May-hem

May is another month that is chock-full of birthdays for my family, especially in the few days before and after Mother’s Day. Both my own mum and my mother-in-law’s birthdays fall within a few days of Mother’s day, so we were kinda eating non-stop for the entire 2nd week of May! Surprisingly, both mums decided they’d like Japanese food too!

Humongous serve of fresh sashimi! (I’m sorry, fish!!)

Happy birthday to Grandma!

My only surviving grandparent, my 公公 (paternal grandfather) turned 89 years old on 5 May, along with 2 of my cousins and an Aunt, so the entire extended family got together for a mega gathering ie: eating again, this time at a hotel buffet. I’m really thankful he’s still so alert and relatively healthy at his age and it was so nice to meet all my cousins again. This is the grandpa who used to take me to and from kindergarten more than 30 years ago. I have lots to reminisce about him and I shall put that in another post!

Next up, LittlerLam’s friend– well, we think they are friends– just turned 2 and we held a little party at our place for her. We bought her a medley of mini Angry bird cakes…the only problem was that she has no idea what they are! Which is probably a good thing. Unfortunately we couldn’t find a dancing gummy bear cake heh

Don’t know what my older offspring is trying to do to her sister’s hair! Love that the birthday girl is trying so intently to blow the candle!

“Is it my birthday too?”

Birthday Months

It seems like there are many, many people born in the months of March and April. And as my friend remarked one day on Facebook, “I wonder what was happening in June?”

The girls have also been invited to a slew of birthday parties in these 2 months, and it’s been fun for them and rather tiring for me! Kids birthday parties are getting more and more elaborate and/or expensive, I feel quite bad that I totally had such a small simple 1st birthday for LittlerLam last year. And I did tell LittleLam that I’ve had it planning elaborate themed parties for her past 5 birthdays, so this year I’m just going to keep it simple. Or so I say. I think when the time comes I am likely to conjure up something again.

So anyhow, LittleLam got invited to a birthday party at Amazonia, which claims to be the largest indoor playground in Singapore. As I rarely allow her to go to indoor playgrounds (hotbed of diseases, I tell u!), she was soooo excited about the party that she’d keep taking the invite card and staring at the pictures and telling me, “Mummy, I wish the party was today!” weeks before the party. When the day finally arrived, I must say I was a little let down by the size cos I really thought it was going to be spectacular (see, power of marketing). But the giant slide was definitely a hit and even adults could enjoy a ride down quite easily. It’s a little scary for the younger kids, but I think the above-4yo kids were fine.

The big slide and the “amazon-like” theme

The actual celebration was held in one of the party rooms, and the staff handled everything, from food to photography to games. There were even special disco lights in the room!

In the next birthday party we attended, it was a 1-yr-old boy’s Dinosaur themed party which was the total opposite of the Amazonia one. Doing it commercially requires very little leg- (& arm & mind)- work, but a lot of money. Doing a party at home requires less money, but a lot more effort, time and planning! So it was with the Dino party where the whole extended family helped the Mom to cook, bake and decorate. The whole party was so well thought through, from ideas for food, playareas for the kids and babies and even baby food provided! And the best thing, the boy’s grandmother even sewed a bunch of dinosaur tails as doorgifts for the kids! Here are the girls playing with the tails, and check out the cute Dino homemade cake:

Hello 2012!

So this is my first blogpost for 2012!

The past 2 days of 2012 have been extremely hectic, yet blessed with the fellowship of many good friends, new and old.

On New Year’s day I met up with my ‘blog friends’ (I really did get to know some of them via livejournal!) and chilled out over great food and conversation. And a little movie watching thrown in because Starhub was giving all subscribers free access to all its cable channels just till today. I think that was a very nice gesture (even though most would consider it a clever marketing tactic).

Today the partying continued, with my Cg meeting at my place for a time of reflection, thanksgiving, food (again) and er, mayhem. The tea party started at 3pm and somehow became a dinner party and the kids played so much they cried when it was time to go home at 9pm! And this is a day before the first day of the new school year!

So though I am exhausted, I am thankful. Which is also hopefully going to be the theme of this blog for this year. A friend of mine told me about The Happiness Project, a book by Gretchen Rubin and I was inspired to start my own little project for this year. I’ve decided to start small and work on something that is not too ambitious, but largely good for my soul and spirit.

I’ve decided to embark on a ‘Thankfulness Project’, where I shall endeavor to look for the silver lining in every situation, and make a concrete effort to blog about things I am thankful for each week. ‘Thankful Thursdays’ will be my aim do hold me accountable to this if you can! Drop me a comment if I somehow stop posting!

Good Company at Blu Jaz

Despite being a SAHM for 5 years now, I’m very lucky to have friend in high hip places who still keep in contact with me and don’t find me too fuddy-duddy to ask out This week was a very nice surprise because it was an unexpected gathering of old pals (dating back 20+ years!!) at another one of our old pal’s music gig at Blu Jaz Cafe.

My Lychee Martini at Blu Jaz

Now an established jazz musician, Chok Kerong used to play piano with me on drums in our church Youth Band when we were teenagers. I’m so honoured that I once had the chance to play with such an amazing talent. Even at that tender age, he was already filling in the gaps with unbelievably complicated but beautiful jazz riffs – which, unfortunately was not really appreciated by everyone, simply because it was too brilliant, I believe And I think jazz is not something that is for the masses. Not everyone knows how to appreciate jazz. I think it was he who introduced me to Sonny Rollins and I attribute my meagre collection of jazz CDs in the 1990s to him and a few other friends. Ah, the good old days of irritating my family with high pitched squeals of the saxophone and the more pleasing sounds of Dave Brubeck. Heh.

Well, enough reminiscing! Here are the pictures of Kerong (who still looks exactly the same to me!) and the band who performed with him for his CD Launch performance 10 November. He has got some really great songs on his CD, entitled Good Company! and I can’t believe I forgot to buy one and get it autographed! Cos I was too busy being Cinderella and rushing home by 11pm because Littlelam was refusing to sleep and waiting up for me! Sigh. I actually had a baseline in one of his songs stuck in my head for the whole night! haha!

Blur picture of the virtuoso in action (sorry, ipod pics not so good!)

Clearer picture of Kerong and Soh Wen-Ming on drums. I felt rather wistful about my long-gone drumming days watching him.

Greg Lyons on saxophones. (Incidentally, Jeremy Monterio's head is to the right of the picture.)

September Babies

Seems like a lot of people are born in September. Well, at least those who are 5 years old this year! Littlelam was invited to three parties over the past 3 weeks and each of them was different and extremely fun in their own ways.

First up during the September school holidays was her classmate, R’s birthday. Littlelam has never attended a boy’s birthday party in all her 5 years, so this was a first! R’s parents rented a bouncy castle / ball pit and also a small rock slide for the kids…and there were really a lot of them because he invited the whole class. Littlelam had heaps of fun – and even LittlerLam got in on the action.

An egg race, chalk drawing on the sidewalk,bouncy caste and ball pit and Princess tattoos for the girls!

The following week, we caught up with our old playgroup friends. We hadn’t seen LX and her growing family for more than a year! Now she has 3 younger sisters! That day was really an amazing gathering of girls. We were all joking that between the 5 of us mothers, we have single-handedly saved the dwindling population of Singapore! Well, almost Between 5 of us mothers, there were a total of 15 children in that one 4-room flat!! And, 14 of them are GIRLS! Only one baby boy. Heh. Even with 4 kids, LX’s mother was amazing enough to actually MAKE her own Princess cake using a Barbie Doll. Everyone was absolutely enamoured!

The girls got to play dress up and admire the beautiful 3D Princess Cake!

The third party was also for one of the other girls in our old playgroup. P had a Ballerina Princess themed party which had all the little girls again turning up in PINK! Though it was not a dress code, everyone somehow rose to the occasion. Another supermum, this mother of 3 kids (and no domestic help!) COOKED all the food for the party and had a craft corner for the girls to make tiaras, also a Dress the Princess game and even a Princess Pinata that she made herself. Er, the pinata like the one I made 2 years ago was also er, unbreakable, until the Daddy came in to help poke some holes! But it was great fun for the girls!

Ultra-pink mayhem - the girls all in pink, playing pass the parcel, smashing the pinata (sort of) and admiring the Aurora (Sleeping Beauty) cake!

The next party…will be mine!

Toy Story 4: Littlelam’s Round-up!

So Littlelam turned 4 last week, but not without a ‘last hurrah’ party I planned for her at a holiday bungalow. Figured I’d give her a great bash before her baby sister comes along, so I happily slogged it out getting the party theme, cake, games and stuff despite the fact that I was already 35 weeks pregnant!

Littlelam’s been enamoured by Toy Story, even though she didn’t last 20mins into Toy Story 3 (which I actually won’t recommend to young kids cos of the more ‘mature’, emotional themes and scary bits). As I mentioned in my previous post, she is particularly crazy over the Cowboy toys ie: Woody, Jessie and Bulls-eye, with Jessie being her favourite cos she’s a girl. So with this very complicated theme in mind, I had to trawl the web for ideas while adapting them to my very low budget and lack of supplies in Singapore. To reduce the need for me to yell and do active ‘crowd control’ (and to save my aching back), I enlisted the help of a friend who earned much admiration from the little boys (& parents) but scared the babies with his too-good impersonation of a Cowboy aka Gamemaster!

Shan’t go on anymore except that I’m really thankful for all the help I received from my in-laws and hubby – they cooked the food and brought it all the way to the chalet! Here are some of the pictures of the day:

According to theme, I drew and made two cardboard ‘Bulls-eye’s for the Horse Race. Basically it is a relay race with 2 teams, just pretending to ride the horse on a stick. In this case, it was a cardboard face attached on cardboard rolls (less dangerous for the kids who were all below 6 yrs old).

Bulls-eye Horse Race

Next up, we played ‘Pin the face on Mr Potato Head’, which is a simple variant of ‘Pin the Tail on the Donkey’. For large groups of kids, you can have them line up and hold a eye or ear each while you blindfold them, so you have less chaos and everyone’s occupied for a longer time!

'Picasso' version of Mr Potato Head!

Best version of Mr Potato Head - only the moustache out of place!

We also had pass-the-parcel, with forfeits, not prizes at each opening, but that kinda failed a little cos the kids either refused to do the forfeits, or burst into tears. Oops, my bad! Over-estimated the kids! No photos of this game. Thankfully, the bringing out of the lovely Toy Story 3 cake after lunch brought out all the smiles and eager faces again.

The super detailed Toy Story 3 cake. Obviously I DIDN'T bake it!

All the little ones trying their best to keep their hands from the cake!

The final game we played after chomping on the delicious chocolate cake was ‘Gold Nugget Hunt’. Got the Gamemaster to hide Hershey’s Gold Nugget chocolates out in the garden, and we got the kids to hunt for the Nuggets. Judging from the squeals and happy faces, I’m guessing they enjoyed themselves!

Dashing off (with their cowboy hats as the baskets) to find the last 2 'gold nuggets'!

Taking stock: Counting how many gold nuggets had been found so far!

Littlelam opening her presents...and being very pleased with her new Jessie doll!

 I’m glad I didn’t go into labour during the party. Don’t think I’ll ever do a party on such a large scale again while pregnant! But now it’s counting down to D-day for me… if I don’t update for a long time after this, you know what happened! haha!

We don’t know anything about Cowboys here

Littlelam turns 4 next week and we’re having a big party for her…kinda like a last hurrah before she becomes a big sister. Little did I expect her to choose such a difficult theme for her party! Since she (sorta) watched Toy Story 3 in the movies, and then later watched Toy Story 2 on Disney Channel, she’s been totally crazy over anything Toy Story, in particular the characters Woody, Jessie and Bulls-Eye. Thankfully, we have not needed to buy ANY new Toy Story 3 toys in the stores because if you remember, the 1st Toy Story installment came out in 1997. Littlelam’s Daddy and I had just started dating at the time, and Toy Story was one of the movies that we first watched in a GROUP DATE (we were already old enough to drink alcohol legally, mind you). Anyway, the thing is that the both of us somehow managed to amass a large collection of free Toy Story toys that were given out at fast food joints during the time, and even through to the Toy Story 2 season.

BUT, this post isn’t supposed to be about the embarrasing secrets of my past, but rather how ridiculously HARD it is to find anything Cowboy-themed for parties in Singapore! Ok, if I was willing to spend more $, maybe, but there’s really hardly any novelty stuff to find here. So I searched heaps of party shops, went online etc.. and did not find a viable, affordable, practical option, until I went to my trusty, favourite $2 shop store DIASO. There I found cowboy hats, bandanas and toy guns (which I didn’t buy cos I thought it might a bit too violent for a little girl’s party).

Cowboy hat and Bandana I finally found

Instead of the guns, I decided to make Sheriff Badges for each of the kids. The party’s not till next week, so I haven’t written the names on it yet, but basically the kids will get to dress up in the hat and bandana, and write their own name on the Sheriff Star. Sometimes I really think kids’ parties are as much for the parents as the kids! I sure am having fun thinking of Cowboy games and props … I know, I’m nuts but I actually like doing nonsense like that now that I’m totally done with my real official adult work.

So for any of you moms in Singapore or in other Asian countries that have a diurge of country Western party stuff, I’ll be sharing what I did for the party in my next post. For now, here are the pictures and steps to make your very own SHERIFF BADGE:

Materials
- Cardboard
- Cutter/ Scissors / Ruler
- Permanent marker pen
- Yellow / Gold acrylic paint
- Paintbrushes
- Gold Glitter glue (preferably in a small tube)
- Safety pins
- Sticky tape

STEP 1) Draw either a 6-sided or 5-sided star on a piece of cardboard. This will be your ‘prototype’ star.

Step 2) Using your prototype, trace out your full required number of stars. Cut out.

Step 3) Mix a batch of yellow and gold acrylic paint. I found the two colours combined to have the nicest effect. Yellow alone is too ‘cartoony bright’, while gold alone is a little too dark. Paint all the stars. Make sure you do it on newspaper because acrylic paint is permanent. Make sure kids are watched as they paint.

Kids can help to paint the stars themselves

STEP 4) Leave the painted stars to dry for at least 1 day.

Don't worry about getting the painting perfect; I find the 'raw' & scratched effect suits a worn-down look of a seasoned Sheriff's badge

Step 5) Use a permanent black marker and write the word “Sheriff” on the upper half of each star. This is so you can leave a space for the child’s name to be written at the party itself.

Oops, picture already shows the gold dots, but you get what I mean

Step 6) Using your tube of gold glitter glue, dot each point of the star, as close to the tip as possible. Just a small glob of glue will do, don’t over-squeeze. Kids would also love to be involved at this point.

Littlelam concentrating hard on squeezing out the glitter glue!

Step 7) Make sure the gold glitter globs are completely dry; then attach a safety pin to the back of your cardboard star using some sticky-tape. And there you have it!

For additional security, if you have time and if you rather pre-write the names of the kids coming to the party, then you can laminate the stars using the soft-type laminating paper.

Enjoy!

My Professional Flowergirl

This is the 2nd time round that Littlelam was tasked to be a flowergirl at a friend’s wedding. The first time was last year when she was a few weeks away from turning 3, but she was already a very confident ‘performer’ who was unfazed by the crowd, or by the fact that she ran out of petals to throw! Apparently the guests were so amused that she realised there were no more flower petals in the basket, and calmly stooped down, gathered up a bunch that she’d just thrown, and continued the walk down the aisle!

This year, she had to deal with a few more unconventional antics (which the bride and groom are known for anyway), such as carrying a Teddy Bear nearly bigger than her in one hand, and holding a bunch of balloons in the other while walking down the aisle! I think she found it fun, but it was quite hilarious for us because the bear was nearly blocking her view. But she still managed to navigate past the maze of photographers crouching in front of her (why do they have to stand so close, I wonder? Isn’t there a zoom function?) and ignore the screams of the little Page Boy behind her. Poor boy walked with the Bridesmaid for about 1/2 of the way and then promptly prostrated himself on the floor and refused to get up! But that’s all part of the fun of involving unpredictable kids in your wedding, and I think everyone was amused. In all, this was truly the most unconventional, fun, crazy and wacky weddings I’ve ever attending. Loved it!

Getting acquainted with Goldie

The balloons she had to hold

The big walk!

Balloon-filled Sanctuary!

Very Belated Easter Post – Resurrection Eggs again!

My apologies I’ve been slacking off posting the past 2 weeks because a lot of stuff has been happening at home and the pace has been relentless. Illness has befallen Littlelam’s Daddy and he’s to be quarantined till next week, so I’ve been up to my ears managing work, home and trying not to fall ill myself!

Thus this very belated Easter Post. We actually held a small (ok, not so small when you count the number of kids) Easter Party at my place over the Easter weekend. Making use of plastic eggs (didn’t want the choc eggs to smash or get attacked by ants) and Resurrection Eggs, I hid them in the living room and also along the common HDB corridor for the kids to find. I had the participation and help of my neighbour and her 2yo girl – so we created a nice outdoor seating/eating area for the kids along our HDB corridor too. Which reduced the food mess tremendously.

Unfortunately, I do not have any pictures of the 8 kids that came and the chaos that ensued, namely because I was running the show and didn’t have time to whip out the camera! So I’ll just have to share the craft pictures only.

After we had the Easter Egg Hunt, I got all the kids to sit down while I explained the Easter Story through the use of Resurrection Eggs. I actually got a hold of these actual commercially-made ones through my good friend Wini who lives in the US – poor girl actually lugged it all the way back for me. Last year, I didn’t have these actual ones, so I improvised and made my own 2-D ones, which I blogged about here. Anyways, I managed to get the kids to participate through the telling of the story by asking for the colour-coded eggs in sequence, so all of them got a chance to open and pass me an egg.

After the egg-illustration, I added another important component to the programme. Explaining why Jesus had to die on the cross. The 3+ yos all listened very attentively and understood, but I’m not so sure about the younger ones! But this is a relatively simple illustration to use:

We are separated from God because of sin. Though we try our very best, through good works, religion, being nice, it still doesn't cut it cos we can't be 100% holy.

That's why Jesus had to die on the cross to break the power of sin and death! He is the only perfect sacrifice so he died in our place on the cross. Now, we can have a personal relationship with God himself!

After the illustration, we had our lunch and then a wonderful craft of making their very own Easter Egg basket (or bag), crafted up by our very talented friend P. Unfortunately she couldn’t join us because her two girls were down with the flu! (Check out her site of amazing crafts)

We used the bag to store the mini chocolate eggs that I gave out as doorgifts instead!

Bouncy castle party

I spent my recent Hari Raya holiday chauffering Littlelam to a very ‘happening’ 3yo’s birthday party. The girl’s parents somehow managed to rent a giant Thomas the Tank Engine bouncy castle that could actually fit into the living room of their 5-room flat! Needless to say, it was a big hit with the kids!

It was supposed to be a blue-themed party and the girl’s mom (who is an absolute supermom) made ALL the decorations, party hats and kids food, and she also has another 7-month-old baby and NO domestic helper! Anyway we all had a blast! Here are some of the pics:

The Bouncy Castle

 

Kids having fun

The Train-shaped Donut Cake

The temporary hand-made kids seating area