Chopsticks!

This past weekend, we went to our favorite Japanese restaurant not too far from us. The girls love it there! The food is good - they love the miso soup and cabbage salad, and gobble up the chicken nuggets and rice, and in great anticipation of the 'hello kitty' ice cream that comes after. Daddy and I totally enjoy the very fresh sashimi they have. And the staff there all adore the girls; they are often showered with candies / lollipops when we leave. They find the girls most cute, especially since they always politely (or cheekily with big grins on their face) say 'xie xie' (thank you in Chinese) to them every time they come to our table. After lunch, the girls will run about in the little field outside the restaurant (and is great during the summer as we would eat outdoors next to the little field). Anyway, Bibou surprised us during lunch when she picked up her chopsticks and just started eating away with them!! Fortunately, I had my phone with me, so I snapped these videos.

Enjoy! Oh and here's a really cute photo for Seraphine. She loves wearing shoes, especially other people's shoes and one morning, I caught her wearing my croc boots! Poor girly has been sick recently, so a bit clingy. But prior to that, she's been proudly showing how she can pee on the toilet! Sigh, time for potty training again.

Bibou showing how she uses chopsticks.

Seraphine and I at the gelato shop having a(nother) treat.

The girls playing ball at the field in front of the restaurant.

Found some more videos!!!

Here's a treat....I found more videos. Daddy got this fab Christmas present - a mini video recorder and we'd been having fun with it.

Our two girls are such great actresses! And Seraphine does listen to whatever Bibou says!!

What happens when the girls get hold of Daddy's camera? They play with it of course!! Here's a 'private moment' between the girls, it really shows the interaction between them.

We had Bibou's boyfriend, Dan over for some 'gallette'. I'd bought a make-it-yourself kit and the kids had great fun making it themselves. And while the cake was in the oven, all four of them went upstairs to do some drawing. Here you can see Bibou speaking in French.

Our Bibou is such a story teller.... in more ways than 1.... LOL.

Here's Seraphine 'running away' from Daddy in a game of 'I catch u'.

Here's a typical meal time with the kids (though without the screaming LOL).

Finally, here's something silly, we played around while my ankle was swollen...daddy took a video of my clumsiness!

Until the next time! Hopefully soon....

Chinese New Year

Gong xi gong xi! It was Chinese new year recently, and we had loads of people over at ours. This year, the first day of CNY was on Feb 14^th – Valentine’s day. Perfect reason for Daddy to ignore that day! LOL. We started with lunch with 2 other families. We started with curry puffs (chicken and vegetarian), fried wan tons (meat and also just shrimp) and sweet and sour soup made by R, and then everyone had their own version of laksa… everyone put what they want on their own laksa. This was because we had a vegetarian and so wanted to give everyone a chance to choose what they wanted to go into their bowl. It worked!! We lingered over lunch and then soon, it was time for ‘gouter’…. And wow, did we have lots. I think we counted more than 40 people in our little house! I had made about 150 pineapple tarts, 100 sugi cookies and 50 melting moments, plus 2 banana bread; they were all mostly gone by the end of the day. I managed to save some for ourselves (and a little for our offices) – the girls loved the pineapple tarts and couldn’t stop eating them. Daddy favored the sugi cookies (made from ghee) himself (I admit that I do too – they were a bit salty). The girls had lots of fun with all the kids that came, and were, I’m pleased to say, very happy to share their toys with everyone. Their favorite though, is hide and seek! And THAT is Seraphine’s favorite game … she can do it really well too! She will hide her eyes and count (she actually does a pretty decent job of counting to 10…the numbers are mixed up but she’s got most of the numbers correct, and she can definitely count up to 5) and go running squealing in delight. Bibou (well Seraphine too) is one of the one worst hider I know, as she cannot stop giggling! Now, the girls, esp Seraphine, loves to ‘hide’ esp when they hear us coming (either up or down the stairs) and you can hear Seraphine shouting in delight to bibou “quick bibou, hide hide, HIDE, giggle giggle”.

The best part though was dressing the girls up. Kongkong had sent these gorgeous Chinese outfits and the girls were soooo thrilled to wear them. So much so that they even endured sitting down quietly and letting me play with their hair. Actually, they love dress up so much, they’ll sit through anything to look good. They were super excited when they saw each other in the same outfit and same hair style. They scrambled to get their new Chinese slippers and off they went, prancing and dancing in front of the mirror.

Anyway, enjoy this batch of photos of the girls in their best chinese outfits so far!

Christmas with good Friends

This holiday, we had the great fortune to share the Christmas spirit with some good friends. First was the 3C MESSAGE Christmas Party. There were tons of friends and children there and the girls had such a fab time. They were particularly thrilled to play with their friends around their age. Friends that they meet and see at school too. Seraphine was happy that she was able to munch on lots of chips! You can see her ‘stealing’ into the chip bowl, keeping an eye out for me in case I tell her not to eat too much! There were loads of food, and I made a buche de noel as always. That got gobbled up. Oh then ta-da, what everyone was waiting for…Santa arrived! Poor Santa though, he got mobbed by the children, some of the adults had to gently lead him to the chair. Anyway, mob settled down and Santa began to pull out presents from his bag, and calling a child’s name. Then the child could take a photo with Santa. Oo the kids were all excited. Seraphine’s present was near the top so her name got called..however, she was too afraid of Santa and didn’t want to take a photo with him, let alone sit on his lap!! We let it go and just let her take the present, which she was really happy to do so, running away with the gift. Poor Bibou though, her present was buried way below, at the bottom of the pile in Santa’s bag. And as each child’s name was called, and they received their present, she became more and more anxious that Santa had forgotten about her. She did look like she was going to cry at one stage, and I was just about to go comfort her and reassure her that Santa wouldn’t forget about her when her name got called! Her face got all lit up immediately! She climbed on Santa’s lap and gave her lovely smile for the camera before rushing off to open up the present. Both girls were extremely pleased with their gifts (bags with make-up and Dora pens), but couldn’t quite understand how Santa knew what they liked! (We the parents had each bought something and placed them in the Santa bag ;)) Daddy then played on his guitar and sang loads of Christmas carols. Everyone had loads of fun. The girls were really pleased and tried.

However, the biggest treat was a last minute call we got from our dear friends in London the Gs. They invited us to join them for Christmas at their home in London. After a bit of debating, we decided to go and what a time we had! We had a BLAST! We were warmly welcomed into their home, right in London. They have 2 girls, right around our girls age too, so the kids played very well together. And during our short time there, they had planned loads of meals / entertainment with their friends, so we met with a lot of wonderful new people. On Christmas day, the girls were really excited about Christmas… however we didn’t open presents as we had to get to church for Christmas mass and then we went to another friends of Gs for a wonderful delicious Christmas lunch. Finally, we got home and all four girls ran straight to the living room and waited for their presents!! There was much ripping of paper and squealing of delight I can tell you. Bibou loved loved her Barbie kitchen set and the look of pure delight on Seraphine’s face when she opened up Dora was unmatchable! But Daddy and I had the best present of all – the Gs gave us the night off - they babysat our kids and got us tickets to the theatre!! It was a surprise and a lovely surprise one that is. Yes, all in all, it was the best vacation ever yet. All the food we ate was oh so good but most of all, it was the company we had; spending time with good friends. On our last day, we all took the girls to Kensington Park where there was a 'Winter Wonderland Park' going on. There were loads of rides for the girls, but we decided that everyone was allowed 1.... and they all picked the snowglobe - the girls got in and had fun throwing the balls around! We were really sad to leave. We hope to see them real soon

This video was taken at playmobileland - Daddy took the girls during their school vacation with a couple of good friends.

Happy Holidays!

Josephine, Seraphine, their Mummy and Daddy would like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas! And only the best wishes for the New Year. May all your wishes come true in 2010. Happy, healthy and prosperous everyone! We are looking forward to 2010 ourselves as we leave behind a rather difficult 2009! It has to be better!

Oh boy…. As you can tell, I had started writing

the blog 2 months ago (ok as I hope to post this – this is like more than 3 months ago now)! Where has the time gone? It sure looks like my regular excuse isn’t it? Well, I did have a little excuse beginning to Jan – I tripped and fell (though who trips on fall on flat, carpeted floor?? Only me!) and badly sprained my ankle. I was hobbling around on a crutch and MAN did it hurt, it was badly bruised. Ouch. 2 months later, and my ankle is still not 100%. That’s me.

Anyway, so yes, we had a wonderful Christmas break. Even as early as beginnin

g December, Bibou has been asking about Christmas. When are we going to have the tree up? Is Santa Clause coming? Are we going to have presents etc? She was sooo excited. She just couldn’t wait. We started by decorating our living rooms and also making our own Christmas tree decorations. I went out and got some lovely colored felts, glitter pens and glue. Bibou and I sat down one afternoon (while the mischievous one was in bed) and made our own Christmas tree decorations. We decided to make Christmas tree and found some nice photos of the gi

rls. She was real proud of them.

Finally, it was time to get the Christmas tree. All the smaller ones were gone so I got a really tall one this year. You should have seen the look on the girls’ faces, especially Bibou when they saw the tree. Oh she was jumping for joy. She couldn’t wait to get started on the decorating. She couldn’t quite understand

why we couldn’t do it immediately (the tree had to get ‘acclimatized’ to our room and the heating). Poor girlie. But they

both waited and also get into the act of ‘watering’ the tree with the water spray. Then they began horsing around, having fun. They slipped on the santa hats, and begun pulling down over their eyes, and running around bumping into each other blindly. Funny girls.

Finally, it was time to decorate. Daddy popped some popcorn a

nd Bibou helped me made a popcorn garland. The girls certainly had fun hanging all the decorations on the tree. Bibou was so proud to put the Angel at the top of the tree. The most amazing part was that all the presents stayed under the tree!

The Girls

Yes, the girls. What can we say except that they are a pair of cheeky, funny, sweet but oh so naughty monkeys. They have evolved so quickly and by leaps and bounds over the past 3-4 months! Most notably Seraphine. She’s now able to communicate with some limited vocabulary. The person who most understands her is….. Bibou of course! She does most of the translation for us. They are so good to each other! I love to watch them play together, it’s soooo cute. Bibou speaks really encouragingly to her, and I was actually quite tickled to hear this the other day : “come on sweetheart, you can do it, just push the ball this way…. YES bravo sweetheart”. However, sweet as they are, these tender moments don’t last long. Ohhhh they fight like cats and dogs!!!!!!!! Do they fight ever! Seraphine has come to an age where everything is ‘hers’, and often tries to snatch everything from her big sister, who, understandably tries to defend her stuff and herself. Unfortunately, she doesn’t do it well, she just either snatches back or screams at her; both of which results in Seraphine pinching or biting her and then the back and forth goes on. Sigh. There is much intervention and corner time at our house lately. Doesn’t help also that Bibou is such a cuddly person and wants to cuddle and hug her sister (all of us of course) all the time and Seraphine is soooooooooo not that person. She hates to be cuddled and has no qualms of pushing her big sister away, which then hurts her feelings. She also doesn’t like Bibou’s whiney and tattle-tale-ing ways and often swipes at her when she does. (can’t blame her there). So, yes, it’s like fight club at our place sometimes. But there is no doubt they are stuck together like glue, and cannot live without each other. Seraphine always always seeks out Bibou; when she wakes up for example and always thinks about her whenever she receives anything – be it her snack, lunch or treat. It’s always ‘and Bibou?’. One phrase that is often heard in our house over and over again, “BIBOUUUUUUUU….attend me, ok? Attend me….”, as she scrambles to catch up with her. She’ll like whatever Bibou likes, and repeats whatever Bibou does. The picture here with the both of them in the snow was taken one morning when there were huge snowflakes falling. Bibou stuck her tongue out to ‘catch’ the snow, and Seraphine of course wanted to do just like Bibou…. She’s really cute and perceptive… and she gives the best hugs and kisses (when she feels like she wants to doll them out of course!). And she LOVES LOVES smaller children and babies. They both do, but especially Serpahine. We have a neighbor who has a little girl about 1 ½ years old, (but quite tiny) and both of them would be all over her, wanting to hug and hold her, have her on their laps. Really sweet.

Bibou’s development and also English (understanding and spea

king) has also improved quite a lot. She loves her English class and is doing very well there! Here’s her report card which really reflects that. She’s enjoying it so much. She gets

so very excited about her 2 school days. We’re also potty training her at night now. The problem is that she is such a deep sleeper than she just can’t wake up. We’ve resorted to not letting her drink too much in the evening and Daddy has to carry her down to the bathroom just before we go to bed! So far so good. Well, she needs to be ready as our baby is going to be

leaving us for about 10 days in May! She’s going away to camp!!! I’m not quite ready, but she’s so ready! It’ll be a good experience for her. And she’s really excited about it.

The Videos

This is a hilarious vid of Seraphine 'telling Bibou off' - we've recently been telling Seraphine (whenever she's up to no good) that what she did was 'naughty, naughty' (with fingers wagging too), and recently she's taken to copying that and telling people that they've been naughty, especially if they're not doing what she wants!.

For some reason, this is one of my favorite videos of Seraphine; - like she's all grown up and not the baby anymore :( .

Another cute talking video

Daddy snapped this video of Seraphine - she'd JUST woken up after her nap and instead of her usual calling out for someone to come get her (only so that she can 'hide' - under the blankets and 'surprise' you when you come up to an 'empty' bed), she decided to come down the stairs, wearing a hat and grabbing whatever that is in her hands that was probably in her bed. Seraphine is a big 'treasure' hogger'! She loves bringing things into bed with her and sometimes I would find her in bed squeezed in one corner because the rest of the bed is filled with stuff! (books, crayons, dolls, playset, etc).

Here's a video of the girls dancing away. You will notice how Seraphine just copies whatever Bibou does.

This is a video of a 'guilty' Seraphine who's being told off for splashing water! She knows she's in the wrong.....

Finally, a very unusual pose for the girls. Seraphine doesn't like to cuddle, but this particular morning, Daddy found them cuddling, watching their show. Like I said, very unusual.... I think Seraphine wasn't feeling well too. Anyway, needless to say, the cuddle didn't last very long!