Bibou's birthday with Disney

It's Bibou's actual birthday today, and though we'd celebrated her birthday with Kong kong and Mah mah last week with a big birthday party, we thought we'd go and have some fun today seeing the weather wasn't too miserable (cloudy and around 19 degrees centigrade). So we too off for Cafe Mickey at Disney Village this morning.

However, we got there a little early as the restaurant only opened at mid-day, about 40 minutes away...so we walked around. Daddy had an old baggette in his bag so we spent a few minutes feeding the seagulls and ducks. Reminded me of that one scene from 'Finding Nemo' with all the seagulls calling out 'mine' for the fish. Those seagulls were fierce! But we managed to feed the ducks and seagulls.

When all the bread was gone, we continued walking, skipping the merry-go-round as Bibou felt that they were going too fast (they were going quite fast this one!). We came to an area with 3 huge trampolines, a couple of kids were on it so Bibou saw and wanted to get on them too. So Daddy brought Bibou on and wow, did she have fun. Jump, Jump Jump! It looked like so much fun that Daddy decided to get on too. And boy did he jump and jump with Bibou. She could jump really high and wasn't afraid, no sirreee... she's one daredevil still! We jumped until it was time for lunch!

Then we headed onto Cafe Mickey. We'd told them in advanced that it was Bibou's birthday so they had a cake ready. As we sat down and ordered our food, one by one, we had a whole host of characters coming out to mingle with the diners. The first to come by was Daisy Duck. She was very nice, and Bibou ended up blowing her a kiss too! Next came the shy, sweet Eyore from Winnie the Pooh. Unfortunately, he was a little bit big, and so scared Bibou a little. She was whimpering a bit (fortunately, she didn't cry like the little girl next to us, who wouldn't stop crying for about 1/2 hour after Captain Hook came and visit her table!).

Who else? Well, we had a little friendly 'ribbing' with Mr Mcsee (sp?) from Peter Pan. We thought at first that he was one of the 7 Dwarfs, and started calling him all the names of the 7 Dwarfs.. Doc, Smiley, Sleepy etc.. He 'pretended' to get really mad and stomped his foot and throw tissue paper at us, so we yelled out, Grouchy, Grumpy etc. That was really fun!

Next, we had Chip AND Dale the chipmunks (we found out what was the difference between them! Chip has 1 tooth and Dale has 2 teeth), there was the big ole friendly Baloo the bear from the Jungle Book (unfortunately, he was so big that he gave Bibou a scare). Captain Hook certainly was scary and he knew to avoid out table for fear for scaring little Bibou. Bibou stuck her tongue out at him!!

Soon, we'd finished out meal, and suddenly, the loudspeakers went off and tada! Happy birthday song came on and out came Daisy Duck with a birthday cake (with 3 candles instead of two!!). Everyone sang happy birthday, and Bibou blew out her own candles again. Yippee! She gave Daisy a kiss too. Just before we left, Mickey and Donald came out finally for a visit, but I think that little Bibou was too tired after that and she was a little bit scared. So we packed up, took a nice walk through Disney village. We popped into a shop to get a nice coat, and while waiting for me to pay up, Bibou spent a lovely time... rolling on the floor. While walking through into the car, Bibou played around with the 'handprints' of Planet Hollywood. We soon got to the car and Bibou was out like a lightbulb as soon as the car started. What a lovely birthday lunch!

Oh new things that Bibou can do now, she can put on her shoes all by herself (especially those with Velcro strips). Most of the time, she gets the right side of the shoe on the right foot too. She's gabbering a mile a minute now. New words every day! New recent words now, 'oh c'est partie (it's gone)!!' and we'll get her to repeat it in English 'it or he's gone'. She still loves giving lots of kisses. Every morning, we get lots of kisses. Awwwww. Happy Birthday Josephine.

Bibou's 2nd Birthday

All too fast, Bibou's turning two! As Kongkong and mahmah were here, we decided to host Bibou's 2nd birthday party a week in advance, just 1 week shy of her actual birthday.

We'd decided that it was gonna be themed party, so we asked everyone to come in their favorite costumes! Bibou got to wear her supergal outift again. We had a couple of princesses, a spiderman, grasshopper and a pirate.

We were very lucky with the weather that day. Though there were a little bit of threatening clouds in the morning, it turned out to be a gorgeous and not too cold day! And the party was held outdoors. Yippee.

Unfortunately, Bibou was still sleepy when guests started to arrive, so she was grouchy and clingy at first. But all that changed once we let her open her birthday pressies... especially the big one from us! It was a trompoline!! yippee... it took Daddy and kongkong a while to assemble it lol, but once it was all set up, it was by far, the hottest, most popular item in the whole garden! Everyone wanted to have a go at it. Bibou of course got first go, and she jumped and jumped and jumped. All the other kids had their turn and they loved it too.

Before we brought the cake out, we found out that some of the kids had smashed it a little and destroying the icing on it! Oh dear, but it was Rebecca to the rescue! She saved the cake and made some lovely decorations from the mini smarties that we had. Bibou was all excited with the cake and she even blew out her own candles! She knew how. oh wow!

Next, Daddy brought out the pineta that we'd made. All the (other) kids had great fun whacking it, and Daddy trying to stay away from the whacks! unfortunately, Bibou wasn't in the mood, and prefered to stay in her sandpit! But she did come out and grab the candy and balloons that came rushing out once the pineta was broke.

All in all, it was a really fun day (I hope for everyone!). Oh and Bibou loved all her pressies! But we were particularly tickled when she took a harmonica that she was given and started blowing and making music! She's real talented!

Bibou the Poser!

Oh anything for another post eh? Ok, so here are some great photos of Bibou posing. This gal KNOWS when she's in front of the camera. Enjoy!

Chateau Visit with Kongkong and Mahmah

It was the Angloinfo day out at the Chateau de Chantilly (The Chantilly Castle). (Side track here - Chantilly is also the word for whipping cream, and yes, it's where whipping cream originated from. Needless to say, we had lots of whipping cream or chantilly for dessert during lunch that day!

Anyway, yes, a day out in the countryside (it was about 1 hour drive from us) and a lovely day at that...well, it started out as a lovely day (and rain as we were leaving! yippee). The chateau was huge and a majestic sight as we approached it. It was very
well kept. We took a (too long unfortunately, for Bibou) tour of the apartments that were really gorgeous. Then off we went, for a walk in the forest, to a small little area for lunch, and where the Angloinfo community was holding the fair.

There was a cozy restaurant where we sat down and had a most scrumplious lunch (with large fat ducks waddling next to us... Bibou had fun feeding them her bread!). There was a lovely playground too that Bibou had fun on while we visit the MESSAGE table and had a good time networking with the Anglo community out that day. We were all very tired by the time we got in the car. And all fell prompty to sleep, including Daddy the driver (we were catch in a bad traffic jam...) so I took over. All in all, another tiring but lovely day with Kongkong and Mahmah.

Our new Room Downstairs

Our wonderful talented Daddy finished up building the new room downstairs in the basement. He did everything himself and did a fabulous job. We have a lovely cosy little room for guests now so you all don't have to sleep in the living room now! (so come on down for a visit QUICK!). When we don't have guests, well, it's a perfect kids' play room. The blue couch turns into a very comfortable sofa bed.

There is even a TV and DVD set, which my parents used very often when they were in bed falling asleep. The original red brick and stone walls are just perfect, everyone has commented that it just looks great, and goes very well, with the great 'moroccan-themed tent' ceiling that Daddy made.

Anyway, here's a few pictures that we got Bibou posing in her Cheongsam that Mahmah got for her in the room.

You all now come and vist you hear?!

Another fun day with Kongkong and Mahmah

Seeing how Bibou adored the merry-go-rounds each time we were there, we thought that we'd stop by our favorite one one day after lunch in Paris.

Oh Bibou was totally totally excited when we approached her favorite place! She couldn't wait to get on, and I had to explain to her, gently that we first had to buy tickets.

We finally managed to get on it and the first thing she went for was her horsey. And then the music started and off we went. Up and down. and Round and round. Oooh she was totally excited... squealing with delight everytime we went round. She was yelling out to everyone as we went past them. "DADDY", "KONGKONG", "MAHMAH" (you can even tell from one of the pictures here as she yelled out kongkong from her horsey). And they of course were especially tickled to see how happy, excited she was! She almost wiggled off her horsey, but she hung on tightly, so did I (to her of course!). When the music stopped, she got off her horsey but immediately went on to another ride as Daddy and I switched places!

We had the 'obligatory' ice cream, which Bibou spilt all over herself and coat lol. One more round the Merry-go-Round and off home we went!

Farmer Girl!

On a sunny Monday, we thought that it would be a great idea to go to a farm, seeing that 1) it is a Monday, so there shouldn't be too many people, 2) Bibou LOVES apples, and apples are in season right now, and we were told (on our MESSAGE website that there were abundance) 3) my parents, especially kongkong (who was actually quite tickled that our apple tree in our back garden had some big apples) loved to go harvesting, especially since it is something you can't do in Singapore! So off to the Ferme de Gally (or Gally Farm) which you should be quite familiar with by now as we've been there so very often on this blog now, we went.

When we got there, we were so pleasently surprised. There just wasn't many people there, so we almost had the whole place to ourselves! And it was a huuuuuuuuuuuuuge place. One doesn't realize it at first, when you're there with lots of people as we would be jostling to get to the good fruits and vegetables. But as we were alone, we could see how vast it was! The first thing that we went straight for was the apple orchards. Blimey, there were rows and rows and rows of them apples! Well, some of them were corned off, so we had to walk a fairly long way to get to them. We were looking for some golden delicious, which is Bibou's favorite. But along the way, we got to find out a few different varities and also learning how to pick them apples. Bibou was just thrilled at first that there were just sooo many apples. She was squealing : "apples" "apples" as she pointed them out. She was amazed that there were so many everywhere... at first, she didn't quite understand what they were doing on the trees themselves. She'd pick one off the ground (and we'd to rush over to make sure that they were not rotten or anything) and eat it (well, first asking us to take a bite first for her as she still can't get the 'first bite' down), and then squeal when she sees another (and trust me, there were tons on the ground). She was literally in apples paradise! Then she realized that we were not picking apples off the ground but plucking them from the trees... and she decided that she wanted to try too. So Daddy hoisted her off the ground, and with a big look of concentration on her face, she managed to pull a couple of apples off the tree. And boy was she proud! By now, mahmah and Kongkong had filled our (very squeaky for some reason!) wheelbarrow up with quite a bit of apples. So she also wanted to try and push the wheel barrow, but it was tooo heavy. She settled with playing 'swing' between kongkong and mummy!.

After picking apples, we went to the other side (a very long way actually!!) to get some vegetables. Bibou did get quite tired and ended up mostly on my or Daddy's shoulders or kongkong's arm. Needless to say, Bibou fell prompty to sleep once we were in the car. And what a day we had. We came home with lots of apples (and I've made apple crumble already and everyon'es been eating lots of apples), lovely yummy sweet young corn (they were particularly good!), some great big red shallots. yum yum. And best of all, we got to spend a great day with kong kong and mahmah.