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!

Just Mommy and Me

I spend most of my days with Elyse, but recently (since 29 May) Elyse and I haven't had any one-on-one outings, so day I decided we needed a Mommy and Elyse day. I gave her a choice of lunch- a restaurant or a picnic. She picked a picnic so we packed up our lunch and headed to the Jurong Central Park.

We had a lot of fun. We ate, played soccer, played in the sand, watched kites, blew bubbles, and then headed into the mall for some ice cream and new shoes :) I would like to have more Mommy and Elyse outings; it's fun to hang out with a 3 year old.


Here we are looking t kites. As I was trying to take the picture Elyse kept putting her hands in front of her face- hence the laughing.


Here is that Singapore Pose again:


I love this picture:

Christmas

Elyse was the first one up on Christmas morning (surprisingly is was not Anastasia) and came into our to wake us up. We opened stockings as we waited for Grammy and Gramps to get up.

Sheer delight:

Once Anastasia was up we finished opening stocking and started in on the presents.

Elyse got this doll from Grammy and Gramps. She is from India.

The aftermath:

Christmas morning was wonderful. We took our time, had breakfast, and talked to people via skype in between opening presents. Elyse was very patient throughout the morning when we kept telling her we could play with some of her things later (likes paints etc.). She would even wait to open presents as we ate or watched others open their presents. I'm glad we didn't have some where to hurry off to so it could be a relaxing day.

After we were done opening gifts, Elyse got dressed in her new clothes and headed out to ride her new trike:

As dinner time approached we headed out to have some Chinese food. Toby's family usually eats Chinese food on Christmas Eve so this was our way of keeping the tradition alive. It was great.

After dinner we headed outside to catch the train. It was POURING out. Luckily the mall is attached to the MRT station, but when we got out on our stop we braved the rain. We were all soaked by the time we got home except for Elyse who probably got the most coverage under Daddy's umbrella. A Christmas "blizzard" here in Singapore ;)

We had a great Christmas.

Christmas Eve in the Tropics

On the morning of Christmas Eve we decided to go swimming. A little different than what we did growing up :)

Elyse has the Singapore picture pose down:

After swimming we went over to my friend Jessica's house for dinner. I guess the swimming was tiring because Elyse fell asleep on the ride over there.

We arrived to a beautifully decorated house and a view of snow falling outside (we can pretend right?)

The kids table:

We had a great time at Jessica's and then we hurried to church for a candle light service. We were late and had to sit in the over flow room which did not have candles, but a little girl was nice enough to give one to Elyse.

After church we went home, tucked the kids into bed and brought out all the presents. I always loved waking up on Christmas morning with presents magically appearing under the tree (even after I found out about Santa.) That excitement is still with me and I couldn't wait for the next morning.

You can see more pictures of Christmas Eve on Camille and Jessica's blog.

School Party

On the 23rd we ventured out to Elyse's school Christmas party. It started at 7:30 (30 mins past Elyse's bedtime) and went until 9 so people who work could attend with their children. On the way we got to see our condo all lit up and in this picture you can see (sorta) our tree between the two palm trees.

The party was like a little carnival. There were games to play and food to be eaten.

Here Elyse is at the balloon toss:


In this game Elyse had to drop coins into a tub filled with water and try to get them in a small dish. She had the most success at this game and won twice.

We got to see some of her school friends.

This friend kept coming up to Elyse and saying hi, but once I got the camera out she acted as if she had no idea who Elyse was. This picture captures the general mood while I tried to get the two girls to stand next to each other.

The night was fun. I'm glad both Toby and I got to go to Elyse's first school party.