I'll be back!

dear friends

yes, I know, I'm really behind in my blog. work was crazy the last month, and this week, my life has been consumed with spending time with my girls, spending time with my sis, helping out for En's school concert, and tomorrow, we head to Club Med Cherating in Malaysia for a 5 day 4 night holiday with Linda and Angela's families! So life has been busy! and blogging is really low on my to-do list. But you can imagine that there're lots of blogs that will eventually be published, once I get the chance to breathe, hopefully after Club Med.

Pls pray for safe travels for our families (it's about a 7 hour drive up), and a good time of fellowship and family time. This will be our first holiday as a family, without any help! how exciting! The borrowed car's all packed and we're ready to go!

Love, Rachel

En is 4.5 years!

En is 4 and a half today! Because it was a week night and we were all tired (too close to bedtime), it was a very small scale celebration at my aunt's place, minus papa, who hadn't come home yet.

It didn't help, of course, that En had been naughty and was scolded by my sister which meant that she was a very unhappy camper when we were singing the birthday song. Things were made worse when her sisters blew out her birthday candles for her because she refused to blow them out initially.

alas! it took quite a while before we finally all calmed down.

Happy 4.5 year birthday, Jie Jie En!

East Coast Beach

this evening, we brought the girls to the beach at East Coast Park. Since En stopped her roller blading lessons, we haven't been going there quite as much.

I really like the ECP beach in the evening. The heat is not so oppressive, and you can almost always find a spot to sit and let the kids play in the sand. I like people watching, and I can get a lot of that done here! And the view out to the sea is just pretty!

After the man staked out a spot for us, the girls got busy and got to work with their sand toys.

sand play is great cos they don't really need us to get involved, apart from helping them to fetch water from time to time.

but otherwise, the girls are able to coexist fairly peaceably and independently, and so I got the chance to read my newspapers on my picnic mat.

the man and his dad also got to have some father-son bonding time.

this is my idea of a relaxing time at the beach!

The Meg & Mog Show

Today, we brought the girls to watch the Meg & Mog Show. Meg & Mog is a series of kids books I think, but we've never read any of them.

this is what the flyer for the show had said.

Oh Meg and her messy magic! Another one of Meg’s spells has gone terribly wrong! Instead of breakfast, she’s magicked up a Steggy Stegosaurus who’s as hungry as can be. When Steggy starts gobbling up her garden, Meg, Mog and Owl set off on an adventure to find the ingredients for a spell to rid them of the invading Stegosaurus. Join them on their spellbinding adventure as they visit a medieval castle, an exotic zoo and the moon. There are lively songs and plenty of audience participation that’s sure to keep you tickled. Halloween Special:Come dressed up and go trick-or-treating in the theatre with Meg and Mog after the show! We promise lots of magical fun with games and treats for everyone. Perfect for the Halloween weekend!

so I mistakenly thought that there would be trick or treating at every show, so we dressed the girls up and gave each of them their Easter pails, that Steph Watson had given them before they left Evanston, and came to the Marine Parade Community Library theatrette for this production. I thought En would have wanted to be a princess, as usual, but surprisingly, she remembered that she wanted to be Dorothy for halloween this year, and insisted on wearing the outfit that Rose had bought her last year. For Wen & Min, we had easy costumes of ballerina tutus over their dresses, which was perfect.

Oh! the many uses of this lovely easter basket! It can be a hat! And in this instance, we also placed it on the seat and let the girls sit on it and prop themselves higher. just the perfect size and sturdy enough to do that!

the show was fairly entertaining. Good props, funny actors, songs and dances. But it was a little too long and mature for my girls I think.

the girls were most looking forward to trick or treating after the show. I think that's what kept them in their seats. But to our disappointment, that will only be for the show next weekend, when it's actually Halloween. We had to deal with some very upset little girls in the taxi ride home!

But aren't the Soon sisters just so cute in their outfits and Easter baskets?

Spruce

Spruce is our family's brunch venue of choice on the weekends.

You know what we're like. We find a place we like and stay quite loyal to it!

Today, we had breakfast here with Linda's family. Here's Wen hugging Joel. Still looks like David & Goliath!

we were too busy eating I forgot to take pictures of the food.

so all you'll ever see of my pictures at Spruce is the playground!

Police!

I had airport duty early this morning and had to be in my uniform. When I came home, the girls were all awake, and this was their first time seeing me in my uniform! This ensemble looks a little better when I'm wearing shoes, but since we don't wear shoes at home, you'll just have to imagine me with shoes!

I've been working for about 6 weeks now, and on the whole, I find it more restful to be at work than looking after 3 kids at home. I am only half joking when I tell people that I go to work to rest. People who've never tried being a stay home mum have no idea how much energy it takes and how much work it can be! At work, I have a lot of time to myself, and I get to go shopping during my lunch hour sometimes. It's really quite nice. At the same time, the last two weeks were a bit crazy and instead of working my three 7-hour days, I wound up working every single weekday for 2 weeks, and even bits of my weekend. This upcoming week is another long week because of another big event. Thank God for my parents, my in-laws and my extended family who have been so supportive of my going back to work and just helping with the girls in various ways so that I can work in peace, knowing that my girls are in good hands! still, I'm glad that I am only working part time, because neither I nor the girls are ready for me to be working full time yet. This is a nice, best of both worlds situation!

Babysitters in school!

Today, I had to go to my sister's school to borrow the family car and I had brought Wen along with me. I was at the foyer of the school, and one of my sister's colleagues, who is a PE teacher, was there. Wen was doing her usual Miss Congenality thing and going around saying hi to all and sundry and being absolutely charming. Then she noticed that some kids were playing soccer at the courts and she exclaimed, "ball! ball!" and ran over to watch. She loves playing with balls! Well, Mr PE teacher thought her quite cute and did 2 things. 1) He took a ball from the boys and let Wen play with it. 2) He sent another student off to the PE store room to get another ball for Wen!

the kids and Mr PE teacher then proceeded to spend the next half an hour playing with Wen at the foyer of the school! It was quite a sight, my little Wen madly chasing two balls around the place, dripping sweat, squealing in joy each time she caught a ball or threw one! She had a veritable audience around her! Suffice to say she had a ball! (Pun fully intended!)

Wen is already quite a familiar sight in this school, and many of the kids know her as Miss Yeo's niece. She's a minor celebrity there! and as always, lots of students wanting to take pictures of Wen on their phones!

Even the principal designate, who happened to pass by, could come up to Wen and say, "This is Wen right?" and then proceed to carry her! Check out my kid's unbridled joy as she plays in these videos!

Let me SMS with my blackberry!

one of the reasons why we love to eat at Pasta de Waraku is that they give out the coolest toys for the kids! Our Deepavali trip there yielded a fake "Blackberry" phone for each of the girl. Actually, it's a toy filled with water and you need to push the buttons to move some counters around. But it's such a good imitation of the Blackberry that the girls had great fun pretending to use it.

Here's En deep in concentration as she thinks about who/what she is going to SMS! Seriously, that's what she said. "I am going to use my blackberry to send a SMS!"

then she earnestly started pounding away at the keys the same way her papa does!

meantime, little Wen was holding the phone to her ear and making pretend phone calls, "Mama! Ye ye! Hello?"

Wen's first drawing

yesterday, Wen was searching through my kitchen drawers, something she enjoys doing, when she found her sisters' art bibs, which she promptly pulled out and asked me to help her put it on.

then she headed to the craft table, where I got out a large piece of paper and some crayons for her, and she began drawing away!

it was a mixture of dots created by pounding crayons down on the paper, and swirls.

some art work with a pencil too!

and voila! Wen's first picture! her own handiwork!