulate her thoughts better. She can now communicate better with older kids at the playground and at school. She also tends to approach younger kids and tries to talk to them in a gentl way. On of her favourite playmate is her cousin. Though they seldom meet, they would be now playing happily together instead of the usual fighting and snatching of toys.

Our wedding was many years ago. The celebration continues to this day.

Happy 6th ROM anniversary!

I was on leave for two days last week. I thought I could have a laid-back vacation at home but I was wrong. Our little energizer bunny really kept us on our toes the entire weekend.

On Thursday morning, hubby had to take Grandma Lee for her medical check-up. Yee Sinn woke up late that morning. She had her usual corn-flaks for breakfast before settling down to watch her string of cartoons on her favourite Okto channel.

Just when she got bored, I took out some colouring worksheets to keep her occupied while I carry one with my chores. There were times when I had to stop what I was doing to encourage her into completing her task. The final product - A father's day crown for hubby that says "King of the Day".

Hubby was quite amused with the King's crown though... He thought that was his immunity against doing housework. I told him to dream on... Hahahha.

On Friday morning, we took Yee Sinn out to catch Toy Story 3. She has been telling us she would like to watch the show everytime she sees the thriller on TV or the colourful adverts in the papers.

So off we went... It was her first movie outing and we were not sure how it will turn out. We headed down to Cineleisure, bought a couple seat and placed a booster seat in between us for her.

There were several scary scenes during the show when she leaned towards us and asked for a cuddle. Otherwise, she was pretty entertained by the movie. It was a good show with a beautiful storyline. She could rattle off the character's name to Grandma Lee after the show when we met up for lunch.

As it was a weekday, we decided to check out if the queue at Ippudo was worth the wait. Fortunately, the wait was only 20 mins. I wasn't very impressed with their food though. Would think it has been over-rated by lots of food critics... Do go only if you got cash to burn and time to spare.

The entire family trooped down to the Singapore Art Museum (SAM) on Saturday afternoon. We intended to visit the much talked about Art's Garden: Children's Season. But when we got to SAM, Yee Sinn was sound asleep in her stroller. So we decided to check out the art exhibits at the main SAM building instead while she naps. Grandma Lee came with us cos her admission tickets were free for senior citizen.

Just when Yee Sinn woke up, we headed to the next building where all the fun began. We spent quite some time at Walter's Garden where there were many small pillows littered around artificial grass. We built a small fort and had a small pillow fight with Hubby. There were 4 floors of exhibits. One of our favourite was the Enchanted Forest. The so-called "forest" consisted of beautifully illustrated pictures of animals like tigers, snakes, fishes and some imaginary animals.

At a small corner was some tables and art materials where the kids could colour butterflies and paste them along the other exhibits. Yee Sinn was so engrossed with her artwork at one point in time.

We also spent quite a bit of our time at "Daisies" exhibit. It's an interactive exhibits where movements will cause the flowers projected on the floor to disappear. All Yee Sinn did was ran round and round in circles, enjoying herself with her burst of energy.

There was a dedicated activity room on the 2nd floor where the kids could get really hands on with artwork. As it was supposed to be Father's Day the day after, the volunteers had Yee Sinn to make a Father's Day picture. They helped her choose a picture and decorate it as she likes.

Strangely, our little girl has been fascinated with monsters. She told me that Papa loves monsters. She coloured its teeth pink and eyes blue. She also stuck many colourful feathers around her monster. When hubby asked her what does her monster eats, she replied most innocently "Monsters eat cookies!" I think she has too much of Sesame Street. Hahahahha.

Sunday was the usual at Grandma Chang's place. We decided to have a quiet father's day this time round. Evening was spent lazing at the botanical gardens. After feeding the fishes with stale bread, we headed down to the the open lawn near the Tumbusu Tree.

Father and daughter played a bit of football while I looked out for squirrels on the trees.

When we wished hubby a Happy Father's Day in the morning, his rely was " I'm happy to be your father every day"

Hubby was telling me how fortunate he is to be able to experience the growing up of our little girl. Simple things like Yee Sinn's little gestures of kisses and hugs that made us forget all the frustrations and terrors she has given to us.

Saw this in today's newspaper.

Happy Father's Day to All!

It's the June school holiday! School has been out for Yee Sinn for the last 2 weeks of June. But meanwhile, she's having a whale of a time with her daddy. This was what she has been up to so far....

There are lots of free shows at the malls around Singapore. She has already been to Marina Square for Doremon, Plaza Singapura for Transformers and United Square for Ben Ten. She has been asking hubby to bring her to see Digimon and some other cartoon characters which I'm not familiar with.

There were days where they simply hung out at the shopping centre, just to bask in the Great Singapore Sale crowd- Robinson, Takashimaya, OG and City Hall! Bascially anywhere with a Toy Fair! But thank goodness most of the time the both of them are just window shopping or crowd watching.

Hubby and Yee Sinn has also been hanging out at Liang Court. Little treats like 1 hour of play time at Royce Gym for Yee Sinn while hubby indulged himself with books at Kinokuniya has also became a norm.

Yee Sinn also had plenty of outdoor fun. These includes her regular trips to the nearby playground, as well as other places such as hortpark, botanical garden and to the beaches.

Hubby will be reporting back to school in another 1 week time. I'm sure our little girl will miss all the special bonding time she had with her Dad. But meanwhile, I'm just as curious where else my boy and little girl will be adverturing next...

We were at Downtown East on Saturday morning. Hubby had some free tickets from the Teacher's Union for a Mayday 2010 carnival by NTUC. So thinking we had nothing else to do, we decided to check out the place.

We tried our hands on several carnival games and was disappointed to find that most of the prizes were the same... Pencils with erasers and colouring face mask for the kids. Some station games had so long queues with people hogging the games with stackloads of free game tickets. Wonder how they managed to get so many free tickets in the first place.

After walking around for a while, we decided to buy a ticket for a train ride that Yee Sinn was eyeing on since we came. This kiddy ride was not part of the free tickets that were given by the union. Oh well, I guess it is money well spent cos she was simply so delighted with the ride and kept posing for a picture everytime she comes round near us.

We ended the day at Wild Wild Wet. It was nice having to dunk into the cool water after a hot humid morning. However, as we approach noon, there were more and more people streaming into the pool area, making the place a little over crowded and chaotic. The ladies showering area was CRAZY...the crowd was so bad that I told hubby to take Yee Sinn to the guys shower area to get her cleaned and changed. Luckily, hubby managed to get into the handicap toilet that came with shower facility.

Generally, it was a fun day, except for the crowd. But guess this is Singapore and as long as it's free, there will be truckloads of people queueing for them.

As usual, the entire family was zonked out the moment we reached home.