Jack and the Beanstalk

Today I took Elyse to see the play Jack and the Beanstalk. She has been so excited since we bought the tickets months ago. She even got dressed up in her Christmas dress for the show.We took the train and the bus to the theatre to meet up with the Willertons and Jelberts.

The whole gang: Elyse, Caleb, Levi, Sophie and Miriam

We got into our seats and were waiting for the show to start when something switched in Elyse's brain and she got really scared. She began crying and wanting to go home. She cried and cried and since she hadn't calmed down when the play was about to start we went out to the lobby.

They had a tv feed of the play in the lobby so we watched a bit of the show on that.

There was a lady who worked there that tried to convince Elyse to go in, telling her that we could stand by the door and come out at any time, etc. but for most of the first part of the play she DID NOT want to go in, With about 5 minutes to go, finally she changed her mind.

We watched inside for a little bit and then the giant came....

We went back out until intermission and she didn't want to go back in. After the intermission the tv was convieniently not working (wink, wink) and the lady was trying really hard to get it to work (wink, wink), but it wasn't go on. This convince Elyse to go back inside (YIPPEEE!)

We stood by the door for awhile, but then she finally decided to go back to her seat. At that point she really enjoyed the show. She laughed and clapped with the people on stage.

After the play we headed to Chris's (Jelbert) place for lunch.

It did turn out to be a good experience, but it took a bit to get there. I'm not sure if we will be going back to a play anytime soon though.

Anastasia is 18 Months!

On Friday we went to Anastasia's 18 month appointment. She is in the 75 percentile on the Asian charts, but according to the doctor, she would be average in the US. She weighs 11.2 KG (24 lbs 11 oz) and is 82 cm (32 in) tall. To compare, Elyse was 11 KG (24 lbs 4 oz)  and 79 cm (31 in) at the same age.

 Here is a look back at how Anastasia has grown up over the past year and a half:

Newborn:

 6 Months:

 One year:

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.