Boo for Halloween!

October 31 came sneaked up on us / me! Probably 'coz of my super long month. I'd really didn't have a lot of time to prepare for it! I'd wanted to dress up the kids and put on make-up too! But I didn't get round to it. Fortunately, (I guess!) Bibou only wanted to go as a princess (no surprise there!), and I managed to grab some cute off-the-rack 'ghost' outfit for Angel. However, when we tried to put it on, we realized that the darn thing didn't have any 'feet' - it was all sealed in at the bottom - I guess it was more for a baby who couldn't walk. No worries, I just grab a pair of scissors and cut the bottoms off for a little hole for Angel's legs hehehehe.

Anyway, that morning, Daddy mangaged to quickly crave a little scary pumpkin before leaving for work. I left early that morning but left the office relatively early so that I could go do some groccery shopping and then rushed home, first to see the kids and then to cook! As we were having company that evening. Yes, all the way from Canada! Ed and Irene and Andrew, really good friends of Babie and Ed were passing through town and were giving us the honor of visiting us! So I couldn't wait to come home. I was however, surprised when I got home... both the girls were sleeping - Angel I wasn't surprised of course... it was nap time, but I was surprised that Bibou was! According to their nanny, Bibou just said that she was tired and curled up on the sofa and promptly went to sleep. The nanny knew that they were going to have a long night, so she encouraged her to sleep. Gave me some time to prepare dinner! Which ended up to be beef curry puffs for starters, laksa as the main dish and banana bread as dessert!

The evening all went by terribly quickly. As I was preparing dinner, Ed & Irene and Andrew arrived. Ed was great, he helped me in the kitchen while Andrew and Irene played with the girls, and then Daddy arrived. I then realized what time it was (close to 7.00 pm), and as we scrambled to get the kids dressed, the door bell rang! Tons of little witches and ghouls were at the gate! Ai! We really scrambled then. Daddy rushing to get the candies to the kids out there, while we tried to get the kids dressed. Unfortunately, Bibou had taken a peek out of the windows and got frightened! Like the previous years! She was scared and whiny and didn't want to get dressed. We had to do everything to persuade her and get everyone dressed and out of the door! (and to promise her lots of bonbon). Off they went, Daddy and the kids and Andrew. I stayed behind to get dinner ready! Apparently, once Bibou was out on the streets, (and saw the bonbons), she was fine... in fine form to run and ask for 'les bonbons'!. Andrew was a great chaperon too. I love the photo of Angel looking up at him. Very cute. Apparently, Angel wasn't scared at all, and had a hooting fun time. And she was well showered with all the ooos and aahhhs and isn't she cute compliments. They all wanted to give her candy, but she wasn't terribly interested. Andrew had to take them for her. They were all asking where her little bag is! (I'd totally forgotten about a bag for her. She would have loved the bag as she's always carrying my bags or Bibou's bags). As always though, there weren't many people around (away for the week long vacation!). And some of them apparently didn't even have candies for the kids! How sad! But great for us parents as it's less candies for the kids (and for the parents too, as we've been 'stealing' them in the misguided thought that it's better for the kdis hahahaha)

So when everyone came home, curry puffs were ready. And everyone chomped down on them, including the kids. The kids actually loved the curry puffs. I was so delighted. Both of them were clamering for more. Andrew helped to feed the kids their dinner while the rest of our dinner was being prepared. Ed and Irene are played with them and showed them a great time! So much so that it was a tad bit difficult to get them to go to bed! But finally they did and we managed to settled down for a nice hot bowl of laksa, followed by banana bread. Thanks Ed, Irene and Andrew for a wonderful visit! We sure hope to see you real soon!!!

Here's a video I forgot to upload in my previous post.

Happy Birthday my Precious Bibou

Bibou turned 4 this past October! How fast the time has gown by. Well, this year, the birthday girl told us who she wanted to invite for her birthday party! She had her own special friends that she wanted to invite from school. She was really all excited about it. She also wanted a princess theme (are we surprised at all????). So I went off and got all princess stuff for her; princess cups, plates, table cloth, goody bags, balloons, candles, pinetas etc etc etc. You name it, I got it. Man those Disney people sure know how to make a buck or two! I even got a big mixture of princesses stuff to go into the princess goody bags (princess address book, pencil etc). And of course, the invitations were princess invitations, which I then wrote the names of her guests with a glitter pen! She invited Clara, Noemi, Louise, Dan (of course!!) and Cherif (Arron couldn't make it). We also invited Emma and Kealan.

Of course the theme of the party was princess and we'd asked everyone to come as a princess (or prince / pirate). We got Bibou all dressed up and I even put some make-up on her, did the hair the way she liked it to be done, with her tiara on, and her special princess shoes (that I'd bought from Monsoon). Surprise surprise, all the girls came in a princess outfit! Though, with the exception of Kealan, the other boys didn't dress up.

We played a couple of games, most of which were 'alien' to the french kids! We started with pass the parcel, where I had hidden something in each 'pass'. the kids were super thrilled! Then we had 'gouter'. Cake time. The Molas' had wonderfully prepared another mickey mouse cake for Bibou's birthday cake (and made some cupcakes too!). The kids reached for the sweets of course and gobbled up the sweet drinks and candies!

The weather turned nice, so we shooed the kids out into the garden where there were even more games. Burst the balloon, musical chairs and also hit the pineta (unfortunately, we couldn't get a photo on time for that!). We finally opened presents and Bibou was totally spoilt for choice! And then the kids' parents came to bring their children home with their goody bags.

For Bibou's 'celebration' at school, I'd spent literally the whole day in the kitchen making a barbie cake. I had to amputate Barbie's legs though as she was too tall (or rather the cake was too 'short')! I was rather pleased with the buttercream as it was my first time doing it.... but i was sooo disappointed when I heard from Bibou that her teacher had told the kids not to eat the cream...cream was actually not allowed on cakes at school! Boo Hoo. Well, at least she allowed it to be on the cake while they sang the song and Bibou saw the cake.

The videos

Bibou opening her presents and kissing Dan for his gift.

Catching up after a long month.

Oh wow. I just realized that this is the first time since I’ve had the blog that I’ve not posted a blog in a month! I’ve totally skipped the month of Oct! This is testimonial to how busy bad it has been at work. It’s been super long hours, sometimes up to midnight and up again early to rush to the office. I’ve barely seen the girls, let alone have time to myself. It was difficult to be so distant from the girls for so long, and in fact, I was particularly upset last week when Bibou asked me, ‘how come you weren’t here this morning?’ As she was on vacation from school the past week, she’d been sleeping in while I shoved off to work early in the morning and by the time I get home, she’s fast asleep. Bon, will make it up to her this week. Boss is off on a trip, so I should be a little less busy (though busy enough with all these updating :)).

So, in more than a month, the development in both girls has been astonishing. Bibou has just started her English classes, which she attends once a week, on Thursday after her ‘normal’ school. She started at the Roaming Schoolhouse sometime in late September and is totally enjoying it. And we’ve found that the 1½ extra hour of English really has helped, or rather has allowed the progress that she’s made over the summer to continue. She’s able to communicate more of what she wants, what she’s seen or done just a little more, though most of the time, it is still ‘I don’t know’! She’s doing well at her class, according to her teacher whom I called and spoke to. She interacts very well in class, with the teacher and other students. She’s made loads of friends and participates enthusiastically during class. And apparently, as she gets there early before class starts, she’d help her teacher out, doing little jobs like moving the chairs around, filling pencil pots etc. Social butterfly she is.

Bibou’s absolute favorite activity right now is dancing. She LOVES to dance (ditto Angel who has this completely hilarious way of dancing…more on that later)And recently I’ve discovered that she has the ‘rhythm’! There is a video of her dancing below and you will notice that she’s able to dance to the music, and interpret it very well! All this without any classes or formal instruction! We’re hoping to be able to sign her up at some dance class soon. I think she’s got some potential there, but more importantly, it’s something that she seems to really enjoy.

Angel: ah Angel Angel Angel. She is simply the cutest rascal there is! She’s sooo much trouble, but just is able to get away with it, with that oh so cute and deliciously mischievous look of hers. She is simply so expressive. She’s a real strong headed and determined. (oh yes, we’re in trouble). She’d rather go without then give in to your requests. For example, this morning we were in the bathroom doing our usual morning routine. Now generally she likes to stand on the toilet (lid closed of course! DUH), and watch me put my make-up on. She likes to play with my make-up, opening and closing the lids, using a (old) brush to ‘paint’ (I put some talc on the counter for her to play with). So she came in and demanded to go up on the toilet next to me. So I said, ok, give me a kiss first and I’ll put you on the toilet. She wouldn’t give me a kiss!! She then proceeded to try to climb on the toilet, never letting up. (she’s a BIG climber now, climbing all over the place, onto the couch, Bibou’s bed, on the table, on the chair…ARRGH, we really really have to be on the watch out now, though she really seldom fall. She’s good at it.) She couldn’t get up on it as it was too tall, nonetheless, she wouldn’t give up, and more importantly, she wouldn’t turn to me for help. She was grumbling but she wouldn’t ask me for help! (yes, I did help her up in the end, and no, I didn’t get my kiss!). She’s also a tough cookie to boot! She puts up with bumps and falls without crying most of the time, she just gets up and go. And if it does hurt, she’d cry for a while and then all is forgotten. She does a bit of crocodile tears sometimes though, to see if she can get what she wants, but doesn’t go on and on (unlike BIBOU), she just moves on!

What else: she’s a great imitator now. She repeats certain words after us, such us, ‘ood night’ (good night), ‘up stairs’, ‘ello’ and the very recently, she called out ‘Mummy’ (ooo I had tears in my eyes), and also to our surprise, ‘Bibou’!!! She can throw little temper tantrums, like stamping on her cute little feet, but it doesn’t get her anywhere (for now) as she’s so cute doing that that we all burst out in laughter. She then laughs with us, and all is forgotten. She runs very quickly now and we really have to keep a sharp lookout.

The two girls are getting closer by the minute. Angel won’t go anywhere without Bibou. She’s always searching for Bibou and imitating her (probably where the dancing comes from). Unfortunately, she also loves to bother Bibou…she’s constantly in the way, constantly going up to Bibou to see what she’s doing and if it wasn’t to play with her, she’d grab whatever Bibou is using. And finally, if she doesn’t get enough attention from Bibou, she’d pull Bibou’s hair.

Here’s a batch of movies and photos. Enjoy.

Here are the dancers:

Bibou's dance interpretation.

And this is the most hilarious dance style of Angel!

Have we got another potential ballerina?

Where's your nose?

During a rather wet dismal day, the kids took to running in the house! I had started the 'tag game', and took a break to film them! This was at the end of the day and also at the end of a long 15 minutes of running, Angel was literally out of steam!

Here's how agile Angel is becoming. This film is of her playing with the kids the first time. Daddy had just shown her how to thread the beads. She's really liking them now.

No wonder the girls climb everywhere at home! Daddy encourages them to climb trees :)

Run away....

Quick update

Sorry all. Been a crazy month. Work's been piling up. After the exciting summer, we're now all back to our normal hum-drum of things. Bibou's back at school. She's not in the same class as Dan; she's 'back' with kids around the same age as her, the younger batch. But apparently, it doesn't stop the two of them! Every day, they wait for recess and then, rush to each other and play side by side! At the after school childcare, they'd play together. Nothing can pull them apart apparently. They help out each other, always looking out for each other. So SWEET! They aren't fighting like cats and dogs anymore! The other day, Dan even recounted the story where apparently Bibou had soiled her skirt and the both of them had sneaked off to find leaves (!!!) so that they can clean her skirt together. Awwwwww. Daddy also spoke to Bibou's teacher (I asked him to!), to find out how she's settling in in class, given that most of her classmates from last year are in another class. Her teacher, "C" (who is yet another lovely lovely lady that Bibou likes), says that Bibou is doing great! (whew!) She's really autonomous, friendly, a social butterfly and gets along fine with the kids. She makes friends with everyone, though obviously she spends most of her time with Dan where possible. She has started making friends with other kids in her class already. And she has! We’d asked her if she wanted to invite anyone from school to her ‘princess birthday party’, and she immediately rattled off a couple of names. Cool! I’ve just created lovely birthday party invites and she’s gonna have a lovely ‘princess and prince’ (did you expect anything else????) party.

Our weekends have been really busy..but last Sunday afternoon was free! So we called up the Bitans to see if they wanted to have tea together. YES they were free, so we all met up at Parc Heller. Daddy brought along Bibou’s ‘no-pedal’ bike, yes a bike without pedals. It’s this new rage for kids, it’s meant to help them find their ‘balance’ (though if she’s anything like me, HA!). Bibou had received the bike last year for her birthday but she just wasn’t into it. She still quite isn’t, but she did try it and managed to coast down the hill a couple of times. But then Dan came, and the two happy lovers were just inseparable! It was a lovely happy afternoon, but we came back home quite late! So I had to whip up a very quick, but not so ‘good’ dinner of pasta and ‘hotdog’. Bibou went out into the garden to pick the last of the tomatoes from the garden. I love the photo of Bibou with the tomatoes in her mouth… it’s funny, but what’s more funny is what’s happening in the ‘background’. While we were busy clowning for the camera, Angel decided to ‘steal’ Bibou’s food!

Ahhh that Angel. She’s certainly grown / changed over the past few weeks. She’s certainly no longer a baby, and has firmly entered into her ‘toddler’ stage. YUP!. No more cute, docile, easy-going baby now. She’s an assertive, demanding, fierce and forceful toddler. When she doesn’t get what she wants, she’s stamping her feet, screeching (and golly does she know how to screech), she pulls hard on you (either on your sleeves, or in the instance of poor bibou – her long braided hair!) etc. But it doesn’t last long and the most amazing part ; - she still has a smile on her face. Yes, the sweetie still always has a ready smile for everyone. She loves, just loves imitating her big sister, and her favorite thing right now is…dancing :-) yup! That’s ‘coz Bibou loves dancing as you know. Every time music comes on, the both of them dance and dance and dance.

Enjoy this batch of pix and videos. Think it’ll be a while before I can come on again.

Videos

Angel on the bouncing ball again.

Hilarious one of her trying to dance like barbie (in the 12 princesses). You get to hear her scream too.

Angel and Yohan on the swing. Guess who's enjoying it more :)

The two unseparable lovers!