Sunday, December 31, 2006

Merry X'mas and a Happy New Year!
We have gone "missing" the past 10 days! I'm on leave this week to look after Matthew, as my parents went holidaying in New Delhi and Kashmir.

I'll update soon on what we have done for the past week. As for now...

MERRY X'MAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Well, there are 12 days for X'mas. Enjoy the holidays!
Sandy @ 12:32 AM


Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Matthew misses Papa and home
We bunked at my parents' place again last night, because of the rain. The rain was so long life, had been ongoing since last Saturday afternoon.

Matthew misses Papa, so do I.
Matthew misses his home, so do I.

Sunshine at last when we woke up this morning. No more rain, but it was "freezing cold" last night. Hopefully the weather holds and we can go home tonight. YUPPIE!

Mike darling, Matthew woke up this morning looking for you, maybe because you were there to put him to sleep last night. He woke up, sat up and said, "Papa, lai. Papa, Papa." 2 more nights....
Sandy @ 11:24 AM


Monday, December 18, 2006

A night away from home
With one of the worst thunderstorms this year, continuous rain since yesterday, it seemed quite unwise to bring Matthew home. One moment it is pouring, the next moment, it is down to just a drizzle. Then 5 minutes later, it pours again. So tonight I have decided we stay over at my mom's place. Matthew seemed reluctant at first, but after some explanation that it was raining and Papa was not here, he accepted the fact that we were not going home for the night. He was actually quite disappointed.

It did not take long after lights out for him to fall asleep. Guess he must be quite tired. :) Good night and sweet dreams!
Sandy @ 11:34 PM



We had a fun Sunday!
It was a gloomy Sunday morning. Mike and I decided to go to West Coast Park, instead of the usual Sunday market trip. It has been a long while since we last went there.

What a big difference! Now we don't need to follow him around that much. Matthew climbed around on his own and had fun.

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>> Matthew walked across on the narrow timber bridge on his own

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>> Preparing to go down the slide

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>> No no, still need Papa's help with this one

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>> Look at then and now. I had a similar post previously, comparing photos taken in Feb 06 and Oct 05.

After all the playing and the rain clouds closing in, we went to MacDonalds for breakfast. Matthew declared that he wanted hotcakes, so hotcakes he ate, with jam and corn margarine. Yum yum. We had breakfast and read newspaper and what was Matthew doing? After his hotcakes, he kept himself occupied and entertained. It was amazing. We were there for an hour, but I can't remember what he did. Hahaha!

After breakfast, we went to VivoCity. Thank goodness we decided to stay indoors, because according to the newspaper today, yesterday saw one of the worst thunderstorms of the year. We were early, reaching before 11am and it was still quite empty.

VivoCity is HUGE! Where to begin about VivoCity? One thing Matthew loved was to be able to see cable cars!

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>> Cable cars in the background

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>> here's a shot of Matthew and Mama

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>> here's a random shot of Matthew, eating rasins

We had lunch at the Kopitiam foodcourt. Matthew had his usual macaroni. Then we walked around. It was almost 2pm and we wanted to sit down at one of the many F&B outlets for a break. When we finally decided to sit down at Ben & Jerry, Matthew said he wanted to look at cable car. So we went to Haagen Dazs instead. Then he said he wanted to pee. Mike brought him to pee and he came back with Matthew asleep in his arms. heee..

We let Matthew nap on the sofa, while Mike and I shared a triple bowl of Strawberry, Summerberries cream and Cookies and cream with hot fudge and strawberry toppings. Yum yum. I must say that I've fallen in love with the Strawberry ice cream. Simply delicious!

After letting Matthew nap for almost an hour, we decided to make our way home. Luckily we did. The crowd started to come in and the sky opened up after we reached home. It was still raining quite heavily when we went to the market for dinner. Matthew had a whole bowl of kway teow for dinner.

Matthew had an early night, sleeping about 9:20pm and Mike went back to camp at about 11pm. Me? I was up, watching Man Utd lose to West Ham Utd, while sorting out some clothes and ironing my work clothes. Finally slept at 2am. Matthew, my alarm clock, decided to sleep in on this nice cool day, waking up only at 7:50am. Hahaha.

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Sandy @ 6:00 PM



Big Boy
Look at this photo. Doesn't Matthew look so big boy in this outfit?

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Sandy @ 5:16 PM



our 5th wedding anniversary
Time flies. Another year gone. Last Saturday, Mike and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary. It seems only like yesterday when we celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary with Matthew. Last year we had dinner at Crystal Jade Toa Payoh and we almost ended up at Crystal Jade at Jurong Point because Matthew loves the Shanghai La Mian.

We had dinner at The Soup Restaurant. Matthew did not seem very interested in eating, but he kept himself entertained for almost an hour, while we had dinner. He was more keen to get out of the restaurant to look at the Dancing X'mas Trees.

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>> The Dancing X'mas Trees at Jurong Point

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>> Mike and Matthew "lost" in the crowds. Matthew totally mesmerised by the dancing trees.

Happy 5th Anniversary, Darling Mike! Next year, we will have Gal Gal to join us in the celebrations. :)

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Sandy @ 5:06 PM



A Zoo Trip - Just Mama and Matthew
Yes Yes Yes. I did it! Since Mike's on reservist and I didn't wan to "waste" a wonderful Saturday morning, I decided that we shall go to the ZOO. Yes, on my own with Matthew. I know I'm heavily pregnant at 29 wks, looking very HUGE, but I DID IT! YES! heee..

I woke up early that morning to prepare Matthew's lunch. When he woke up, we changed and went to the market for chee cheong fan, Matthew's fav breakfast. Half way through his food, he suddenly remembered that there is a playground nearby and insisted that he wanted to go play on the slide. I somehow convinced him that Mama needed to go and buy bread, so we went to the bakery to get his fav oatmeal buns.

Off to the Zoo we went. Matthew recognised the polar bear on the banners hang on the street lights and remembered from his last zoo trip that there was a pond at the entrance atrium. He hurriedly made his way to the pond and pointed at the stingrays.

Then we walked on to look at the flamingoes and monkeys and then to the Polar Bear enclosure to watch the feeding session. There was this little display in front of the underwater viewing gallery that had a picture of penguins. Matthew saw the penguins and insisted that we go and see the penguins. Somehow he remembered that there was an enclosure with penguins.

After the feeding session, we went to look at the rhinos. It is one of Matthew's fav animals, because Mike would also pretend to be a rhino, carrying Matthew and "gallop" away. Then the zebras.

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>> I managed to get Matthew to stand still on a tree stump to take a photo of him with the zebras in the background.

Next to the zebras were the little Meerkats, then the big lions. Actually we only saw the lionesses. Then we crossed the road to look at the tall giraffes. We were in luck. It was feeding session at the giraffe enclosure and Matthew watched as the zookeeper Sarah fed the giraffes with carrot sticks and long beans.

YiXuan and her mummy, daddy were also at the zoo with her godparents. We met up with them at the penguin / pelican / sealion / manatee enclosure. YiXuan was having lunch and when Matthew saw the Tiger flask with porridge, he said that he wanted to eat zhou (porridge in Mandarin). Hahaha. I told him that we were going to eat macaroni at Ah Ma's house, so he said, "wo men qu Ah Ma jia chi macaroni." After looking at the penguins, we made our way out of the zoo and went to Yishun.

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>> The penguins happily swimming away.

Matthew is quite co-operative these few days without Papa at home. He would walk with me, hold my hand and cross the road. He did not ask me to carry him in the zoo, except once to look at the flamingoes, because he couldn't get a good view. He was also diaper free on this zoo trip. I was hesitant at first and wanted to diaper him, because I wasn't sure if I could manage. He has shown me again that he is totally toilet trained and is able to hold his pee if I told him to. I'm so proud of you, Matthew.

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Sandy @ 3:15 PM


Friday, December 15, 2006

Guess what was Matthew's reaction when he saw Mike after 3 days' absence? Totally excited and thrilled! He was so happy...

Mike's on 2-week reservist till next Friday. I've been taking care of him at night, instead of bunking at my parents' place. They need a break from this active boy!

So glad that Papa had his night off, though he got to book in by 2359. So happy was Matthew that he slept only at 2215, despite only a 2-hour afternoon nap. So sad was Mama when Papa got to leave so soon. :(

Mama is looking forward to Saturday. It's our 5th wedding anniversary. Earliest Mike can book out would be 1730, so we would go pick him up and have dinner somewhere... hmm.. maybe Jurong Hill? Pretty expensive. Maybe we would just settle for some restaurant at Jurong Point... It would be very very crowded.
Sandy @ 12:39 AM


Thursday, December 14, 2006

Things to do on a Sunday
1. Explore all the playgrounds in the neighbourhood
Mike brought Matthew out while I stayed at home to prepare lunch. They went exploring the few playgrounds in the neighbourhood. Here are two photos of Matthew:

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>> Cheeky smile

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>> Down the slide we go!

2. To the market for a chee cheong fan breakfast.
Not quite breakfast, more like a morning snack. He loves chee cheong fan and would mind eating it every day.

3. Eat Mommy's homecook lunch
I seldom cooked for all 3 of us these days because sometimes I simply don't know what to cook or what I want to eat (really dependent on my mood). It's so easy just to cook for Matthew; basically you can just give him white rice or plain macaroni, he would be happy.

Anyway, I felt like cooking on Sunday, so decided to cook the simplest one-meal-dish that could feed 3 of us - Claypot chicken rice, using rice cooker, with lots of Matthew's fav carrots and mushrooms. He was so excited when he saw his bowl of rice. He was actually more interested in the carrots and mushrooms when i gave him his bowl of rice. When he finally ate his 1st mouth of rice, his first remarks was "fan4 hen2 hao3 chi1" (rice is delicious in Mandarin). He made that remark spontaneously. It really made my day man!

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>> Matthew feeding himself. yum yum!

4. To the airport to see aeroplanes
Well, this was something we wanted to do for a few weekends, but never got down to doing it. Off we went, to the airport. Matthew refused to sleep at home, but 5 min in the car, he was napping. We let him sleep a while more when we reached the airport. He was excited to see all the aeroplanes big and small. T1 had a better view of the aeroplanes, so we took the skytrain from T2 to T1 and back after that.

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>> X'mas season at the airport

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Sandy @ 2:52 PM


Wednesday, December 13, 2006

A Date at Botanic Gardens
Last Saturday, Matthew met up with his little friends, Cayden, Joshua and YiXuan from the SMH Feb/Mar05 thread. It was National Day when Matthew last met them; Matthew was recovering from gastric flu at the last Pasir Ris meetup for the Mid Autumn Festival. All the toddlers have grown up quite a bit and their characters are quite different.

Joshua is the "Lao Da". He's the oldest of the gang, borned before CNY05, so that also made him the "monkey". The rest are roosters. He seems to have enormous amount of energy, ran and ran and ran all over the place, playing with balls, even chasing dogs!

Cayden is the sociable one and the youngest of the four. He got the other kids warmed up with his Vitagen bottles.

YiXuan is the lady of the gang. Grown more feminine and so sweet and demure. Hope our little gal would be like her.

Matthew? He is the most shy, reserved, hesitant, but give him a ball, he would be all over the place, kicking, throwing.

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>> all kids love balls!

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>> bubble time!

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>> oops, Matthew got his hands dirty

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>> YiXuan, Joshua and Cayden waiting for another wave of bubbles. Where was Matthew? he was answering nature's call in the bushes!

Yes, Matthew was diaper free for the whole Saturday, even when we went grocery shopping at Carrefour Suntec. Looks like we can save the diaper money. Only a piece a day for bedtime. heee..

Read Miini-World for more on our BG outing!

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Sandy @ 2:23 PM


Thursday, December 07, 2006

Fun Sunday
We decided to pop by at the Zoo for a short outing on Sunday before picking up Mike's sister and father at Yishun for his grandfather's birthday lunch.

Matthew was excited. Along the way, he kept saying in Mandarin, "I want to go to the Zoo." When we reached Mandai Road, there were banners of Inuka the Polar Bear on the lamp posts. Matthew saw them and exclaimed, "Polar Bear". There were signs of animals for a letter representing each row of parking lots in the car park, such as G - giraffe etc. As we drove through the car park, looking for a suitable lot, Matthew would exclaim the name of the animal he saw.

The zoo entrance atrium has been revamped with a pond etc. This was our 2nd time since they reopened the atrium. He remembered the stingray from our trip to Sentosa and arowana (jin1 long2 yu2) from the fish shop at the market.

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>> What are the 2 boys looking at?

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>> Stingrays and arowanas. Can you spot the arowanas?

We went straight to the Polar Bear exhibit to catch the show. We were in for a treat. Both polar bears, Sheba and Inuka, were in very good mood. Many times we were there, only Inuka was in the water. That day, Sheba was also entertaining us and waving! Inuka showed us his prowess and height, standing on his hind legs, clapping his paws, at least 4-5 times!

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After the show, we saw the rhinos, giraffes, zebras and lions. Then the rain clouds decided to open - it started to drizzle. It was also about time to leave, so we quickly made our way to the zoo entrance. Then me, the preggie me, smelling the fried chicken from KFC, decided that Mike and I should share a 2-pc meal. When we walked into KFC, Matthew declared that he wanted to eat Hotcakes! Goodness, the last time we went to MacDonald's to eat hotcake was long long time ago! Mike managed to buy an ice-cream wafer cone from Ben and Jerry. When Matthew saw the cone, he said it was ice-cream!?!? Now, where did he learn that from? We seldom eat ice-cream cone in front of him...

We went to pick up Mike's sister and father and proceeded to AMK for his grandfather's birthday party. Matthew remembered quite a few of Mike's aunts and cousins and took a wee short while to warm up. He had his lunch and was keen to play.

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>> Matthew sharing rasins with Mike's cousin and nephew

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>> Singing birthday song for Great Grandfather

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>> Enjoying the birthday cake

What a fun Sunday! Matthew almost didn't want to go home! He wanted to stay and play more.

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Sandy @ 2:46 PM


Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Diaper Free Outing
Whoppie, Yuppie!!! We decided not to diaper Matthew for our Zoo trip on Sunday and we made it through incident-free! We should do this more often. heee... Check back here for update on our Fun Sunday...

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Sandy @ 1:20 AM