Girls' Holiday

While the Boys are off having their holiday, the Girls have been having some cuddly & fun bonding time as well. Talia loves animals and often pretends to be one at home, so we went to the Zoo for our Girls outing. When I asked her what animals she wanted to see she said "Giraffe and snails"! But she seemed most thrilled to see the Zebras! Here she is enjoying the sight of the stripey Zebras having their breakfast.
She tends to tire quite easily especially now that she is having a cold, but we managed to get in a great time at the Kid's Water playground and some lunch before she fell asleep in my arms on the tram ride back. I'm enjoying the special time with her and since I am also clearing leave, it's nice that its quite unrushed and I can go at her pace (rather than have to make sure she fits into our hectic one!) It's been wonderful bonding time but she often remembers her Daddy and Brother and I think we all appreciate each other a lot more after this!

Girls Outing

Ethan said that the girls were having their own holiday while us boys were enjoying ours. Indeed they are! Well, an outing at least if not a holiday.

Talia has been eagerly watching her brother zip around expertly on his Kettler balance bike and has been wanting to try. After some research and hunting I got her a Strider balance bike using soon her forth-coming Christmas ang-pows from grandparents! That's the logic anyway. Here she is on day 2 with her lovely helmet from Goo Ma. Mummy took her cycling. She can now put on her own helmet! But was quite busy with this new skill so she kept stopping to put it on and take it off! Quite posey even at 2 years old eh?

Kids by the Bay

We had a little family walk by the recently and Ethan and Talia now don't mind posing for photos! It's so sweet when they love and take care of one another... makes mummy and daddy's hearts glow with joy.

Tomorrow Ethan will fly to Bali with Daddy for a 4D3N trip which is Daddy's university Christian fellowship reunion. Father and son will have a grand time but it will be longest we've been without mummy and Talia by far. The last one was 2 years ago when we went to JB for one night. That had such great memories so we are hopeful of weaving great new ones on this trip.

Loving It

Ethan loves typing away on Mummy's new iPhone. So far the notepad application is his favourite. We're hoping it stays that way as long as possible. Ethan knows his alphabet, can write almost all of the letters ("S" is still quite tough), but is of course still slow to find them on a keyboard. What was really cool in this photo was that Daddy was also lying next to Ethan wearing exactly the same shorts and playing with his iPhone...but we could not show that of course!

Ready for School

Talia is all excited about going to school with her brother next year. Here she is kitted out in her brand new uniform. The dress looks almost ankle length but it's actually the smallest size and supposed to be knee-length. Talia is just a bit small though she is strong and is talking so well. She looks so grown up in this picture and speaks full sentences now. We remember when Ethan first went to school he only grunted and pointed energetically to get his needs communicated to the world.

Best of Friends

After a nice breakfast and playing on the bed together, Ethan and Talia moved to playing "baby." Funny thing is Ethan is the baby and Talia gets him milk, tells him not to cry and pats him. He crawls, kisses her and says than you. Here they are enjoying each others company on the sofa after Daddy suggested that Talia read a book for her baby!

Playing at Marche, 313 Somerset

After the most harrowing and horrendously tiring Christmas shopping at Robinsons, Ethan and I are having a nice pit stop at Marche.

Mummy is sick so just us boys went out. Lunch was at a jam packed food in Centrepoint after which we went back to Robinsons where Ethan slept all the way through the 30 min queue to pay the cashier and was a good boy all day. We found a great lunch set at Marche. This is a much needed respite after all my emotional energy was taken up battling crowds, watching Ethan, and gawking at high prices! This Marche has a great play area and being right at Somerset MRT with great $7.90 meal and drink, I think I will come back here...

Ethan "Armstrong" Liew

Ethan is really getting into cycling and is thus becoming more and more like Daddy! It's funny how he is scared to climb high things in the playground but he is undaunted by speed, balance, and steering. He's taken to his balance bike really well so much so that 2 year old Talia is really keen to have a go even though she's too short! Daddy is looking on eBay for a good quality 16" bicycle (pedals this time) preferably with pedal brakes. Trek Mystic 16 anyone?

Mr Preppy

Ethan looks ready for some British prep school with this shirt and his studious look! He had just finished writing DADDY and is now drawing a daddy.

Goo with Gumption

Cousin Josie is in town and the kids are having the greatest fun with home made "play-dough." It really is true that the cheapest home made stuff is the most precious and memorable which makes the extra effort required most worth it!

Good Boy & Good Girl Chart

Here's the latest addition to our efforts at Toilet training! Been tired of washing pee-filled pants (& socks & shoes) so we have put up a Good Boy & Good girl chart to reward Good boys & girls who pee & poo in the right place! They get a star for each successful pee & after 5 stars they can get a little snack reward! Fortunately they love it and we have already had 15 stars for Ethan in 3 days! Big change from the horrible tantrums some pple threw when it was time to go toilet.... only to pee in his pants minutes later......
Hopefully this will be the beginning of a wonderful new chapter ofless diapers & happier toilet experiences! Thanks to Roy for helpingto print the nice colour photos of what Good Boys & Girls do!

Gong Gong's 70th Birthday

Gong Gong is 70! We celebrated with the family with Auntie Ruth & Josie, (Grand) Uncle Donald & Auntie Junie, travelling from Sydney for the birthday dinner.
Then we took a week off in Phuket for our own celebration time together! This was one of the nice dinners we had on a (steep!) cliff overlooking the sea & sunset.
The cousins had a nice time together too. Ethan took this photo of the girls while they were engrossed in picking leaves.
They loved the nice beach just in front of our hotel and spent half a morning building sandcastles in the sand. Ethan particularly enjoyed the building and made an "Octopus Castle" with his favourite octopus sand mould.

The girls enjoyed it too although it took a little warming up for them to get into it.....

Fortunately grandparents are very patient people and helped the little ones to explore the beach.....

.....but the pool was the main highlight of the holiday! EVERYONE enjoyed splashing, jumping, playing and even swimming! Here is Ethan as he catches her sister in the "Crocodile Game" where she jumps into the water and into one of our arms (without her floaties). It was great to see Talia's fearlessness, Ethan's confidence in catching his sister and the sisterly trust she had in him. We were also amazed to see the fruits of Talia's swimming lessons as she paddled effortlessly around the small pool with her floats & occasional face in the water! Was nice to see her love of water & fearlessness rub off on Ethan and a little on Josie as they decided they could do it too! (well, without the face in the water bit!)

All in all, it was a great week of family bonding and catching up with family & cousins we don't often get the chance to spend time with. What a great way to celebrate Gong Gong's Birthday!

Kid's Birthdays

Ethan and Talia are now 4 and 2! This year, Ethan articulated that he wanted to celebrate his birthday with his classmates "with a cake, and then everyone will stand near me!" So we had a simple celebration in his class and he clearly enjoyed the princely treatment for the day! All his friends crowded around him to admire his cake and wish him a happy birthday.....no wonder he is looking forward to his 5th birthday already!
We decided to celebrate both their birthdays together as they are only 2 weeks apart, and share mostly the same friends at this stage. Here is the birthday Boy & Girl looking very focused on their birthday cake lovingly and freshly baked by Ah Mah (it was still warm when it came!) It's in the shape of a horseshoe so both got their own corners to blow out their own candles!

Daddy was away on Talia's actual birthday so we celebrated simply at home with some candles on birthday muffins followed by a fun-filled outing to West Coast Park. Sometimes the simple things are often the best and the kids had a great time playing with the sand and each other there. After playing out in the hot afternoon sun, they got a special ice-cream treat to cool off! Daddy happened to call us from the US while we were having ice-creams and Ethan was so excited he called him "Ice-Cream Daddy"!

Discovering Our Backyard

We've been exploring our new neighbourhood and found that One Fullerton & the Marina Bay area is a short 5 min bus ride from our home! It's a really nice place to stroll around with the kids or just sit and have a nice coffee or brunch.

We didn't think we would be living this close to such iconic symbols of Singapore!

Talia's a little more appreciative of the scenery than her brother is. He looked quite unimpressed -- until we found some amazing automatic doors in the underpass that open & close once you step into the range of its sensor...... You should have seen the glee on their faces when they realised the power they now unleashed on the auto doors! Best backyard in the World!

Little Tiger

We have a little Tiger in our lush jungle. She is small but can roar quite sweetly.

Tigers have been quite popular among our critters of late. They had a great time watching the tigers at the zoo some weeks ago and Talia 'chatted' with them by roaring cheerfully back at them! She seemed to be amazed with how big the real ones were and said "Big!" with outstreched arms to emphasize her point!

We also took Tiger Airways for our recent family trip to Phuket and the kids were thrilled to be in an airplane with a tiger on it! Now every plane they see is "Tiger Aeroplane!".......They probably think that Tiger is the best airline in the world!!!