A Walk Down the Aisle . . .

Jin's cousin, SM wanted bean to be a flower girl at her wedding..despite my sceptism that bean would walk more than 5 steps in a straight line, we decided why not (after cautioning aunty sm :)). So bean had her first flower girl "assignment" and we were off to Penang the weekend before we flew off to California.

The original plan was to have Bean hold her 2.5-yr old cousin Michael's hand but in the end, think we made a wise decision to have the best man's hand instead. I armed the best man (forgot his name but he was cute!) with the secret weapon to keep bean in check i.e. a box of sunmaid raisins and with the treats in hand, he did a pretty good job coaxing bean

down the dining aisle walk.

The only (small) slip was when halfway through, bean decided to take a 10-second squating break... guess she must have gotten tired. Never mind, Mr. Best Man managed to coax her with more raisins and viola, bean soldiered on and fulfilled her duty..what a champ! :)

with mummy b4 her big debut

daddy's girl :)

ah ma and ah kong all dressed up and looking good

lets hold hands!

eh, can share some raisins or not?

radiant bride and groom

and the party begins with say han chek

The wedding was held at the historical 19th century Cheong Fatt Tze mansion. I was amazed at how huge the mansion was and can't help but to envy how well the rich people lived in the past. High ceilings ornately decorated, huge airy courtyards and halls, tons of big rooms (each the size of a small HDB flat), retro/old style furnishings - we got a fun dose of nostalgia from this stay :)

some pix taken during lunch...



and i like this pix of bean with her grandparents at gurney drive..very serene!

Fun in the snow

This year, we managed to organised 6 families to get chip in to rent a beautiful cabin at Lake Tahoe. Jin did a great job finding the cabin and lyn helped out with the boring admin arrangements. The cabin had 2 floors with 3 bedrooms on each floor, snooker table, huge kitchen with an island (my dream is to own a home with an island kitchen!), outdoor jacuzzi hot tub and a steam room. It was just the right size to house all 12 adults and 9 kids ( 3 babies) and a little dog.

we skied, had snowball fights, took the kids sledding and here's an attempt at a poorly constructed snowman.

Tom & Jerry

Lyn and I were really excited at the thought of the two little cousins entertaining and playing with each other ..how wrong we were!

Sophie seemed to enjoy taunting her older cousin while Ryan could not stand her playing with his toys so she got pushed and smacked..like a few times a day. Days were filled with No No , stop pushing, no smacking, no biting (sophie's latest nonsense) and time outs followed by tears :p

Despite the above, I think sophie missed her kor kor lots after we left ;)

Here are the two of them at 18 months and 2 years respectively.

Gosh, I do miss home..

Don't get me wrong, I love being on holidays (who doesn't!) but this also usually means sophie sharing the bed wth us...and , here is what happens from 8.30pm onwards nightly.

830pm : pats and sing song to sleep (depending on how tired bean is, this could take 10 minutes or like tonight, 4 hours - on and off of sleep attempts)
1am : she stirrs, i wake and instinctively, starts patting her..she falls back into a sleepy slumber
4am : she wakes and I do mean wakes. sits up on the bed, starts touching her face to mine, does her mumble jumble, plays with bunny and wwf me. what is wwf? she sits on me, on my face, insists on lying on my chest, all the while, moving and wriggling non stop. from the sidelines, it's pretty funny to watch but def not if you are part of the process. I can usually hear Jin snickering in the background when my face is being sat on with a full diaper too.
6am - she finally decides that her mummy has been tortured enough and heads back to dreamland..sometimes on her own, exhausted by her own play..sometimes, with me losing patience and giving her a good scolding, where she will hurriedly, lay still and close her eyes tightly, all the while, stuffing bunny into her face (bunny gives her comfort when mummy scolds her :P)
8am - up and about and if i pretend to sleep, she puts her finger to her lips and says SHHH (loudly!) and then 2 seconds later, starts her whole wwf routine on me.

back home, this would be her sleep routine :

8pm : good night sweet bean and it's lights off and door close (no patting). she tries her luck by fake crying but after 2-5 minutes, she figures that no one was coming in so she grabs bunny, stuff her choot choot into her mouth and falls to sleep in a yoga child pose position (very entertaining watching all this from the baby monitor :)
8am : rise and shine.

BLISS! now that's why I miss home. Jin is of course less affected here..he took matters into his own hands by moving to the floor after a week of being kicked around. now he sleeps peacefully and can even tell me in the morning, " no la, she slept through the night wat"

ON the other hand, i do love the touch of her warm skin and smell of her sweet breath next to me everynight..

ok, that just might be the sleep deprived me typing nonsense,

signing out at 515am - mummy who has been awake since 330am and could not fall back to sleep

A beautiful Christmas

We are in the US with Lyn and family. This year, our annual roadtrip took us to LA, San Diego and Tahoe. We did Disney pre Christmas and loved every minute...the parade was awesome as with the whole Christmas Disney theme - santa hats on the Disney characters and beautiful Christmas lights all over.

We spent post Christmas up in Tahoe in a huge rented cabin with 5 other familes (5 couples, 11 kids!). The cabin was lovely - huge kitchen area, snooker table, hot tub in the open - i spent 2 nights outside with snow falling lightly on me while having a jacuzzi in the tub..what a good life :)

Bean and her kor kor Ryan watching snow fall outside our bedroom window

what a cute winter bean :)

sledding fun!

Family shot (jin with adopted son dylan ;)

Xmas hi tea with the ladies

The wanna-be tai tai's got dressed in the black theme and along with their bling blings and pearls, met up at the chi chi St Regis lounge for the yearly Christmas hi tea affair. Yappy and Mad could not join this year..poor mad has the bad case of MS :(

Friends in their sunday best


The hi-tea spread


My dessert

Andrea and her flip camera

I got my own tofu man -gift from ms lin

Guess who's not happy cos she could not decide which gift she wanted for xmas? :)

Oh No!

Despite my best efforts not to get bean to say the word "No", at 17 months - she caught it :p

For the record, here's what I say to her instead of the word : No.

> Don't ___ that

> Bu Ke Yi

Our girl loves music - each time the radio stops playing, she looks at it and says : More! and when it's playing her favourite tunes, she twirls, claps and moves with the rhythm :). so cute!

and finally, at 17 months, bean has enuff hair for me to do this :)