~ Handicraft - Green Pig Pinata ~

After a pretty successful hit with my red and black bird pinatas, I made a green pig pinata for Andy's eldest son, Wenwei. His birthday is still 2 months away but I guess it's no harm making it early. ^_^

Instead of using acrylic paints, I decided to use crepe paper as the base this time. Took more time to make this pinata and I hope the children will have lots of fun.

Denver & Gladys - Angry birds lovers and my models.

Care to have a pinata as a birthday surprise? Leave me a message. ^_^ 

~ Denver has a blog too! ~

Just realized earlier today that Denver wrote his first blog post on his school page. (Could he be under the influence of Mommy - who is also a blogger? ^_^) He decided to write about his holiday trip to Genting Highlands. It is interesting to read and learn how he felt about the vacation from his point of view through his personal experience. Very different to how I would perceive it.

I am looking forward to reading more of his future blog posts. This could be another channel for me to discover and understand my boy a little more.

~ Exam Fever ~

It's the time of the year again where Denver dreads to see me. Why? Examinations is around the corner and during this period, Mommy will give him more homework, nag at him and check on his work. 

Comparing to his peers, Denver does not have other tuition apart from Chinese. Mommy is his tutor for the rest of the subjects including Chinese. This gets tougher and tougher for me each year as the scope of his studies expand in context across various subjects.

I'm pondering if I can still coach Denver when he is in Primary 3 next year. He has been careless and listless in his work lately. Hopefully I can spend more quality time with our boy and guide him back on track.

~ Handicraft - Angry Bird Pinatas ~

In celebration of Gladys' 5th birthday, I decided to make a pinata since we will be inviting friends to the chalet. There will be a lot of children and it will be a fun activity for all to play.

The idea came only 2 days before heading to the chalet and time is very limited! After googling online on how to make a pinata, I starting working through the nights...

Materials
• Balloon
• Newspaper (shredded into strips 1-2 inches long)
• Flour and Water (this will be used to make paper mache glue)
• Glue
• Scissors
• Acrylic Paint / Crepe Paper
• String

Instructions

1) Blow up your balloon to the size that you wanted. (You can choose a big or small balloon depending on your design/needs).

2) Place your balloon in a bowl so that it will not move around as you are sticking the paper on it.

3) Prepare lots of newspaper strips (about 1-2 inches long)

4) In another bowl/container, mix 1 part of flour and 2 parts of water together to make the paper mache glue.

5) Dip the newspaper strips one at a time into the glue mixture.

6) Use your fingers or the side of the bowl to remove the excess glue mixture off from the newspaper.

7) Apply the newspaper strip to the balloon.

8) Cover the balloon with one layer of newspaper, leaving a hole on the end uncovered. Let the balloon dry for a few hours or overnight, and then add another layer of paper mache.

9) Repeat this process until you have covered the balloon with at least three layers of paper.

*Note: Since this is my first attempt to make a pinata, I wasn't sure how many layers of paper to put. The more layers you add, the harder the pinata and it will be difficult for the children to smash it later on. As an experiment, I made one with 3 layers and the other with 4 layers.

10) Pop the balloon when the paper mache has dry up. Poke 2 holes at the top of the pinata. Run a string through the holes later on so that the pinata can be hang.

11) Decorate your Pinata! Basically you can decorate it with crepe paper by gluing strips of colourful crepe paper around the pinata.

I decided to make an Angry bird theme pinata and hence I did a rough sketch and painted my pinata with acrylic paints. Acrylic paints is recommended as it dries up faster and gives it a shiny, glossy look compared to the normal pastel paints.



I cut out the shapes for the eyesbrows, eyes, beak and tail from a paper and painted it. Then, they are glued to the pinata to give it a finishing touch.

Instead of one, I made 2 Angry bird pinatas following the same procedures.

Since it was meant to be a surprise, I stayed up after the children have slept to work on this project. After two sleepless nights of hard work, the Angry Bird Pinatas are born! It was my first attempt  making a pinata and I think I did a pretty good job! ^_^ With that, you can put the candies and stuffings into the pinatas and bring it to the party!

~ Goodie Bags Sourcing ~

It's that time of the year.... Preparation of goodie bags for our little girl to give to her classmates in school. Unlike the previous years where Hubby and I spent more time buying miscellaneous items and  packing everything together. It's always a struggle to think of what to buy and put them in the bags (especially the type of snacks and sweets). This year, we decided to try and find pre-packed goodie bags for the first time.

There are a couple of goodie bags selection available on the website with various price range that parents can choose from. We picked one set (comes in blue or pink) and ordered the amount required online. Hubby picked up the items directly to avoid delivery charges and everything is done swiftly without much hassle.

Pre-packed Goodie Bag from http://bagagoodie.com/

We spent about $47 for the 30 packs and they are packed nicely. Although the actual size is smaller than what I have expected (as seen on the webpage), The package looks nice and cute. I guess the downside is the children didn't get to pack the goodie bags themselves but that really saves a lot of time from our end. :)

~ Romantic Mid-Autumn Night Light ~

Mid-Autumn Festival is just two days away. During this period, we will see parents and children carry assorted lanterns of various designs and have a walk downstairs. We also have some battery-operated lanterns and Mommy decided to use them to decorate the kiddos' room as their night lights. You can also use the lanterns to decorate the house or corridor to bring out the festive season mood.

It definitely looked much prettier with the flashing lights and the children had fun playing before dozing off to dreamland.

Enjoy this festive season with your family and have fun lantern-carrying and sampling delicious mooncakes.

HAPPY MID-AUTUMN FESTIVAL 2011 to Everyone!

~ 童话 - By Denver & Gladys ~

Somehow Denver & Gladys love this song (童话 sang by 光良) very much. Whenever we are in the car, they will request Daddy to play the song in the CD. So much so that Gladys started to pick up the lyrics and sing along with her brother. :)

I took a video of them singing and Gladys covered her ears as she doesn't want to be disturbed by Denver.  ^_^ Cute!

~ Hubby's New Bicycle ~

Hubby finally bought his bicycle from MR. BIKES at Changi Village. In addition, we also purchased a trunk rack which can transport 3 bicycles (up to 40kg). Now all of us got our own bikes and we can go cycling together! Looking forward to going to the parks for more cycling trips. :)

~ Paint A Smurf @ NorthPoint ~

Thanks to Andy, our family had the opportunity to join in the Paint A Smurf contest at NorthPoint. Upon entering, Denver and Gladys were given a smurf figurine and a paint set each. They'll get to paint and design their own smurf. :)

Daddy and Mommy helped them to hold the smurf, mix the colours and paint those difficult corners/edges while the kiddos paint. We have 30 minutes to complete painting our little smurfs and the top 5 smurfs who got the most cheer will win a prize.

Time is short but we managed to complete it. :) Denver named his smurf as "Messy" while Gladys likes her smurf as "Pretty".

 Now it's time for the verdict. Which smurf will get the most cheer?

Gladys has been a good sport as she cheered for all the other smurfs loudly. For her great cheerleading effort and big-heart, her Pretty Smurf wins a Prize! ^_^ Denver also helped us won 4 tickets to watch The Smurfs movie!

Each family gets to bring home a goodie bag consisting of a box of Oreo cookies, a complete set of Smurf magnets and a Smurf boardgame! We are really grateful and enjoyed the time together at the event.

~ Birthday celebration at Crystal Jade Korean BBQ ~

We love to eat and it is great and thoughtful of Hubby to celebrate my birthday with my 2 lovely children at Crystal Jade Korean BBQ! It is our first visit to the restaurant at Nex Mall and I love the food!

It has a good variety of raw meat, vegetables as well as cooked noodles, rice and food. On top of that, each of us was served with a free bowl of delicious chicken soup. Hubby and I had our tummies filled with lots and lots of beef but totally forgotten to wrap it with the vegetable and eat it in the Korean style. The children had ice-cream for desserts and it has been an enjoyable dinner together.

~ Bicycle Accessories ~

With Gladys joining in our cycling party, we started to buy some accessories like lights, bottle holder, blinkers for our bicycles. Soon, we'll be able to go for night cycling and maybe even venture into other parks. :)

~ Takashimaya Mid-Autumn Festival 2011 ~

Mid-Autumn Festival is approaching and we can see beautiful lanterns and yummy mooncakes on sale in the neighbourhood stalls as well as shopping malls. Every year, Takashimaya will host a Mid-Autumn festival at Basement 2 (Takashimaya Square) where we indulge ourselves in all kinds and flavours of mooncakes. From durian, ice-cream, yam, champagne to the traditional red/white lotus with egg yolk.

Apart from the sea of mooncakes, we also saw used toothpicks and spoons lying all over the ground. That is quite a lot of littering! While sampling, we should do our little part to throw the toothpicks in the containers or dustbin.
 
There are so many options to choose from and just sampling through every stall not only makes our tummy full, it also makes us thirsty! :) Eventually, we managed to buy 2 boxes of mooncakes without going back empty-handed.

~ Gladys - Creative Play & Learn Performance ~

Gladys has been joining the Creative Play & Learn class with the community centre for about 6 months now. She stopped her drawing lessons and had 2 performances to date. Every Saturday, she will pack her bag and look forward to meeting her teacher and friends in class.

Our princess always have loads of fun and is a very active and vocal girl. She has a pretty strong character and does not seems to display any signs of stage fright - which might be good for her to do stage acts.

1st Performance - 28 May 2011

2nd Performance - 20 Aug 2011

She is continuing her new lesson next week and there will be more performances to showcase. ^_^

~ Denver - Dance and MontherTongue Performance ~

Outdated post: Denver had some performances in school a couple of months ago which I only find time to upload them today. :p

Our boy has been practising at home and the students and teachers have put in a lot of time and effort for the performances. Justin Bieber's song has been such a hit that the students sang along as they danced. At home, Denver and Gladys can also hum/sing a couple of his songs like "Baby" and "Never say Never". Time for me to catch up and get in sync with them in order to stay connected. :)

Dance Performance - 27 May 2011

Due to work matters, I didn't catch Denver's second performance but luckily Daddy was able to attend and gave him his support.

Mother Tongue (In Tune) - 12 July 2011

The audience had a good time and we are looking forward to seeing more performances. :)

~ 中元节 2011 ~

Time flies very fast. Almost every year we attend the auction dinner to mark the end of the lunar 7th month. The children always enjoy their free flow of orange juice and food. While waiting, they hooked on to Daddy's and Mommy's phone to past time. In between breaks, Gladys will walk to the front and watch the Teochew opera before joining us back at the table.

So many unusual things have happened during the Ghost festival. Gladys started pee-ing on her bed again for 2 consecutive weeks. I suffered from a swollen foot not knowing how I could have injured myself in the first place and Denver had a fall last week which injured his knee. With the end of the Ghost festival, I am hoping and praying that things will get better in the house. 

~ Denver - A Bruised Knee ~

Early this morning, I received a phone call from Denver's school teacher that he has suffered a fall during P.E lesson. Denver spoke to me and I can feel that he was in pain and on the verge of tears. Nevertheless, he says that he can walk (limping) and continues to stay in school.

When I got back home, it was a pretty big bruise on his knee. Daddy cleaned and applied medicine on his wound as he groaned in pain. (Well, our boy doesn't has a very high resistance to pain.) It will take some time for the wound to heal and Denver is off from swimming lesson and cycling for the next couple of days (at least). :(

~ Drawings - My First Canvas Painting ~

Two months ago, I took Denver to participate in an art lesson held by Naive Art. While waiting, I drew a sketch and paint with the materials provided. Wasn't really able to complete it during that 2 hours period but I managed to finish it at home. This picture is currently pinned in the children's room for all to enjoy. HAHAHA! ^_^  

~ Gladys Cycling Lesson - Part 4 ~

After about than 2 months of weekly practising, Gladys is getting better and steadier with her cycling now. This morning she was able to conquer the curvy track. :) Although she had a slight fall after making a sharp turn, I believe she should be ready to cycle in the park next time joining her brother and the other cyclists and runners. :)

~ Lunar Birthday Dinner ~

It's the Lunar 7th month and it's also my lunar birthday month. Hubby remembered my lunar birthday and it's so sweet of him to take me out for dinner on this little special day.

We went to Jack's Place (without the kiddos) and had a simple and quiet dinner together. Thanks to Dear Hubby who has been so supportive during this period and brighten my heart.

~ My First Acupunture Experience ~

After living for 30 over years... this was the first time I went for an acupunture treatment. Reason: 1 week old swollen left foot. A total of 9 needles being applied and how does it feel like? Being biten by ants (my arch-enemy).

The needles stayed in my foot for about 20-30 minutes before they were being removed. I must say it did gave me some relief and I will be going back for another treatment this weekend. Can't wait to get well soon and say good bye to my pig trotter. :(