The night before

The husband is running the marathon. And I am doing the half-marathon. 

We went to pick up the run race pack today and there were several booths that were quite interesting. Lots of sign-ups to other runs, sale of merchandise, free ice-cream and this isotonic drink booth that allowed us to write well-wishes to runners and take a picture. 

Kate wrote "Papa I love you. Kate" and "Mama I love you. Kate".

We spent the day just hanging out and did an impromptu stopover to Paser Bella for some pork belly, ice cream and paella. 

A snuggly kinda evening made better with cackling pork

The brother, husband and I did some brief logistics chat. The husband and I have packed our things for tomorrow. 

I just indulged in a cake and I'm going to sleep soon. The husband's gone to sleep already. 

After running consistently since April this year, my first half-marathon is going to take place in 8 hours. 

I'm so excited! 

Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Sesame Street?

(From L-R, clockwise) Bert, Ernie, Cookie Monster, Big Bird, Elmo, Kate, Jaz, Female singer, Jake.

My beautiful child

I love you with all my heart, sweetheart. In your words, "super duper much!"

Universal Studios Singapore

It was a playdate organised ages ago; a day of fun for the kids - and it turned out pretty good! I had fun! And I'm sure the kids did too!

The only bummer was that the husband had to go to work last-minute so he didn't spend the day with us. Here's a pictorial capture of our day at USS!

Little friends with big mascots. We were quite fortunate that we bumped into a few along the way as we were strolling around the park. Awesome!

Awwww, look at that!

Trying-to-be-brave Kate with her 3D glasses before the Transformer ride. This ride scared her a little and I got a headache from it because I had to protect her head (from bumping into the hard seat) and she had her hands over her eyes - duo-purpose; to keep her glasses from falling and to cover her eyes throughout at the scary bits. She just qualified the height limit and I think she didn't enjoy the fighting much at all.

Kate's favourite ride of the day - Elmo in space, spaghetti and meatballs!

That's us on the rides. The pic on the top right is Treasure Hunters, one of our worst rides of the day. The Q was too long, the ride too short and did not justify our time queueing for it! 

Brave little Jake. He's so little but he's so game for all the rides he is allowed to go on! That's him sitting alone on the carousel. 

Little Lloyd with Kate. This is them anticipating the Shrek show - it's pretty enjoyable! Jake sat in his own seat too and I think this is quite a good show for everyone, young and old.

At Jurassic Park, we bumped into the keeper with his baby dinosaur. Kate's face cracks me up! And for the record, she chose that gift by herself (no surprises!)

On the other end of the spectrum, here's Jake who was all game to touch the baby dino. He was slightly squirmy, but still wanted to try. 

"Mommy, 抱抱！” This, people, is the key reason why I have muscles. #maybenotthatbadathing

It was past 6 when we stepped through the exit, and we were all feeling pretty tired, yet pumped up from the exciting day of activities. I managed to convince the kids to do a mandatory-must-take picture with the Universal Globe. They even obliged when I asked them for jump shots! Love it. 

Grand finale. Water play!

Some random thoughts of the day:

• I learnt from my experience in Disneyland and brought a pram along. Prams (of different shapes and sizes) are available for rent at the park, but our sturdy Maclaren did the job well (it's been around on our holidays the past 4 years!)
• Jake took an hour's nap in this pram on-the-go. The timing was great and coincided when we took two rides that he did not qualify for anyway (too short). 
• Kate chooses the most inconvenient times to want to go pee. So we have done a dash-to-pee on two occasions while we were in the Q (three, if you counted once in Japan. We were lucky that we managed to run back in time to re-join the Q - yay)
• Jake is really a very brave boy who enjoys shows and activities. On the rides that he took, he was mesmerised. On the shows that we watched, he was mesmerised. He's a pretty good audience really!
• Apparently, Jake no longer likes Kiki Maus. His new favourite is now Elmo. I know this because when I ask him (more than once), he will tell me firmly "I like Elmo!" (I'm going to try asking him again on another random occasion and see if it was merely a diffusion effect of being at USS)
• Being out makes us tolerate crap food. We had the most icky lunch of fried food - and we devoured it all. We also had chocolate milkshake. I guess that's calcium?
• I love, love, love doing adventurous new things with the kids. To watch their faces light up with apprehension, delight, happiness... really these are the moments that make it all worth it!

Fun-filled Saturday!

It started out wet and early for the husband and I as we hit the trails/roads for our last run before the real dun next weekend. 

Run run run, keep running.

Due to the wet weather, swim class was cancelled and we had the afternoon to spend with the kids. (Did I mention that the husband belongs to us now that his exams are over? Hip hip hooray!) 

Off to Ikea we went!

We chanced upon some big hearts.

Crawl, Jake, crawl

"Mommy, look!"

Obviously having the time of her life. Her happiness is contagious and I cannot help but smile looking at it!

Who says only the kids have fun? 

We then headed home for a short rest before heading out for our playdate scheduled for that evening. 

Water play - Jake at a mini swirl pool 

TJ and Kate

Altogether, there were 5.

So cute, look at them huddled in this water canal

Dinner at Grub. Where we also celebrated TJ's birthday by singing him a birthday song with a candle on top of churros!

The husband and I then sneaked out for a movie in the night.
What an excellent day!

Moments I wish to remember

This has been a pretty good week, where post-exams, the husband belongs to us again. I had two (bonus!) girlfriend dinners scheduled this week and was very happy to have had some me-time dining well and catching up with friends. This made me actually miss the kids, as I only saw them for a bit in the mornings and when I went home after dinner, they would be aasleep/I had very little time with the firstborn.

And with things going ahead at neck-breaking speed (do you know that we are only a month away from Christmas? A week to the end of this month?!), I wish to just put on record some things, because.

• Jake no longer says "I narn". Two days ago, I heard him say very clearly "I want". 
• Most days, I will call home to speak briefly with the kids. Sometime this week, I'd arrived home when Kate asked me, "Mommy, why you never call me today?"
• The other day, Kate came to me unprompted, and said, "Mommy, I love you super duper much!"
• Jake went for his vaccination two days back. Based on my own experience previously, he'd cry for all of 2-seconds and then life goes on. This time round, the husband brought him and I forgot to follow up with the husband how it went, until today. So when I asked him how Jake was during the vaccination, this was his reply (via whatsapp). "He was more angry than in pain" - haha! This made me crack up! My super-strong boy!
• Kate's definitely a girly girl and she can get more girly. This week, I brought the kids to the neighbourhood pasar malam and she was elated that I allowed her to buy a set of fairy wings + wand + headband. This morning, she'd put on a dress and her "gear" and I overheard her saying "Wow, I'm like Cinderella!"  
• Jake's cot has been dismantled and he now sleeps on two baby mattresses and a lot of pillows/bolsters. 
• Jake's night sleeping pattern can still be improved upon. But we have stopped feeding him milk in the night now (& while he asks, he is no longer insistent) and he is fine to just drink water from the bottle and go back to sleep. We have had some successes in him sleeping through from 9pm to 6pm, but mostly he still whines in the middle of the night. 
• Kate likes school. She's asked why she doesn't need to go to school now and I repeatedly tell her it's the holidays. 
• Kate likes to perform. She told me this morning "Mommy, today is Friday. Every Friday we need to practise the song and dance" (which is what they did leading up to their school finale concert for the last day of school).
• There was one evening some weeks ago, that as usual, we were bustling about at dinner time trying to prepare dinner on the table and settle the bowls/chairs/cutlery. Kate usually allots who sits where (usually I'll sit next to her) and there was no chair for me. "Mommy, where is your chair?" she asked while I was in the kitchen. "I'll take it later, darling" I replied, as I was ladling soup/rice from the kitchen. I turned my back and when I turned around, I saw her - unprompted - head to the storeroom to take a chair for me. 
• Kate randomly kissing my hand when we're walking along hand-in-hand.
• Jake hugging me tightly ... when we sing the Barney song (... with a great big hug and a....)
• I was feeling annoyed because K had been acting up. So I went to a quiet spot in the bedroom. K came trotting in and sat beside me (despite me telling her to "go outside") She was doing a project Christmas-deco with the husband and she was holding a pink heart in her hand. She places her little hand on my thigh and said, "Mommy, when you are feeling sad, you just look at this and feel happy, ok?" That really gutted me and made me feel like a prick for being so mean. *sad face
• I was watching the kids having breakfast and Jake was making his way to me when he tripped over his own feet. I saw him keeling forward and fortunately, he landed in my arms. The surprised-mixed-with-fear-look on his face (I'm sure was a similar reflection on my face) was hilarious. He burst out laughing!... then proceeded to try to re-enact it again.  

Christmas is coming!

The husband ended his exams two days back (YAY CONGRATULATIONS BABY!), and it's double Yay because we get our father/husband back. 

True to his word, the husband put up the Christmas tree with the kids.

Busy elves

And this was us, last year. I cannot believe it's been a year already!

10 more days

This has been my motivation to run consistently for the past half-year. (Only) 10! More! Days!

Staycation Fun

Thanks to the sister and her network of super-friends, we enjoyed a staycation last weekend. It came about because we were planning some accessible accomodation after the wedding. And I think it really suited us - made our access to the dinner more convenient, we arrived back at our abode in double-quick time after the very-late dinner (Jake was all concussed even in the short drive from dinner to hotel), and we had a pretty fun Sunday the day after.

The highlight of their morning - let's go swimming!

The super-awesome pool that comes with a fake beach and a slide - WHEE!

Jake in sand

We spent a leisurely hour+ at the pool, it was fun. Then after washing up (I left my toiletries in the hotel wehweh) we headed for lunch. And I tell you, this was the highlight - drools.

Assam Laksa. Soooo good.

This is probably the last time he can fit in this mini-trolley. The kids had a ball rolling this about the store and (nearly) knocking everything over. No one was hurt, except for Yiyi who did get knocked into at least once (that I witnessed).

YAY! WE LOVE STAYCATIONS!

A spiffy dinner

It was a family wedding, one that saw all of us scrub up nicely. It's always nice to know that we can all look pretty decent in clean clothes, and smell rather nice too (somehow, this is quite important and seemingly rare when you have kids). Here are (a lot of) pictures from the night.

One of us while in the room. No shoes.  The pre-dinner preparation was quite chaotic with 3 adults and 2 kids (which made it feel like there were 4 extra people) so no other forms of discriminatory pictures of the scene.

My little handsome boy. Everyone - and I mean EVERYONE - keeps asking me what happened to his forehead. For the record, he scratched himself and it may never, ever heal because he cannot stop picking at the scab. 

One with my children. I realise that we did not take a family picture - ah wells.

That's my sister with her invisible black diamond ring (she's exclaiming because she wanted to eat it actually, because she was very hungry).

The three of us

Jake found himself a hat to complete his spiffy look

RAWRRRR

One with my little princess

I need to include this because Jake's smiling so sweetly. (Don't want to sound horrid but his smile looks a bit weird. Just like his father when he smiles too nicely. HAH.)

Two failed polaroids with the husband. One where his eyes were accidentally shut. One where his eyes were intentionally too-big. 

The once-upon-a-time originals.

My mother, and sister.

Gentlemen. That's Jake looking drunk from fatigue. 

A family picture :)

And to end this series off, one of my lovely parents. They are the best parents I can ever have, because they are just who they are. They have good hearts, a little eccentric special personalities but they love us unconditionally, provide for us the best they can and we will not be the family we are without them. I love you, Mom and Dad!