姊妹合制聖誕裝飾

第一次嘗試讓安和樂合制簡單的聖誕裝飾。

首先讓樂負責“打底”。家裡只有綠色的易洗漆（Washable paint)，擠點在畫紙上，讓樂隨意亂抹。不過，大多數的顏料，都讓她抹在身上、頭上、地上... 哇，一塌糊塗！ :)


顏料乾後，讓安在紙背後畫上星星，剪下；再將閃光膠 (Glitter glue) 塗抹在星星上。乘閃光膠未乾時，黏上小亮片做點綴。全乾後，將星星貼在彩色閃卡上，一來可以讓星星比較硬／耐，二來讓星星後面也是閃閃發亮，比較美觀。家裡只有紫紅色閃卡，所以選擇了配對的紫紅色閃光膠和以紫紅色為主的小亮片。 將星星再次剪下，打洞。最後，串上紫紅色的金屬線 (Sandwich bag sealer) 呈環狀。



完工！小小的星星裝飾，已經寄了兩個給在英國的爺爺奶奶作紀念。希望大雪不會耽擱了郵遞服務哦！


愛心小提示：讓小小孩玩顏料之前，最好是讓孩子打赤膊上陣，除非你不介意很麻煩的事後清理工作 :)

聖誕安樂！

Our very own Advent Calendar

Opening up the little windows on the advent calendar, is one of the highlights for J in the month of Dec! In fact, it is one of the most exciting ways for our family to count down to Christmas.

For the past few years, we have lit up advent candles and bought different type of religious advent calendar. It was such a delight to see J's happy face in anticipation of Christmas. It was also a good way to talk to J about the true spirit of Christmas based on the lovely pictures hidden behind those little windows.

This year, we decided to make our very own version of advent calendar. There are many ways in making one. Due to time constraint (and my limited energy...), we chose the easiest design...

First, we got J to cut out little green squares, and wrote 1 to 24 on it. Then, she glued those green squares on red envelopes.



D prepared the "contents" of the red envelopes. There were bible versus, the story of Christmas, different lovely pictures and some fun activities (e.g. going to Christmas Fair, visiting Christmas Band Fiesta, making gingerbreadman house with daddy, etc). And, of course, little treats (oh yes, how can we forget the candy canes!) for Saturday and Sunday, J's sweety days! :)



After we put those "contents" in the red envelopes (leave the special treats till last minute in case they are visited by ants first), it's time to put up the "Advent Calendar". We found a little space just perfect for it... and got J to draw a big star and cut it out...




Here is our very own Advent Tree! Happy Christmas!!

Tis the season to be jolly!

At the beginning of Nov, J and I started our annual Christmas card making regime. Unlike previous years where we had a lot of time to do it together, this year, we have T... who is always curious and a real handful!!! I have to make sure that T takes her nap at the right time so that J and I can have undisturbed craft session together :)

This year, we decided to join the Cards Swap program organized by the Kidscraftweekly. If you are interested, take a look at the following link:

http://www.kidscraftweekly.com/card_swap_faq.html




Here are some of the finished "products" all handmade by J, with love :)

中秋很平安

從安一歲起，每年的中秋，我和外子都準備一些適合她年齡的應節手工、遊戲、故事、節目等。

今年，我們在星期六晚上邀請安的朋友及家長來我們家吃團圓飯，然後一起參加咱們社區所舉辦的提燈遊行。此外，我也在中秋前夕的下午（即是昨天啦），辦了個小小的聚會。我們邀請了一些小朋友一同來吃月餅柚子，做簡單的燈籠美勞，玩遊戲等。其中，我也準備了一個有關嫦娥奔月的卡片玩偶表演。


小朋友們很喜歡那十個太陽，尤其是貝比小太陽 :)


我將故事簡化，由那老頭兒給后羿兩顆小藥丸。月亮上的“黑點”就是為了拯救人民而將兩顆小藥丸吞進肚子里然後身體變得輕飄飄的嫦娥啦！

這個故事的寓意是：不可以隨便吃藥！

再次祝各界，中秋很平安！

中秋很快樂

趁著樂午睡，我和安才有機會在不受打擾之下，一同製作花燈。

材料：利苑好吃得不得了的低糖雙黃白蓮蓉月餅，的餅盒 :)





將兩個塑膠餅盒（裡面裝月餅的那個，不是外面的包裝餅盒）合併，讓安用膠紙黏起。當然，之前得先將其中一個餅盒剪開四個大洞。用布制花和花紙裝飾後，再把四個 tea lights 用 blu-tack 固定在四個洞洞里，就大功告成啦！很簡單！

這是家母親手為安製作的小豬環保花燈，厲害吧？！




祝眾友們，中秋很快樂！

2010年夏天的巴塞罗那

今年夏天的巴塞罗那，很熱、很熱。給了我和外子非常好的理由，幾乎餐餐都大灌特灌西班牙的特產，Cava起泡酒，過癮!!!

首兩天乘坐觀光巴士，參觀好幾個重要的景點，很方便。坐在巴士的開蓬車頂，能輕易地欣賞到巴塞罗那沿路美麗的風光和造型特殊的建築物。巴士進入隧道時，好像在坐過山車，嚇得乘客們都尖叫，很刺激！


不到此地，等於沒有到過巴塞罗那 － 你認同嗎？不過，當我們笨笨地、莫名其妙地乘坐電梯上兩塔之間的橋，才被告知，對不起，你必須自己由十八樓走樓梯下來；然後我們一家四口，在那狹窄、昏暗、傾斜、悶熱、沒有標誌的樓梯一步一腳印，千辛萬苦、滿頭大汗、手軟腳抖、頭暈眼花、臉色青白、上氣不接下氣的走下來，差一點就要叫救護車，時，我們可後悔得半死！！！！！


在烈日下，我排隊買票排了整一個小時吧？？還和一大堆渾身臭汗的年輕小伙子擠呀擠，就只為了讓外子高興不會有遺憾！我一定是瘋了！！


累透了的三個傢伙


La Rambla的街邊賣藝者之一，好玩！外子說，還好是坐的，如果是蹲的，可有他好受！


每到一個城市，最喜歡就是到菜市去走走，爽！



處在Sarrià其中一間古老的糖果店。那美味誘人犯罪的蛋糕巧克力餅乾糖果，好吃到令我們想哭！

短短一個星期，我們除了意思意思一下逛逛博物館、溜溜畫廊、看看古蹟（呵呵！），大多數的時間都花在吃吃喝喝。那一小碟一小碟的tapas起司香腸醃肉火腿paella起泡酒，現在回想起，就滿口生津！

Our first home in SG (1 July 2008 to 30 June 2010)

These are some of the photos of our first home in SG. It's a lovely place and we have a lot of fond memories here.

As much as we love this house, it is time to move on (the landlord is going to move in). We are looking forward to decorating our second house in SG and make it our home that is full with love, joy, and happiness :)


J enjoyed washing car with daddy.


Although it's good for us to have some exercises climbing up and down the stairs, this is not a very pushchair friendly stairs - which is a good reason to move house


We enjoyed sitting outside to enjoy afternoon tea/BBQ dinner/birdwatching/to see the world goes by...



J sometimes will climb over the fence to our neighbours' houses to play with their children and their puppy. We are indeed very lucky to have great neighbours!!






Our lovely plants which gave us so much pleasure...



This is where we chilled out with relaxing music, a good book and a cup of tea...


... and to have parties, games nights and dinner with friends... it's also a big table for mummy and J to make art and craft


The not so tidy zone... J's playarea - you can tell that we are not a big fan of watching TV :)


A very natural "sandpit"... where J found her "treasures" (pebbles, earth worms, caterpillars etc...)


A big canvas at the backyard and also where J can have her "Malaysian bath" (playing water in big basin)


This is where J pretended to be mummy/unicorn/doctor/puppy/fashion designer etc etc etc with her mates...


J experienced her very first "camping" before we took her to camp at the West Coast Park.. looking forward to taking the girls to the real jungle in Malaysia to camp :)

Just realized that we didn't have a photo of our big kitchen!! Ahhh.... We spent quite a lot of our time in the kitchen... cooking, baking, listening to the radio, doing house chores together, having breakfast/lunch/dinner/supper/snacks...

We love this house very very much... but it is also good for us to move to another house which is more baby friendly (good for crawler/walker), less stairs to climb and more manageable for a mother of two :)

Really looking forward to moving into our second home in SG!

Trashion Parade

It was Environment Week at J's school two weeks ago. Her year group had "Trashion Parade" and the children were encouraged to make clothing or accessories with recycled materials.

I asked J what would she like to dress up as. She said, she wanted to be a pony. I said, hmm.. that's probably a bit challenging. How about dress up as a farmer? She replied that she preferred to be a farmer's daughter...

So J and I made these together... while we did these, T was lying quietly on the floor next to us, watching...






A hat for the farmer... opps, the farmer's daughter.



She wanted to wear an apron... so perhaps an useless nappy plastic bag is a better material than a useful bin bag?



and a boot. This is actually J's idea... it's made out of her broken school shoes which I have thrown away into our recycled bin, and with some packaging cards.

It took us about a week (about 15mins to 30mins every afternoon) to finish the above. It's quite challenging to do crafts with J nowadays as I have to looking after T at the same time... I just have to be more patient and plan in advance :)