Gingerbread Men

Today Anastasia is A YEAR AND A HALF! Crazy! Her doctor's appointment is later this week, so I'll get all her stats then. To "celebrate" we went to the MOPS Gingerbread Decorating Party.

I think this is the first time Elyse has decorated a gingerbread man. She did a great job.

Anastasia didn't do any decorating but she did eat and play a lot. Her favorite thing was the play slide they had inside the house.

Hanoi- The Beginning

I was very fortunate to be able to go on a "Girl's Trip" to Hanoi, Vietnam. No kids, no husband- just two good friends. It was new experience to be able to wander around the airport bookstore and grab a cup of tea without having to worry about entertaining children.  On the plane I was thankful that the girls weren't with me because we had to sit on the runway for quite awhile. Instead of playing I-Spy or telling stories or hold a screaming toddler, all I had to do was read my book and wait. :)

We arrived at night and were welcomed by our driver who took us to The Hanoi Elegance Ruby Hotel. It was this wonderful hotel tucked into an alleyway in the Old Quarter of Hanoi. We went out to dinner down the street at The Green Mango (?). I had spring rolls- yum- and then we walked down to Hoan Kiem Lake.

 Around the lake people had their "shops" set up- a basket filled with nuts or seeds or fruit, etc and little stools. They were everywhere. This seems to be part of "normal life" in Hanoi. People would circle up the stools and use one as a table as they hung out.

 

I'm not sure if you can see the ground, but there are shells all over the place. I think people were eating sunflower seeds and then just drop the shells on the ground. They were everywhere. In the morning, most of the seeds were gone- swept away.

 Scooters, scooters everywhere. This picture is only a glimpse of how many scooters/motorcycles there were on the road at one time.

 People carried so much around with them on their scooters. This lady was selling balloons.

The following morning after being able to get up at a leisurely pace, we headed down to breakfast. We were about to push the button the the elevator when the power went out! We were so close to being trapped in a tiny (did I say tiny?) elevator! We walked down the dark staircase by the light of Gillian's phone and found out we could still have breakfast since they were cooking with gas :)The electricity turned back on after a little while but in the mean time we had breakfast by candlelight:

After a great breakfast we were off to explore the Old Quarter...

Random Pictures

For some reason Anastasia LOVES my pajama bottoms and wears them around the apartment whenever she can find them.She wears them over her shoulders like this:

I got Anastasia's hair into her first ponytail today:

Just a cute sister moment. The girls are watching themselves in a video they made:

Way back in January Elyse and I started to make the letters of the alphabet. We have now completed it- both upper and lowercase letters- 11 months later. I am now in the process of making her an alphabet book (using her letters) on Shutterfly and will give it to her for Christmas.

Dance, Laugh, Fall Down

The Army Museum

Today I took Elyse and Anastasia to the Singapore Army Museum . A couple of our friends have gone and I thought we ought to try it, plus it is literally right down the road from us.

When we got there we bought our tickets and then I opened the door to the museum. That's as far as we got. Elyse saw something on the other side that scared her. The lights were low and I didn't even get a good look at what was on the other side because I shut the door and that was that.

Camille had mentioned that there were army vehicles outside to see so I thought maybe Elyse would like that, so we headed outside and saw the vehicles. There was also a recreation of an obstacle course cadets train on. Elyse and Anastasia played on that for quite awhile.

After the obsitcal course we took a van ride into the neighboring army training institute. Elyse kept saying "when are we going to see armies?" meaning soldiers, and I thought we might see some soldiers training, but I was wrong. We got to see buildings. "This is the library." "This is the mess hall." I think it was the most boring tour ever, but when I asked Elyse what her favorite part of the Army Museum was she said riding in the van. Go figure.

Although I didn't get to see the museum, I did get to spend some time with my girls at a new place in Singapore. Morning well spent.

Halloween 2011

This Halloween we were invited over to the Reeves' house up in the Woodlands- the center of Trick-or-Treating in Singapore. Here are the girls (aka ballerina and Sleeping Beauty) before we headed off for the party:

At the party there were about 50 people- half of those were kids. Here are some eating and watching The Great Pumpkin:

After dinner, the trick-or-treating began. In this neighborhood, they closed off the street and hoards of kids came to gather candy.

 This box was full of candy to give out to trick-or-treaters. I'm not sure if all of it was given out, but it was almost empty by the time we left.

Elyse with the Mario Brothers:

and Spider-Girl

Toby was able to get off work early to join the festivities

Anastasia had fun going up to people and holding out her pumpkin,

After the trick-or-treating we headed back to the party for some dessert and more Charlie Brown.

Look who we picked up while trick-or-treating:

Happy Halloween!!!!

Pumpkin Carving

Although we got our pumpkins awhile ago, we waited for Toby to get back to carve them.
We tried to get the girls involved in the actual cleaning out process, but this is about as involved as they got:

Elyse scooped things out for a few seconds with a spoon and Anastasia touched the insides once, made a face, and went to read books.

Elyse did do some supervising and described how she wanted the pumpkins to look (scary like this:)

She also said she wanted Anastasia's pumpkin to look scary too because she wanted them to look like them (Anastasia and herself) when they are fighting over the same toy.

Silly faces:

The finished product :)