Our Home. Our Life

Alright, the event that we have all been waiting for - Yu-En’s birthday party!

We invited our guests to show up on Sunday at noon time for this special day.  Before anyone turned up, the birthday girl had to take her morning nap, oblivious to what’s going to happen later.

We’ve got the balloons secured and the house is ready to receive it’s guests.

A number of our guests had shown up before Yu-En woke up. It did startle her to see unfamiliar faces and hence she was rather clingy to me and refused to let me get out of her sight.  Fortunately it didn’t take her too long to warm up to some of our friends and I was then able to eat freely.

We bought a Hello Kitty birthday cake for Yu-En.

Jie-jie had to help to blow out mei-mei’s birthday candle.

Dillon and Yu-Xin obviously couldn’t resist the icing cream and had their first taste even before we cut it.

The best part of the event is opening the presents.

Everyone had a good laugh when Hannah was lowered into the big gift bag and she peeked out.  How cute…..

We all had fun at the expense of Yu-En’s misery.  She didn’t like it at all!  Sorry baby…..

Our favourite auntie in Phoenix  -  Auntie Faizah.

Oh yes, I must comment on the family dress code.  Dressing the girls in pink was intentional but dressing ourselves in blue was unintentional…. we only noticed when someone highlighted it.  How fun….

Grandpa Marshall, grandma Sandi and uncle Marshall stayed with us till everyone left and then we took a family photo.

More on the birthday girl..

HAPPY BIRTHDAY EN EN!!!!!!!!!!

Exactly 12 months ago the same day, my angel arrived.

When my doctor pulled her out of my tummy, papa and I exclaimed simultaneously that she looked exactly like Yu-Xin.  I remembered it felt surreal to see her lying in her crib after we returned from the hospital.  We had been so used to having only 1 girl at home for 2 years and having another one is like another dream come true.  We are so blessed to have another healthy and adorable baby girl.

This adorable baby girl has officially become an adorable chubby toddler as of today.  It still amazes me to see how fast a baby can grow.

Now that she’s getting more mobile, I know I have to be more vigilant.  Big sister Yu-Xin is helpful to only a certain extent at this point.  I’m grateful enough if she doesn’t pick a fight with Yu-En by sharing her toys and not being so territorial.  Well again, it depends on her mood.  Sometime she can be really sweet to little sister.  But very soon when Yu-En goes into “mine” stage, the one way traffic will become two ways.  Oh my, more headaches coming…….

Anyway, I’m not going to worry about all the worries of tomorrow…I’m just going to enjoy Yu-En’s big day for now and look forward to her birthday celebration on Sunday with all our dearest friends.

@ 1 week old.  She was still so tiny and a little jaundiced.

@ 1 mth old.  Getting chubby.

@ 2 mth old and lots of hair

@ 3 mth old

@ 4 mth old

@ 5 mth old and more hair

@ 6 mth old

@ 8 mth old

@ 9 mth old

@ 10 mth old

@ 11 mth old

Visit our blog again to see her party photos later.

After papa had done with mowing the lawn, Yu-Xin requested to go out and play at the backyard.  Upon seeing jie-jie went out through the patio door, mei-mei got restless and kept banging the glass door with her small hand.

Mei-mei was delighted when I put her on the Little Tykes ride-on and jie-jie came running and shouting “I push I push”.

The little one enjoyed being pushed around and the older one had fun pushing.  It’s great that they can entertain each other while I sat on the swing and relax.

We had a viewing this afternoon.

It was the first viewing we had since our house was listed last Monday.  Although we have no idea if the potential buyer likes our house, it sets the ball rolling.  Hope to have more appointments for viewing set up down the road.

Went to watch Mamma Mia at the cinema with Faizah.  It was an impromtu decision but we were glad that we went.  Saw the trailer before and thought that it will be a good one to watch and it turned out to be marvellous.  Plot aside, the setting is in Greece and that’s enough to catch my attention.

Of ourse with Meryl Streep leading the cast coupled with all the catchy tunes of ABBA songs, it is one enjoyable and entertaining movie.  There were many hilarious scenes and plots that easily cracked you up.  There were even one or two moving scenes that I had my eyes welled up with tears.  Truly had a wonderful time there tapping my feet along with the melody of the songs throughout the whole show.  Watching a movie without my two angels definitely make a whole lot of difference to the experience.

After movie, Faizah and I then went for an uninterrupted dinner.  A nice end to our “ladies evening out” time.

When I got back, the 2 girls were still not in bed.  Papa then put Yu-En down and asked her to walk to me.  I had a real surprise when Yu-En walked like 10 steps before she fell.  I quickly rushed for the digital camera and this time I captured a video of her walking 25 steps without any falls.  The last couple of days, she had only succeeded in taking like at most 6 steps without falling.  Wow….. Whoo hoo… she’s finally walking.  How exciting.   Will try to upload the video for sharing later.

So 1 week before Yu-En turns 1 year old, she walks.  It will be show time for our guests at her birthday party on the 10th.

We met up with the Crossmans at the Anthem community pool this evening.  As they are residents there and non-residents need the presence of residents for admission into the community club.

Yu-Xin has been excited about this trip since yesterday when she found out that Auntie Faizah and I had made plan to go.  In her mind, this fun pool belongs to Dillon and that was how it was referred to in our house.  I thought that was funny.  She has been to this pool a few times and thus it’s not new to her.  But this is her first trip this year.

My camera caught Dillon at the moment he was about to dive into the water.

Papa with Yu-En.

Yu-Xin checking out some fun thing on one of the pillar.

After a few trips to our community that is 5 minutes away from our house, Yu-Xin got bold with jumping into the water.

Papa AS and papa Frank watching over the two precious.

This has to be her nth times jumping into the water.

Papa Frank jumping off from the higher diving board and Dillon from the lower one.

The 2 kids had fun playing together.

Both were hungry after the vigorous water activity.

Still snacking on their way home.  Can’t blame them as it was near dinner time.

At 11 month old, Yu-En is getting more active and adventurous.  Anything that has push buttons on them will be of interest to her, like the computer keyboard, the dvd player etc.  And Yu-Xin ia paranoid every time Mei-Mei comes near her when she’s on the computer as the little one is very persistent in reaching for the keys.

It’s actually fat hope to wish that Yu-En can just sit and watch Jie-Jie.  Yu-Xin will always cry out for help.

Monkey see monkey do.  Another example to show that Mei-Mei is the brave and adventurous one.

Oh man, when she’s had her shoes on, she does look like a big girl.  I cannot believe that my baby is growing up so fast.

The set that Jie-Jie worked on is the Fiddlestix, a wooden rod and connector set.  Mei-Mei only enjoyed poking everywhere with the rod.

For some reason, she loves to put the little white plastic dog in her mouth while she crawls around.

Having fun during bath time.  They will definitely miss the bath tub and their bath toys when we move back to Singapore.

A bad hair day, baby?

You can clearly see her 6 teeth.  More teeth are on their way.

Mei-Mei: “Oh so this is what you do on a slide, why then did papa just put me here to take picture?”

Pretty in pink.

We met up  with a realtor at 9.30am on Saturday to get our house ready for sale.  After  the 3 hr session, some documents were signed and alot of pcitures were taken, both interior and exterior of the house.

This was the first process initiated in preparation for our passage home.

The current housing market sucks big time and to think that we are selling our house now in this market condition is not exciting at all.  Fortunately we bought this house just when the real estate is picking up so we will still get some profit out of it.  Compared to those people who bought their properties at the peak of the housing boom and now owe the bank more money than the value of their house, we shouldn’t be complaining.  In fact, we should count our blessing.

Anyway, our house is officially listed today.  We are hoping for the best.

After our realtor left, we made the girls went down for their nap so that we could adjourn to the Paul’s residence in the evening.  Saturday was Marshall Jr’s birthday and we bought him his birthday dinner.  Went to Great Wall for a delicious and filling Chinese dinner.  This time we had to ask for doggy bags to bring back some of the dishes.

We went back to the Paul’s house after dinner.  We had fun talking and savouring Marshall’s birthday lemon cake and Sandi showed us photos taken during her 2 weeks trip to Sacramento with Marshall Jr.

We all had a wonderful evening.

We spent Sunday afternoon and evening packing away some toys and stuff that used to stay in a corner of the living room.  The key word here is “clutter” and we are trying to make our house more presentable for people to view it.  Lots of things were packed and stored in the garage ie. only those that can withstand the hot summer heat.  And those that were stored in the closets need to be tidied up too.  Definitely  a good time to thrash, donate and pass on some of the stuff to friends.

Corinne and Rita are now back in San Diego.  They left Phoenix on Friday night.

It was a busy but fun week for all of us.  It’s great that Yu-Xin and Yu-En have a little companion for a week.  On the whole, Corinne and Yu-Xin got along very well.  They would end up quarrelling some time but this is normal for kids this young.  Corinne is just like a big sister to them and would be my little informer if she saw Yu-Xin bullying her little sister or misbehaving.  She was totally crazy over Yu-En and would grab every opportunities to have Yu-En sat on her lap.

When Rita got in on Thursday afternoon, we had lunch together while Yu-Xin was still in school.  We then went to a Asian supermarket here to shop for some food items that Rita cannot find in San Diego.

That evening, we all went to Cheesecake Factory for dinner.  By the time we had cheese cakes for dessert, all the kids were getting sleepy especially Corinne and Yu-Xin due to their earlier trip to the pool.

We had planned to bring Rita and Corinne to Sedona the following day, Friday.  Papa took a day off so he was able to sleep in a little bit.  When Corinne came onto the bed with our two little ones, I teased papa that he probably thought that he was in a dream with 3 daughters instead of 2.  Would that be a nightmare for him?  heehee……

We always bring our visitors to the Little Chapel in Sedona and they are often in awe with the beauty of the red rocks formation around us.

Papa looked after the 3 girls while both mothers did some shopping.

As always, Corinne would go for the chance to hold Yu-En.

Was it raining?  No, the girls had fun playing under the mister.

Corinne definitely had a good time with the Ongs as Rita called to tell me that as soon as papa AS drove off from the airport, she cried from the outside to the check-in counter.  She didn’t want to go home!

Even though it was a rushed trip for Rita and the visit was done without Jason, we are glad that Rita and Corinne were able to come before we move back to Singapore. Hopefully they will be able to return to Phoenix with Jason one of these days.

When Yu-Xin insisted in sleeping with Corinne in the same room last night, I was not too hopeful that she would last through.  Sure enough, she woke up crying at 2am and realised that she was in a different room.  You see, she has been sleeping with us in the same room but on a different bed for the past 1.5 years.  So at 2am, I woke up to her crying and saw her running out towards our room.  Corinne was woken up by her crying too but fortunately she fell right back to sleep.

As papa AS had promised the girls earlier that he will bring them to the pool in the evening and these girls have only one word in their dictionary ie “now”, they have been constantly asking me when we can all go since the moment they woke up. And I’ve been trying to creatively tell them the same answer but in a different ways since the moment I woke up

As Yu-Xin didn’t have to go to school today, she gets to play with Corinne the whole day.  At her age, she’s still territorial over her toys and stuff at times.  So I have to constantly drill into her the concept of taking turns, waiting and sharing.

The girls played with the dolls and strollers alot.  Even Yu-En joined in the fun at some point.  They had to take a break when Spongebob started playing on TV as that is Corinne’s favourite cartoon.

I gave the girls art activities to do after watching cartoon.  They had fun cutting and pasting.  I was happy that I was able to cook Yu-En’s lunch while the girls are busy with their glue sticks and scissors and the little one soundly asleep in her crib.  So far so good.

The highlight of the day was definitely the swim.  Papa AS was given a very loud and joyous welcome when he stepped into the living room. Immediately the girls scrambled to get their shoes and after gathering all the essentials, we set off for the community pool that is just 5 minutes drive from our house.  They were ecstatic when we arrived.

At 5.30pm, the water was so warm and though the sun was still out there baking, we had shade.  Perfect!!

It was a fun filled day for all of us.

Because of the swim, it was not too difficult to get all the girls in bed tonight.