A Very Happy Birthday

Opening presents

Our Rockstar sang Twinkle, Twinkle Traffic Light with her new guitar.

We took Kylie to one of our favorite Mexican restaurants for endless chips and salsa.

Birthday cake with friends at school.

Yummy, white chocolate chip chunk cake.

Our big 4 year old...sigh.

Another year gone by...

Tonight I tucked my 3 yr old into bed, read her a story and sang a few songs for the last time...you see, when we wake up tomorrow morning my sweet baby girl will be 4 yrs old.

I'm not ready for her to grow up so fast.

Holiday weekend

We've been keeping busy as usual. I have good intentions of updating more often, but I just don't always get around to it. We just had a long holiday weekend and enjoyed every moment of it. First, I want to thank our friend Jeanne for sending us a care package last week. We LOVED going thru all of the goodies that were lovingly packed. I took a photo but there was alot more that had already been put away. Thanks for being so thoughtful!

Now for our weekend in bullet points:

• Friday, Sean and I took the day off. We attended sports day at Kylie's school. It was great to see Kylie participate in some of the relay events. There was a parent and child activity and that is when I realized that Kylie does not have a competitive bone in her body. We had to tie balloons around our ankles and protect them while trying to pop the other participants balloon. Needless to say, she did not care for that little event and was quite frightened about the process. I made sure not to make a big deal about it and sat down gracefully after the other parents enjoyed stomping on our balloons:-)
• Afterwards, we left Kylie in school while Sean and I enjoyed a movie date. We watched The Hangover. It was hysterically funny and we really enjoyed it.
• Friday evening, we attended a BBQ at one of our colleagues home. It was the home of the head chef from work and we had a fantastic time.
• Saturday morning after swimming lessons, I relaxed pretty much the entire day and Sean went grocery shopping.
• Saturday night we met up with a colleague and his wife for dinner. We ate at Red Dot and not only did we enjoy great drinks but the food was fantastic. This is definitely a "do over". Check out the link if you get a chance.
• Sunday was Singapore's 44th Birthday referred to as National Day. There were parades and fireworks around the town. We opted to stay in and have a BBQ of our own with friends.
• Monday we took Kylie to see "UP". I thought the movie was cute but the story line may be a bit too much for my barely four year old.

That's all for now. I hope everyone is enjoying their summer. We are enjoying ours:-)

Goodies from home thanks to our friend Jeanne.

Sports day in Kylie's school. Flag due to National Day celebration.

Balancing act:-)

Dinner at Red Dot. Yuummm...

Kylie sporting the Singapore flag tattoo.

Racial Harmony Day

Thursday was Racial Harmony Day at Kylie's school. All of the kids get to dress up in their cultural attire and celebrate their heritage. Cool concept, huh? Everyday should be Racial Harmony day throughout the world. Kylie enjoyed being able to wear her Asian outfit to school. She looked so cute and she knew it. We had another lovely weekend . On Thursday, we celebrated our friend Nolan's birthday at my new favorite place, Chili's. The restaurant opened up a couple of months ago and I can't get enough of that Western food. Yum! Friday after work my friend Nikkole and I took a bead class and made a couple of cute bracelets. Nikki is a pro making everything from miniature purses to miniature dresses. They are gorgeous! We purchased a kit and crystal beads and well now I'm obsessed with this new hobby. After our class we went to a restaurant, met up with friends and enjoyed Pizza. I LOVE Pizza and there is plenty of it here thank goodness. So far all of the Pizza I've had here has been great. On Saturday after Kylie's swim lesson and on Sunday, we spent the weekend visiting two new malls (new to us:-). Singapore is loaded with shopping malls and they are always packed. It was cool to check out new places to shop. It's a good thing I work because I can seriously see myself checking out every shopping mall on my off time from start to end and that can be quite dangerous to our wallets:-) Kylie is always saying something smart and funny. I keep saying I want to blog about them but I wait so long and then I forget. Well, today she said something so cute and I remembered! She was being very cute and buttering us up for a treat. She said, "may I please have something sweeter than me to eat?" Too cute! Of course, we bought her ice cream:-)

Dress up for Racial Harmony Day in school.

Kylie admiring herself in the mirrow while we wait for the elevator.

My Pretty Girl.

Do you think they enjoy the gorgeous view as much as the grown ups do?...Nah.

Pizza and a Singapore Sling. Life is good here in S'Pore:-)

Celebrating Nolan's Birthday in Chili's Restaurant.

"I'm not tired..."

"I'm not tired, I'm not sleepy, I don't want to go to bed, I don't need a nap". We hear these words from Kylie almost every single day. She refuses to go to bed by 9pm. Each time I've tried, we have had to guide her gently back to bed at least 20 times and in the end she ends up crying herself to sleep. Knowing that her little brain is actively processing at high speeds, I have relaxed the rules so that we can try to settle her in between 10pm and 11pm. By then we still have to guide her back to her room at least 10 times. On the weekends, she wakes up between 6am-7am all on her own. On the weekdays, it's not so easy as she normally doesn't want to get up and get dressed. Most kids we know LOVE to sleep, but nope not our girl. Today, Kylie had her swimming lessons which normally lasts 45 minutes, we went to the movies (we saw Ice Age), we did a little shopping around the mall, came home and she couldn't wait to color with her new highlighters. I set up my laptop, directly opposite where she was drawing and I was having normal conversation with Sean who was in the kitchen at the time. All of a sudden, there was complete silence with no one trying to interrupt our conversation and this is what we saw...

Notice that our little "lefty" still had the highlighter in her hand? I took full advantage of the fact that she was tired. I woke her up so that she can eat, watch a movie (Toy Story was on), tucked her into bed and read a book of her choice, "Cinderella". Yep, that 5 min. power nap gave her renewed energy. Anyway, she was finally out by 8pm and I'm enjoying a quiet evening sorting photos, digital scrapbooking stuff and of course blogging on a Saturday night - whoop, whoop!

4th of July Weekend

We had a lovely 4th of July weekend! The American*Association*of*Singapore puts on several events throughout the year for Expats including the 4th of July celebration. There were tons of traditional American food, drinks, bands and a good 'ole fireworks display. We met cool new people with interesting careers and we had great conversations. I'm starting to see why people come to work in Singapore and decide they want to make this place their permant residence:-)

July...already?

The weeks seem to be flying by. It's hard to believe we've been living in Singapore for 6 months now. It has turned out to be the best and happiest experience for our family. Kylie is learning tons. She can count to ten in 3 languages. She can actually count to 30 in English but the teens get a little fussy at times. Did you know there was an "eleventeen" in our numbering system?!? She can almost write her name consistently. She is learning to read in both English and Mandarin. Her curiosity about life is in full swing. She'll ask why all the time about everything. She is well behaved in school and saves all of her sassiness for her Mommy and Daddy. Her full sentences, reasoning and humor amazes us. And all at the tender age of 3 yrs old.

We miss our family and friends back home but life is treating us well here in Singapore so we are going to try to enjoy it while we can.

Bali - Day 2

(Click image to enlarge)

Bali - Day 2

(Click to enlarge)

Bali - Day 1

We arrived back home yesterday evening from our 5 day "holiday" trip to Bali. Words cannot express what a wonderful trip this turned out to be. I can't remember the last time I visited somewhere and didn't want to leave. Sean outdid himself by booking us into a very nice hotel which I can only describe as a little piece of paradise. Kylie had such a wonderful time that when we told her it was time to leave - she started to cry! It doesn't help that we were laying by the pool and had just wrapped up lunch. So naturally she thought we were planted for the day as we had done the same routine on the previous days - lol! At first I thought, geez we are the only ones with a kid. I didn't feel guilty at all. Instead I thought how lucky we were to be able to spend quality time with Kylie in such a beautiful destination. On the second day, we met a family with a soon to be 3yr old and Kylie and their daughter Charlotte hit it off right away. The lovely family is from Australia and we definitely plan to stay in touch. We stayed at a beautiful resort called InterContinental and I highly recommended it to anyone planning a trip to Bali. We enjoyed the private beach, beautifully manicured grounds, delicious food, entertainment and the gorgeous pools. Our 2 1/1 hour plane ride was worth every penny and we are looking forward to doing it again soon...very soon.

We flew on Garuda Indonesia. It was a pleasant and enjoyable trip.

Welcome to Bali!

This is the hotel's check in process. No waiting in line:-)

We were served complimentary lemon grass drinks.

The view from our hotel room.

Our hotel room. The first thing Kylie wanted to do each morning was go out into the balcony.

The beautiful Bali sunset!

Kylie finds a new little friend.

We watched the sunset from the appropriately named Sunset Bar:-)

Our first night we enjoyed pasta from a fancy Italian restaurant complete with a lady serenating each table with traditional songs from Italy. Here is my darling daughter after the waiter placed the napkin on her lap. "Mommy what's this?" "Honey it's the napkin ring:-)"

At the Sunset Bar.

Kylie enjoyed, the pretty flowers that fell from the trees.

Happy, happy!