Stuff

Here is some stuff we have been up to.

We got a great Valentine's Day package from my mom and dad. In it was this outfit. This is the first time I put tights on someone other than myself. It's a bit tricky. Oh, and don't you love Elyse's pose. Look at that "attitude."


Elyse also got a haircut. This time she wanted some color sprayed in it. Can you see the red?


I like this picture for whatever reason even though it is very bright/white.

We played dress up today. Anastasia is checking herself out in the mirror.

Sister love.

I have trying to think on new things I could do with Elyse. I want to be crafty, but didn't know where to start and I don't have much supplies. It's not like there is a Hobby Lobby down the street. I looked at some websites and got a bit overwhelmed, so I decided to start simple: with the letters of the alphabet. I was thinking of doing 1 a week, but Elyse has been very excited about them so we have done 6 in the last 3 days or so. Her is her art wall. The round plate thing is from church. She wanted that hung up too.

The Pool

One afternoon while Noah and Emily were here we headed down to the pool. I had just learned how to use the manual mode on my camera so I was practicing. I took A LOT of pictures and went a little crazy. Here are just a few. They are not in order because as I was looking over which ones to put on the blog I kept going back seeing ones I missed.

As you can tell from the pictures Elyse had so much fun with her aunt and uncle.

Botanic Gardens

One of the places we took Emily and Noah was the Botanic Gardens. Emily was in Singapore for about 6 months when she was little and one of the places she went was the Botanic Gardens, so we thought we would revisit it.

Brothers:
Elyse and I were pretending to be coo-coo birds and here she is flying off a rock:

Playing with my new camera:

A Night on the Town

When Noah and Emily arrived back in Singapore (from Jakarta where they were visiting Jack and Jan), we took them out for a night on the town.

We first went to the New Asia Bar which is on the 71st floor of the Stamford Hotel. (Can you tell I like using my new camera?)


I had made reservations so when we got there they took us behind a roped off area and this was our view:

I think they were a little disappointed when we handed them back the menu with all the really expensive drinks and asked for the regular menu. Then they were a little over eager to get our orders and for us to close our tab which is very unSingaporean, but while we were there we enjoyed the view.

After our drinks and appetizers we walked outside to the Esplanade and the bay. We were still a little hungry so we went to the nearby hawker center. We ordered 3 different types of Singaporean fruit juices, crab fried rice, a friend noodle dish that I can't remember what it's called, and roti pratta -yum!

After "supper" which some Singaporeans call a late night snack, we walked along the Singapore River. As you can see in the next pictures I once again was getting a little arty with my camera :)

It was a great night. Toby and I have done a lot of things around Singapore, but tonight we tried out 2 new places. Singapore has so much to offer!

P.S. Toby's facial hair is now all gone, sorry to disappoint those who like the red neck/biker look.

New Camera

For Christmas Toby got me a new camera ( Canon 550D) and my daughters got me photography lessons. Since getting the camera, I have had fun figuring out the different settings and trying out all the new things I learned in my lessons.

This is the action setting:

Profile picture:

Cool background blur effect:

Arty close up:

These next picture I took in the "Manual" mode which means I set the ISO, the aperture, and then spot metered it to get the shutter speed.

I have been practicing all the manual modes as well as playing around with the pre-set modes. I am also practicing how to hold my camera and hold my breath while taking pictures to get the best possible shot. My next lesson is an "outing" so my instructor can help me on the spot. I can't wait!

In the next few posts you with some more photos with my new camera as we took Noah and Emily around Singapore.

On the Move

Anastasia is starting to move forward in this army crawl/swim/scoot motion and then when she needs to, she rolls to get what she wants. Her mobility has snuck up on me. I need to baby-proof our house!

Random

Here are some pictures and videos I wanted to share from last month.

Sisters

Anastasia is wanting to stand more and more. Soon she will be walking!

Elyse and I just finished baking and I thought she looked so cute, that I had to take a picture of her.

Dance girl, DANCE!




Giggle girl, GIGGLE!

Pasir Ris Park

Over the weekend we decided to head out east to Pasir Ris Park. From a Singaporean perspective it was far, far away (literally on the other side of the island- hence the reason we haven't gone before), but from a US perspective it was an easy drive (about 40 minutes- perhaps we should go again soon).

This park was situated on the water line and had a huge play ground, paths to bike on, green spaces to picnic, camp or fly a kite, a place to horse back ride, and a mangrove forest to walk through among other things.


Our first stop was the playground. This place has almost anything you could think of.


Even swings (very rare in Singapore)

This was a hill you could "rock climb" up and slide down. Elyse was afraid of slides today (I have no idea why) so we scooted down the side on our behinds.

Isn't this so cool! And this was only one of the sections. Other sections had rock climbing walls, rope playgrounds, and much more.

Anastasia just hanging out in the stroller.

After the playground we walked to a restaurant for lunch and then headed to the mangrove forest. There we were able to see a lot of crabs coming in and out of their holes at the base of the trees, plus we saw some mollusks and a mud skipper (I think that's what it's called. It has a head that looks like a frog and a body of a fish).

We then went to the beach. The beach itself is very small and I wouldn't recommend swimming, but it was fun to get our toes wet and play in the sand.

We had a great time and I would love to go back soon. (It's really not that far no matter where you are on the island.)

New Years Eve

You didn't know it snowed in Singapore did you?


Just Kidding. Every year around Christmas there is a mall here that has it "snow" bubbles. We thought Elyse would like this so we made a special night of it (since the bubbles don't start until 7:30 which as you know is past our girls' bedtimes. Anyway...)

We were out around the big Christmas tree waiting for the bubbles to start and trying to explain to Elyse what was going to happen. She seemed pretty excited. Then it started. It was a little different than I thought. I thought they would start by blowing bubbles up in the air and they would accumulate on the ground. Nope. There were these blowers on the ground that created an instant blizzard of bubbles:



Kids dove in up to their necks in bubbles. Elyse... she wanted no part of it.

We tried all sorts of things to get her excited about the bubbles and when the bubbles did start getting blown up in the air we hyped that up too. We tried everything we could think of, but she didn't even want to touch the bubbles.

But then, something happened. She came over by me (I was by one of the blowers taking pictures) and "snow" was falling on her head and she thought that was funny. Then she thought stepping on the bubbles was fun and then the bubbles stopped and we cleaned up (they had showers to wash off the bubbles) thinking we had a small success.

Then as we were about to leave Elyse all of a sudden wanted to play in the bubbles. So, we headed into the bubbles (as everyone else was clearing out) to play.

By looking at this picture you would never guess she was almost crying a little while earlier and refused to touch the bubbles.

So, in the end, fun was had by all. Elyse and Toby were the last ones in the bubbles. The guy to the left of them in the next picture had water and was spraying the bubbles away. The circle of bubbles around Toby and Elyse kept getting smaller and smaller.

This just reminds me that Elyse needs time to warm up to things and if we keep at it, she will usually have a great time.

So that was our New Years Eve. We left the mall, put the kids to bed and then, so after, we were in bed ourselves. Although we didn't party it up this year we still had a memorable night.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!