My Firefox is working again!!

.. hops around happily!!

Counting down, 8 weeks and 4 days to the next holidays. Argh!! I can't believe there is SO LONG MORE to go!!

Mini Album: Wedding Shots (MR#4)

A long long time ago,

two years to be exact,

we took these photos for our wedding.

Not having them made into an album,

we chose instead to frame the 10 best shots and display them on easels at church and dinner.

That all seems like its so far distant (like, 2 babies ago, hurhur)

but has come to recent memory upon trying out for MR#4 challenge:

to do a mini-album using a scrapbook kit.

I used Scarlet Lime December kit for this..

and ran out of papers and embellishments halfway

even though it was only 11 pages long!

And I was lazy to think of any journaling..
So the text inside the album is simply the wedding vows
split over 11 pages:

With this ring
I wed you
It is a token
Of the vow
I have made to you
With it I will myself
And all my worldly goods
Endowed to you
In the sight of God the Father
God the Son
God the Holy Spirit.


Cover Page:

Back of cover page / left of first interior spread:
Right of first interior spread:
Left of 2nd interior spread:
Right:

Left of 3rd interior spread:
Right:

Left of 4th interior spread:
Right:

Left of 5th interior spread:
Right:

Left of 6th interior spread:
Right:

Left of 7th interior spread:
Right:

Left of 8th interior spread:
Right:

Left of 9th interior spread:
Right:

Left of 10th interior spread:
Right:

Left of 11th interior spread:
Right / interior of back cover page:

Additional items used other than SL Dec Kit:
Alphas - AC Thickers Playroom (red felt) and Daiquiri (white foam)
Papers - DCWV Garden Party Stack (right of 8th spread), some random long-ago bought textured black paper from Presence at Coronation - it is so nice I should go back and get more some day (right of 10th spread and left of 11th spread)
Embellishments - Hambly Studios Urban Chic Frames white, Maya Road chipboard keychain man + woman, heart doily paper, embroidery thread in blue, Teresa Collins Crush journalling cards, beads on a string (dun know what to call this!), Prima flowers Swaney collection Bonnet Blooms, Kaiser Scrapbook rhinestones Cherish, "xi" stamp from Kodomo Designs, 1 Cor 13 vellum verse, Jenni Bowlin Bingo Cards XOXO, Heidi Swapp Clear Extras, buttons from Autumn Leaves MOD Techno Pop Bag-o-buttons.

Now, all I have left to do is bind it.. argh.. I need a Zutter!!
Else, I may really resort to the ultimate unglam..
bringing my album to the photocopy shop and asking the aunty to bind
with those hideous plastic ring binders
(shudder)

Baby Zoe's Wish List

As of tomorrow, I will be 31 weeks with Baby Zoe. She is different from her Jiejie.. Less of a fast mover but oh boy, just as strong with her kicks and punches!

Seeing that 31 weeks means about 6-9 weeks to go (God, let it be 9 weeks or more, please!!), I thought I should start putting up Z's wishlist for anyone who wants to bless her..

- No need clothes (Jiejie has more than enough to hand-me-down to her)
- No need milk bottles, sterilizer, breast pump etc - all these paraphernalia are still usable from Sophie's time
- No need stroller, baby carrier, car seat - She can use Jiejie's "leftovers" too.
- No need toys, cot mobile, cot bedding sets, etc.. refer to above.
- No need NB size diapers (Kiasu mummy here has probably bought enough from bulk purchases to wrap her little bum in for as long as she can wear them) - Bigger sized diapers are most welcome though!

Hm, what would we need then??
- NTUC vouchers - Mainly to buy the "consumables" items like milk powder, teats, wipes, diapers, cereal etc.
- Baby wipes - Sophie does not have a "Golden backside"and she has not gotten any diaper rash no matter what brand of wipes we have used on her, hopefully Zoe will be the same! Economical choices include Carrefour house brand tub wipes (200 pieces for $3.80 on promo), Sweetcheeks packet wipes (buy 1 get 1 free promo at NTUC for $3.95).
- Diapers (as mentioned above, no need NB size diapers, but S, M and L sizes are most welcome. After all, our place is a diaper cum milk powder cum wipes storehouse already - will take pics soon, wait for it LOL - it won't hurt to have a few more packs! Again, Miss Non-Golden-Backside jiejie wears Huggies Dry (blue packaging- about 18-20 cents a piece on promo price), Pampers Baby Dry (pink packaging - about 23 cents a piece on promo price).

So unexciting and boring hor?? Sigh, but that's the reality of having a 2nd child..

Calculativeness

Can't believe the calculativeness of people.. or is it just irresponsibility?

Purposely not answering calls or smses till it is way too late to do anything about it.. apologizing after that is just empty words!! because its obviously a SIAM technique isn't it? And the same thing will happen the next time.. and the next time.. and the next time again, ad infinitum.

And if I ask for a little bit more contribution (eg. staying later), will think of ways to wriggle out of it.. hello, we all have to take turns doing the sai kang right??

Maybe I should learn to do that too.. because when I am just too nice/responsible/FAST at answering to matters, I end up doing everything myself.

Grrrrrrrrrrr!

This holiday, I have spent -

Time: Sleeping, scrapping, marking (ugh!) Where did all the time fly, darn, in 12 hours it'll be back to school!!

Money: Lots and lots - Sophie's injections, bi-monthly pill supply from the gynae, a visit to the dermatologist for my horrid skin, Sophie's milk powder, Sophie's diapers, Sophie's baby wipes, rebonding hair, (almost) Sophie's adult-sized bed. That's definitely more than $500, have we bought Sophie's bed, it would probably reach $1000 =(

Mental energy: All sorts of ridiculous things. Sigh.

I need the holidays to be longer..

Holes in my Head - And at the randomest times, the holes get patched..

I remembered!

Wanted to blog about Sophie's visit to Doctor Tiffany.

She is now 9.2kg, bang on the 50th percentile for her age. Height, we are not sure because its so hard to measure this mouse! She doesn't even sleep straight but rolls all over the place in weird contortions.

She had taken the jabs against pneumococcus and chicken pox. And she was so brave through it all. Gave one single short wail for pneumococcus jab and a few short ones for chicken pox which is more painful. And she was right as rain in less than 5 minutes.

I love my mouse!!

Holes in my Head

I think of things that I want to do, and then a minute later I forget them.

Like, I was thinking I wanted to blog, but by the time I opened my dashboard, I'd forgotten what I wanted to blog about.

=(

Happy with her Balloons

Not My Problem..

.. but still end up I'm solving it.. urgh.

Sophie's 1st birthday party

The catering setup and Happy Birthday banner behind

We held S's birthday party on 8th of March, Sunday. It was a sweltering hot day and the food, the people and the birthday cake were all literally melting in the heat.

G with Gabriel.. Matching T-shirts for big G and small G!

Most of the decor were done by myself.. door gift cards, personalized kids goodie bags, Happy Birthday signs for her cupcakes, powerpoint presentation for her first year, and put up my scraps about her on the walls around.

The door gift cards.. Sotong me realised I didn't take any picture of the front cover.. only of the inside.. argh! Must rectify that..

Cupcakes!! Woo!! From Cupcake Momma.. They were a real hit! Easy because no need to cut a big cake, and soooo pretty too.

Blowing the candle with the birthday girl.. who is interested only in grabbing for the flame.. argh

Actually I had also hoped to do a few other things.. such as a mini album just for her, cupcake holders for guests to bring back the cupcakes, the Happy Birthday banner for the wall, a pinata for the kids to play with.. but.. too ambitious liao la. Maybe next time.. =P

With Debbie and James!

An exhausted Anders fell asleep once his mummy placed him in the bumbo seat.. daddy Alex is laughing at him from behind

Our guests begin arriving at 12plus and the fun started.. the house was chaos and mess with running, yelling kids and lots of noise.. I guess we had better get used to these "kiddy" parties. Fortunately I had set up a room with art and craft materials (spare scrap stuff) for the kids to play, and it kept them fairly occupied and out from under people's feet with minimal effort hehe. A great thing were the helium balloons sent by Roger and Lynn.. the kids are really fascinated with them! So many of the kids requested to take home the balloons, much to the consternation of their parents.. haha..

Displaying the pink dress and blue ribbon and pink balloon fascination.

I love my balloon!

Sophie was stuffed into a new dress for the day, which had a ribbon she kept on pulling off.. argh.. its a very pretty dress though and very matching to the theme of the day (ie. PINK). She was pretty excited about all the guests and activity, fortunately she didn't throw any tantrums but just refused to take her afternoon nap, argh. Spent the day buzzing around the art and craft room and the living room. I think with too many people present, she did not pay attention to destroying her presents till after everyone has left, haha. Else everyone will see what a destructo-mouse she is!

Destructo-mouse deciding which bag of stuff to rip open first!

The mountain of presents she received was like, 2-3 times of her size? Ambitious miss mouse wanted to climb over all of them at once.. erps! And when we packed them up, like all the books into 1 bag, she was intently helping me to un-pack the stuff from the bag.. argh!

All mine! Yeah! Even though the boxes and bags are bigger than I am!

Slurp..

.. Oilily's balloon landscape diaper bag..

To Die For

I've recently been engrossed by die-cut machine, specifically the Quickutz Revo which I have borrowed twice from Vivian. First round to produce the Christmas gifts for my section, and second round to produce the door gifts for Sophie's first birthday party. Pros are, its really so easy to use and much more economical than buying many copies of the same stickers / letter etc, because I can just use the pattern paper, cardstock and other materials that I already have to cut out stuff.

So, I am tempted to get a die cut machine of my own.. but..

1. initial investment is expensive.. the machine itself will cost more than $100 even if i get 2nd hand
2. the dies are expensive!! can be more expensive than the machine itself for an alpha set for example.. really got to make sure i use many many times of the same alpha in order to make it worth it.. but without the dies, the machine itself is worthless.
3. i think i will end up buying all sort of different dies for the different alphas, shapes etc.

Oh sigh.. I should lead myself from temptation.. =(.. unless i get a really big fat performance bonus this year (2 days time!!)..

Transition to N3: FAIL..

Sophie was supposed to go over to Nursery 3 for the first time on Sat, since she is more than 1 year old. We brought her over, but it was much more chaotic and noisy that N2 since the kids are more mobile and there are much more children around (it serves a wider age range). So, she spent the whole time playing and not wanting to sleep / eat.. FAIL.. we had to bring her back into N2 where it is quieter and more peaceful.
Managed to get her eat in N2 but still refused to sleep (too excited liao).. End up with an extremely cranky mouse at night.. Urgh!

One Year

.. without a good nights' sleep..
.. without peace and quiet from wails and whines..
.. without being able to fit back into my old clothes (well this the fault of BOTH DD)..
.. of laughter, frustrations, uncertainties..
.. I would not trade for the world..

Happy 1st Birthday Sophie!!

Roar on Command

Sophie can now roar-on-command.. hehe..

it began when i bought her a new book and there was a lion inside.. and we pointed to the lion telling her that "Lions can roar!" - and our friend promptly opened her mouth and roared in reply!! We were so surprised.. and asked her, "Sophie, roar!" - and she roared in reply!!

Hee..

By the way she can also kiss on demand, cuddle on demand.. but she kisses and cuddles the weirdest things like my big toe, my mosquito bite scabs (ugh!) and (sometimes, after much coaxing), my tummy where mei-mei is.

Should get G to take a few shots of the last.. it is so super sweet when she does that..

First Steps

Wobbly Jelly Mouse!

Sucks, Major Big Time Sucks

.. it all sucks..

Sophie Overload: Last Weekend in N2

Sophie turns 1 year old on Friday and hence her last weekend in Nursery 2. Babies of 1 year old and above go to Nursery 3 where its larger, more kids and more toys for them to play, more space to toddle around.

Pictures taken at N2 on Saturday: