SingKids

Today we met the Unruhs at a play area called SingKids. It is relatively new and is housed in VivoCity. It was pretty cool. It had blow-up jumping things, a giant teddy bear that went around in a circle that you could jump on, rooms filled with floating balloons, little carosels, slides, and jungle gyms to climb on.

Can you sense the anticipation?

When we first got there we had the place to ourselves which was awesome. Anastasia was a bit overwhelmed and held my hand tightly, but finley found her stride.

This boat was a big hit. It moved up and down as if you were in the ocean.

 

This is the bear that went in circles. You could run, jump, or just sit and take a ride.

 

 

 This carosel was just Anastasia's size.

 There was a room that blew small balloons around and another that had much bigger balloons.

 

This tree rotated, so you had to jump (or hang) on to these balls.

 

They also had fun on this bouncy slide.

We had a great time but it was expensive, so we might not be heading back anytime soon, but for today it was great.

After SingKids, we walked around outside and notice the Logos Hope (a ship) was docked outside. It is a floating bookstore backed by a Christian ministry. I don't know much about it, but we did have fun wandering around the book store- I could have stayed in there A LOT longer, but it was lunch time :)

Whenever we get together with the Unruhs we have a great time, today was no exception.

Here are a couple pictures Elyse took on the way home in the taxi:

Rewind to Thanksgiving

I thought I should do a post on Thanksgiving before Christmas is here :)

This Thanksgiving Toby's parents were able to come up from Indonesia to join us for a few days. The girls had a great time hanging out with them.

Elyse made peanutbutter fudge with Grammy:

And both girls had fun swinging with Gramps:

As for Thanksgiving dinner, we headed to a friend of Jennifer Willerton's named Andrea. Andrea was nice enough to open up her home to us and put out a beautiful spread. The only pictures I got were of the kids table, but you can take a peak at Andrea's blog for a few more.

 Silly faces!

 I love the look going on between Levi and Elyse. They know something and aren't telling anyone else. If they were older I think I would be a bit worried.

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. We did!

Christmas Traditions

I like traditions and getting a real Christmas tree is an important tradition to me. I am so glad Singapore ships trees from the States for us to buy.

 

When we go to look for our tree and decorate it I also like the family to be dressed in red or green- I just think it's fun the everyone goes along with it. Here are the girls enjoying a snack on the way to the nursery.

We wandered up and down the aisles and settled on a tree:

On the way home we listened to Christmas music and sang "O Christmas Tree" in our traditional way- only singing the first part and humming the rest because we don't know the words :) Check out last year's rendition.

Once home we unwrapped our tree and set out our tree decorating treats: cookies and egg nog (another tradition). I am so glad I was able to find egg nog again this year- thanks to my FB friends.

Anastasia's first taste of egg nog- I think she liked it.

When it came to decorating the tree, Anastasia was a little confused. "You want me to stop eating and put this where? Here. You do it."

In the end, Anastasia spent most of her time running around and eating:

 Elyse had so much fun this year decorating the tree. She kept asking for more ornaments. She was also being her great goofy self in the process. I think the sugar from the cookies added to the goofiness.

At the end we placed the star on the top and then got ready for family pictures.

More goofiness

In the end here is our tree (next to our fire).

Yippee for family traditions at Christmas time!

Memories

Today we got our Christmas Tree. 

I love making memories with these girls :) 

(details to come tomorrow)

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.