The Upside of Life

Agapeland Graduation 2008 concert

2008-11-17T00:08:00.000-08:00

Last Friday was the graduation concert at Zach's current childcare centre, Agapeland. This is the third and final year he will be involved cos come beginning of 2009 we will be changing him to a new childcare centre, Cambridge. Agapeland will be closing in end 2009 but since Zach was going to be in K1 next year, Flem and myself thought it would be better for him to start in a new school when he starts K1 so that there is a better follow through all the way from K1 to K2. So even though it was not Zach's graduation concert, it still felt kinda different from the previous years, hmmm strangely, we felt sad after the event was over. I know Zach really like his present teachers and friends and will miss them all. Thankfully, one of his classmates Reagan will be going to his new school too and that kinda helped when I told him of the switch we needed to do next year. El who has been attending Agapeland once a week (every Tues when I attend my course) for the past few months have also grown attached to the teachers there. El had been sticky to me since he was a baby and would cry all the way whenever I left him in anyone else's care . Since he started going to Agapeland in July this year, he did the same and it took a while for him to adapt and though he still cries when I drop him off in the morning, the teachers tell me that now, he is fine throughout the day. If Agapeland was not going to close, I was also intending to put El in there eventually.

Anyway, in the midst of my search of a new school for Zach 1 to 2 months back, I decided to try Elliot out in a Kindergarten next year and thankfully, I managed to get El a place in Ascension Kindergarten which I had heard is a pretty good school. I was surpprised to learn that there are long queues for positions in many kindergartens and parents register very early in the year. Tomorrow is Elliot's orientation and he will be meeting his teachers and classmates for the first time and I just pray that he will enjoy it and tells me he wants to go school next year after the orientation tomorrow. His new kindergarten has a wooden train structure right in front of the office and he loves sitting on it and pretending to drive and at the moment he's kinda sold on that ;)

Sling-a-babe

2008-11-02T11:54:00.000-08:00

Was looking through some of our collection of photos and can't resist sharing these ones of me babywearing Elliot. Those were the days! I started off with the ring sling which I found extremely useful when breastfeeding El or when he wanted to nap. Subsequently moved on to the baby pouch when he was bigger which was wonderful for shopping trips and doing household chores. In fact I love the baby pouch so much that I ended up making them myself. Made one for Flem to use too and started a little home business selling to friends who were interested. Personally believe in the benefits of babywearing (read more here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_sling ) despite many concerns such as spoiling baby etc.. Even El wanted to sling-a-babe himself ;)

Eloquent Elliot turned 2!

2008-11-01T01:01:00.000-07:00

Actually El turned 2 in August, so its about 2 months back but I had been so busy that I had no chance to blog this. My little one is growing up so fast. I describe El as Eloquent here cos I am amazed at how well he can speak (at least in my eyes) at a mere age of 2. I am not saying he is a genius but I call him a pretty diligent speaker cos he would attempt to copy what we say and he tries to speak in proper sentences. In fact, he recently spelled "FIRETRUCK" for me cos he picked that up from one of the Barney episodes and it really helps that he has a elder brother to learn from through play and communication. Looking back, I still remember El's first few months when he never wanted me to put him down and would cry the minute I did. Think most of my friends remembered how I was always with a sling with El tucked inside whenever they saw me. So many people had advised me that I would be spoiling him if I gave in and carried him all the time, so believe me I tried so often to put him down, of course most times ending up with a very upset El and mummy too! After a while, you could say El won the battle and El just had the time of his life sleeping and nursing in my sling all day. And the best thing is I think I enjoyed slinging him around cos it actually was a lot easier caring for him that way and I could do housework, go shopping and work at my laptop without having to worry about a fussing baby. I just decided that every baby is different and have their own needs and I can't adapt one style of care to all babies. I say this cos my elder son Zachariah is totally different from El. Zach was perfectly fine without me carrying him and could sit a whole day in his pram when we were out and was also happy playing in his playpen when I put him in there. Heehee, so much so that Zach earned himself the nickname "Pram Boy" when he was younger and think the pram was my best investment when Zach was born ;) So you can imagine my initial frustrations when I had El. Anyway, now that El is 2, he is happily running around exploring anything he could get his hands on. Glad to share that there really was no need to worry about spoiling him with all the carrying ;) Every child is different and El is one of those babies who love being held :) And for his 2nd birthday, he specifically asked for a "Cars" cake, so here's one of our very own creation ;)

Happy Teacher's Day

2008-09-03T21:03:00.000-07:00

Zach and I decided to make a cake for his teachers in Agapeland for Teacher's Day. After much discussion, we finally decided on a garden theme since all his teachers are ladies. We had the cake in a flower shape and we decorated it with flowers, a butterfly and a bird and of course M&Ms. Think this is the biggest and heaviest cake I have made so far at more than 3kg I believe and it was enough to feed the whole childcare centre :) Glad Zach's teachers liked it and of course which child could resist a chocolate cake with M&Ms, haha. Looking forward to making my next cake already ;)And Zach got flower lollys for his teachers too :) But sadly though, this is probably the last Teacher's Day celebration Zach will be having at Agapeland cos the centre will be closing end 2009 and we are in the midst of looking for a new school for Zach to switch by beginning next year as he will be starting K1 then. We have been looking around at some schools and praying for God's wisdom to tell us where to place Zach so that he will be happy!

Today's Parents Father & Child Portraits Contest

2008-06-22T02:35:00.000-07:00

Flem and Zach had been selected as one of the 6 finalists for the Today's Parents Cover Father and Child Contest. They have been featured in the latest June 2008 issue of Today's Parents. Zach had lot of fun doing a photo spread for the magazine as part of the contest. Both father and son were photographed for the shoot by the pool at Fairmont Hotel and Zach even got to make new friends with the other contestants. Here's a pic of the photo spread in the mag.

Happy Father's Day!

2008-06-22T01:54:00.000-07:00

Wanted to get Daddy something from the boys and myself this year. For the past few years, Daddy's gift had been specially arranged pictures of precious moments shared by the boys and himself and thought we should do something different this year. So we decided to make him a cake. The boys were too young to bake but they had lots of fun decorating it with the colourful M&Ms. And since Zach could write his alphabets already, I got him to write the card for Flem. Here's a pic of Flem and the boys on Father's Day morning with the Shirt and Tie cake and it even came in a shirt box ;) Our second homemade celebration cake for this year. And the best reward for us was - Daddy said its the yummiest chocolate cake he ever tasted! We love you My Daddy!

It's Dress Up Time

2008-04-20T22:26:00.000-07:00

The boys love dressing up in different costumes and posing for the camera too!

Here's one of Zach in a pirate costume to attend his classmate's birthday party. We didnt want to spend money buying one so this is all homemade. Daddy helped drew the skull on the bandana, I cut out the pic of a skull and sewed it on one of Zach's shirts, made him an eye patch and completed it with one of mummy's red sash around his waist and voila, our little pirate is made!

Pirate of Bishan I	Pirate of Bishan II
Blue's Clues	Baby Zach Zach's litle brother
Our very own "Phua Chu Kang"	The Crocodile and ...
...the Parrot!	"SuperZach!"
The Fireman!

Zach Turns 4!

2008-04-20T20:29:00.000-07:00

It's been a long while since we had a chance to blog and my how time flies! Zach just turned 4 this month and Elliot is 20 months old :) Just being around the 2 boys and seeing how they have grown has given us so much joy and made us feel all the time and effort spent is well worth it ( of course there are also times they could really drive us up the wall and get us cracking as to what we should do with them, haha...)!

Anyway thought we would start catching up on our blog with Zach's recent birthday celebration. Lately, both the boys have just been crazy about cars. They would both point out to the cars they see on the road and Zach has also learnt the different brands and makes of the various cars he is seeing on the road. El is able to identify and name the different type of vehicles such as buses, cranes, cars, etc and his favorite being the "blue taxi" (haha).

So for Zach's birthday, he got him "car" cakes. We had a family celebration at home where I (mummy) had the opportunity to make him a homemade birthday cake. Since his current fave is chocolate, I made him a very chocolatey cake and bought some new toy cars which I used as decoration for the cake (and borrowed some road signs from his toy collection). Was pretty nervous initially how the cake would turn out but thank God, my family liked the cake and so did Zach of course! And this time we have a new addition in our family to join us for the celebration, Zach's cute 6 month old cousin Isabella who looks just like a doll. We had another celebration for Zach in school where we bought the birthday cake from Prima Deli (the one in the shape of the number 4) and we bought him more of his favorite cars and placed them on his cake as a surprise for him. Here's some photos of Zach's celebrations!

Elliot Locked In The Car

2007-10-18T08:39:00.000-07:00

Yesterday morning started out just like every other morning. I fed the boys breakfast and then dressed them to get them ready to send Zach to school. Was out of the house by 9.15am as needed to get Zach to school by 9.30 for his Chinese Speech and Drama class. On the way to the car, Zach puked and dirtied his clothes, shoes and the stroller. Though this was not the first time something like this had happenned, I still dreaded it. Got to the car and managed to change Zach and cleared up the mess with El still in the sling cos he wanted to be carried. Phew, finally on way to school but knew we were going to be late. Decided not to get stressed up and will just let Zach miss his class if need to. By time we got to school, class was over but was glad that we made it to school anyways. Got Zach settled in school and then rushed to head back home for Elliot to take his morning nap.

Usually, I would turn the car engine on before putting El in his car seat but this morning, as El was struggling to get out of the sling, I decided to put him in his car seat first. So did just that and then proceeded to take the driver seat. "Oh no" I could not open the door on the driver side. Only then did I realise that El had my car keys and he had just locked himself in the car by pressing the "lock" button on the key. At that moment, I really panicked and wondered how I could have been so silly as to have allowed him to play with the car keys and not taken it back from him. I looked at my baby sitting in his car seat smiling at me and I really didn't know what to do then. My mobile phone was in the car. El was still holding on to the car key and I tried talking and gesturing to him to press the "unlock" button on the key. Initially his finger was still over the "unlock" button but it moved over to the "lock" button and somehow instead of unlocking the door, he ended up closing the side mirrors of the car instead by double pressing on the "lock" button. I thought of going back to Zach's school to make a call to Flem but didn't dare to leave Elliot alone. Finally saw 2 men and waved for help. One of them tried to help by waving his car keys at El, hoping for El to press the button but instead El dropped the key he was holding and wanted to get the guys keys instead. We spent the next few minutes trying to get El to pick up the car key which he had dropped onto the car seat just next to his right leg. Poor El was just staring at us and smiling at us, probably thinking we were entertaining him. He is after all only a 14 month old baby.

All I could do at that moment was to pray that nothing will happen to El and that he would somehow pick up the key and unlock the door. More of the church staff came over to my car when they saw what was happening and tried to help. One of Zach's classmate, Raphaelle's father, Charlie, saw me and also came over to help. He even brought down his daughter's car seat from the car to try to demonstrate to El to pick up the car key from his seat. After many fruitless attempts and El also started to fuss and cry with all this commotion, we decided we needed to get a locksmith. Thankfully Charlie knew a locksmith whom he had used before and managed to get the guy to come over to help asap.

I felt so helpless and it started to drizzle. All I could do was to keep talking to El, played peek-a-boo with him hoping to distract him and also sang to him, making all kinds of funny animal sounds which he loves. Thankfully the locksmith came in less than 10 minutes and unlocked the door almost immediately. I was so relieved when I opened the door and just cuddled my crying baby.

I thank God that El was not hurt in the whole process and it is a real miracle that El did not even try to climb out of his car seat all this time. Believe me, El has always wriggled himself out of the car seat the minute I am out of my seat and it's just amazing how he did not even try that this time. I thank God for His protection upon Elliot. Thank you Jesus for not letting any harm come upon my baby.

Friends of the Zoo

2007-08-13T19:49:00.000-07:00

We made our first family trip to the zoo with the 2 boys last Friday. And yah, we have become Friends of the Zoo. Looks like its going to be one of our regular haunt for the next year ( since paid already might as well max it out right!) Zach loved the animal show and of course, the tram ride which he never ceased to remind us about. El just loved all the activity going on around him and haha looking up and down and everywhere as we excitedly pointed out the animals to him.

Happy Birthday Singapore!

2007-08-13T12:29:00.001-07:00

Elliot Turns One!

2007-08-13T11:38:00.000-07:00

How time flies. Our little Baby Elliot turned One on 6 August. We had a celebration at home with my family and since Elmo is El's current hot fave (Zach too actually), Elmo was also invited to the birthday party. Can you see Elmo posing next to El and of course we did not forget the Elmo birthday cake. And check out what he's got from Uncle Andrew and Auntie Anna for his birthday!

Nebulizer

2007-06-21T01:24:00.000-07:00

It's a cool word, Nebulizer. For the uninitiated, it is "a device used to administer medication to people in forms of a liquid mist to the airways. " Well, my wife just bought it today for our youngest son. He's been having stuffy nose for the past few days and the doctor recommended buying than renting the nebulizer. But it's $250! Why can't we buy from the internet? Why? Why?
Anyway, one of the interns just figured out how to load a power point to a browser without having the browser's prompt to open/save the file. Go to Start > Program > Windows Explorer > Tools > Option then look out for .ppt file and uncheck prompt for download.

Our family in the Sony HD Handycam advertisement

2007-05-18T03:35:00.001-07:00

I have just managed to convert the DVD given by the agency to a format that can be uploaded to YouTube. Guess what, it's actually as simple as changing the .vob extension to .mpeg. That's all! Ain't it simple?

We had a fun time doing the ad at the Botanic Garden. The kids were enjoying themselves and we did not really have to act that much. Here's our video for those who haven't seen it yet.

The Upside of Life

2007-05-15T20:38:00.000-07:00

This is the inaugural posting for my blog.

Basically I will be talking about anything that has happened under the sun. My family, my work which is also my ministry, my ups and ups. :)

By the way, do you like the Spidey picture I put here? From the brilliant strokes of Alex Ross, my favourite comic artist.

Let me end this first ever posting with a quote:

"Contentment is not the fulfillment of what you want, but the realization of how much you already have"