Thursday, April 30, 2009

Sunday, April 26, 2009

More Sophie: 25th April 2009

On a relatively-leisurely Saturday morning, we headed to our local hawker with S in tow for breakfast.

Big-eyed mouse and small-eyed mummy.

Daddy and Mouse have the same facial expression!

Side view of her sweet little smile. Its so hard to capture this shy-sweet-act-cute-and-melt-your-heart look!

Tsk Daddy, bad angle - I look like I have a fat face!

Re-take.. OK, improved, pass.

I WANT (insert random adult-foodstuff item)!! In this case, the object of desire was Daddy's Kopi-C.

#1 Versus #2

Compare and Contrast question.. Haha..

Similarities:
1. Little nausea / morning sickness. For both gals I did not throw up even once. Thank God for this blessing man!
2. HUGE stomach. From 30 weeks onwards everybody thought I was almost ready to pop cos my tummy is so big!
3. Lack of stretch marks.. Funny but I do not have a single stretch mark on my tummy for both pregnancies. Especially surprising for Z as I have had rashes on my tummy a few times and did not apply the stretch mark oil when the rashes outbreak was active.
4. Good health in general throughout pregnancy and checkups. Blood pressure, urine checks, etc are all good so far.. not much water retention with S till about 36-37 weeks, now at 35 weeks with Z, I have no serious water retention yet either.
5. No cravings!! Really.. Good life my hubby has hor.
6. Similar size of baby - Z is now estimated at 2.2kg during my 33 week checkup, which is bang on track just like S.
7. Hot Hot Hot!! I have been so hot both times. I think I am hotter this time around but maybe because the weather is hotter as well?? I almost miss the feeling of being COLD.. haha..

Differences:
1. Z is a much STRONGER baby than S. When she moves, she moves so vigorously that its literally painful.. ugh. S was a super fast-moving but not as brute-strength.
2. Lower position.. S was really high in my womb all the time, can always feel her at the top half of my belly. Z on the other hand always moves around in the lower half of the stomach.
3. Skin problems.. ugh.. I have really bad eczema and rashes with Z which I did not have with S. Unfortunately my dermatologist says it cannot be cured during pregnancy as its due to hormonal changes.. furthermore the medicine is steroid so I am not allowed to take it now.. =( sigh I can only hope that it clears up completely after I give birth.
4. Cramps & false labour signs.. I've never had much Braxton-Hicks with S, only very sporadically towards the EDD (>38 weeks along). For Z, I have had the BH cramps every few days but only 2-3 times per day, could feel them since 2nd trimester. Hopefully it means my body is readying itself for natural birth (but not too early ok baby, mummy wants to have you in June not in May!)
5. Leg cramps & backache - Only once with S but almost every night with Z. Did not have much backache with S but its really bad with Z. Hard to get comfy in any position I am in now.. ugh..
6. Insomnia - With S I slept like a log every night!! Now, with Z, I am in a vicious cycle because I wake up in the middle of the night all of a sudden and cannot get back to sleep for the next 2 hours -- makes me super tired in the day and cannot focus on my work -- need to bring work home -- but I am too tired and crash into bed by 10pm -- happens everyday. =(
7. Weight gain - With S I put on 18kg from start to finish, lost 13kg after that, now with Z I have gained 10kg so far. Hmm, if you do the maths, during the pregnancy I gained much less, but because of the higher "starting weight", I will probably end up about the same weight at term.

5 more weeks to meeting baby Zoe!! Whee!

Saturday, April 25, 2009

027: Lil Miss Sophie Sunshine

Still destructing my Aug SL kit.. I've managed to use up another PP, some ribbon, buttons and some of the stickers. Lots more to go.. =P

Lil Miss Sophie Sunshine is utterly cute and all she has to do to turn on the sunshine is give us her trademark scrunched-nose grin. =) Loves!!

Close ups of the not-so-detailed details:

Papers: American Crafts-Moda Bella Tailored (SL Aug Kit), Cosmo Cricket-Jack's World Wake Up, Sassafrass Lass-Vintage Yummy Anthem (cut-out circles), K&Company's Wild Raspberry die-cut mat pad, Hambly's Screenprints Mod Circles in yelllow. Alphas: Making Memories tiny alphas (lil miss), Doodlebug Just My Type red (sophie), American Crafts Thickers - ChitChat white (sunshine), Giftbox green (photo mat). Embellishments: SL Aug Kit - Chatterbox Happy Day Dimensional Stickers, twogirlsshop@etsy for the blue label, deep blue ribbon, buttons. Others - WRMK gromlet (you are my sunshine), random green ribbon, AC Playhouse dragonflies, random blue arrow.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Thursdays

Thursday has got to be one of my favourite days of the week this year.

On Thursdays, I have the luxury of being lesson-free all day long (well, at least, on those weeks I don't have to do makeup lessons).

Better still, those people I like to hang out with have the same kind of timetable as me, so I have kakis for a nice long leisurely breakfast / lunch / tea.

And it is certainly a welcome break after the hectic pace of Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday (they are the kind of days that whiz past so fast you can't even catch your breath).

And so, it is Thursday again, my favourite day of the week. =)

Must be careful not to slack TOO MUCH though, else I will not be able to catch up on the backlog of work from Mon-Tue-Wed. =P

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

flat-out, dead-tired, flopffffffffffffff.

i'm amazingly tired this pregnancy, much more so than with Sophie.

in bed by 10!! argh..
back pain, leg pain, backside pain.

=(

Monday, April 20, 2009

Food

Reading and hearing about all the interesting food that my friends' kids have, I feel like trying out some of them for Sophie.. her diet is mostly rice, porridge, bread.

Maybe I shall.. during the maternity leave for Zoe.

Too many things to do now!! =(

Saturday, April 18, 2009

026: Stuf'd wiv Puffz

Made a conscious effort to keep out of the red/orange colour range which have been dominating my LOs since the beginning of this year.

Simple LO with not much layering / cutting / techniques. If I've tried too much of these, guarantee I won't be able to finish within the 2 hours I took yesterday. lol.

Title spelling due to the lack of letters in the AC thickers set haha. Puffz are her Gerber's graduate puffs which she'll enthusiastically feed herself in all the flavours we've given her so far. Creates a huge mess but is also oh-so-cute. Loves!!


Most items from SL August 2008 kit. I'm forcing myself to finish off kits one by one, and I am about half done with this kit. The papers are seriously challenging my creativity though!!

Papers yet to use: 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 7th and 8th. Argh!! Help!! I need inspiration for these papers! Esp #2 and #8!!

Materials:
Papers: SL Aug kit - green background pp and yellow flourish cutout from SL Aug kit; pink photo mat from DCWV Amy Butler photo mat pad; yellow tulips pp from SL Jul kit; circle cutout from Sassafrass Lass Vintage Yummy collection.
Alphas: AC Thickers Daiquiri in white foam, Giftbox in green chipboard; sticker letters for "11mo" from Love Elsie.
Embellishments: AC Thickers Vera Accents in yellow vinyl & Chatterbox Happy Day dimensional stickers from SL Aug kit; Hambly's Vintage Frames overlay in white.

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Dreaming..

- to be a full time scrapper creating lovely works of art
- making wedding invites, giftboxes, party favours (wahaha)
- opening a scrapbook store from home

yeah.. as if.. get real.. =P

shall just wait for my maternity leave and hopefully achieve 20% of #1 above.

Wednesday, April 08, 2009

Amazing Ability of mine.

I marvel at my own ability to shut up and swallow the crap.
And pretend nothing is wrong the next time.

Saturday, April 04, 2009

025: I Live for Moments Like These


"There will be 2 challenges for the month of APRIL. For the first challenge of April, I have decided to keep thing simple. On your layout, we would like to see some CUTTING !!! ie: Cut out the flowers on that beautiful pattern paper plus, we would like you to use the following as part of your layout -scalloped edge paper -buttons -photo corners Dateline : 15th April 2009"

Yes.. Keep things simple is good for people like me who have zero inspiration whatsoever!!

I don't think I have ever done so much cutting for an LO before.. hurhur.

Papers: MME Confetti (orange), Tinkering Ink Botanical Bliss (brown flower patterns), Sassafrass Lass Life Is Beautiful - Vintage Yummy Memory Lane for the circles, random flocked paper from Spotlight for the red flourishes, DCWV Urban Rhapsody die-cut mat pad, Hambly's transparency - small graph, SEI Poppy-Sarong and black flower-edged cutouts paper from SL's July 2008 kit.
Alphas: AC Thickers - Sprinkles vinyl, pasted on purple cardstock from DCWV and cut out around the alphas. Other than that, everything else on label writer tape.
Embellishments: Very few!! Hurhur. One of my most "economical" LO so far.. Flowers from Prima & Kaiser Craft, brad from Kaiser craft, Buttons from random shop in AMK, photo corners from a RAK from Tiffany. I am actually not very big on photo corners so I was kind of scratching my head on the last requirement for MR#6. Luckily Tiffany passed me the glitter die cuts last week and they are put to good use here.

I like this photo alot because its somehow very rare to find nice photos of Sophie and me together. Either I look weird or she looks blur (as in, motion blur). In fact this is one of the only few photos together with her that I like. Taken during CNY 2009, explains the very reddish colour tone.

Wednesday, April 01, 2009

Stash

In scrapbooking terms, "stash" is used to refer to the amount of SB stuff that are accumulated in the house.. like papers, embellishments, ribbons, stamps, etc.

I must admit, when I first started SB, I never thought I would accumulate quite so much of "stash". But I pale in comparison.. to both my SB kakis.. and my own daughter.

Presenting.. Sophie's Stash..


of diapers.. wipes.. and milk powder!!













OK lah, must be fair to the jiejie. Half the diapers and wipes picture over there are actually for the Meimei..

Two Months

is too short, and is not nearly long enough, to greet the cow.