Proud Little Missy

As she turns two, I noticed she exhibited signs of independence especially in her choice of clothes and shoes... on this day that we were preparing to go for a swim, she decided to put on her own sandals...

I resisted from offering my help to her... witness her achievement together with me *beaming mama*

Little Missy is turning 2

Time waits for no one... Little Missy's turning 2 this coming Sunday... looking in retrospect, there isn't very many records of her milestones in here... though I tried rather half heartedly to update every now and then about her developments... 

My only excuse for not consistently keeping records will be because she is simply growing and developing too quickly for me to even pen them all down in time (lame, I know). 

She's nevertheless, the "life of a party" in our household... often amusing us with her dramatic yet funny antics... and now that she's turning 2, my wish for her is to always be herself and to live each day of her life being a blessing... *smile*

Here's to wish my dear Little Missy - Happy 2nd Birthday!

Messy Fun Continues...

While the Messy Fun challenge has ended... we continued to have our mess making and fun... some activities were spontaneous and that's where the fun element came in from *wink*

I bought these ice-cream making container from Daiso since a long while ago... and there was an offer going on in Giant the other day hence I bought 2 packs of Magnolia chocolate milk... thought it'd be fun to try making some ice-cream with the choc milk... Tim was all geared up to help when he heard there was going to be ice-cream to eat... *smile*

He's been really very helpful recently...he volunteered to help me in almost all situations especially when I am in the kitchen or just came back from the market... that's GREAT for me... while I know there's a limit to his abilities, nevertheless, I welcome that offer of help (great training for chores later when he's older)...
A day later, the kids had a taste of home made ice-cream... it was a mighty mess... but the ice-cream turned out well and tasty...remember to put on some bib on the kids if you are going to try this at home!

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I thought of this activity while I was doing my research for the homeschool and decided that this would be a good activity to train up on the fine motorskills and it requires very minimal prep work on my end... 
Didn't imagine that the kids had other purpose of those black sticker spots... they simply amused me *LOL*

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A can of shaving cream + 2 fun loving kids = BIG MESS
Once again, they decided that there was better fun in rubbing those shaving cream on their own bodies *fainted*

It's Been Very Trying...

We are in a moment of a very trying time in our lives... in fact it's been trying for the past year and honestly, I am at a lost of words to pray... don't know what else to say to God...while I still believe deeply that God has a plan for us but because I'm but a mortal and I can't see the destiny that He has carved out for us... I feel like a floating boat amidst the deep blue sea... with no direction and all seems hopeless...

I am thankful though, God has spoken to me yet again today... through the words of this beautiful song... I will continue to search for the harbour where I could see land soon, though it isn't easy to keep on hoping...

May the song touch the soul of your heart too... be bless!

BE IT UNTO ME - Don Moen

Be it unto me

According to Your Word

According to Your promises

I can stand secure

Carve upon my heart

The Truth the sets me free

According to Your Word O Lord

Be it unto me

You've promised Your blood will deliver

Lord, we believe it's true

You've promised us joy like a river

Lord we receive it from You

These things You've spoken

And You are bringing to past

This world's disappearing

But Your Word will last

You've promised to carry our sorrows

Lord, we believe it's true

You've promised unending tomorrow

Lord we receive them from You

You'll be our provider

In Your Word it's revealed

And by the stripes that You've bore

Lord we have been healed

AWESOME is an understatement!!!

Awesome Street Drummer

Came across this video and was thoroughly entertained!!! You'd understand why after you've watched it for yourself... 

Such great talent this guy has!!! So don't try to stop your child from playing with your pots and pans you'd never know what kind of hidden talent they might have... *wink*

I am into gardening...

I am definitely not one with green fingers... but I know my mother is teehehe...anyways, what got me interested in gardening was a recent newspaper report about how some people turned their balcony into a mini vegetable/fruit garden... how cool!

The visit to Oh's Hydroponic Farm, got me really psyched up in planting some nice herbs for my cooking...
When I saw the little seedlings sprouting out, I leaped with joy that I've "successfully" planted something that's useful... *smile*
But some didn't grow well, just like this pot of Dill... I am wondering if it'd ever survive another week...anyways, that didn't kill the flame of my interest in gardening...
I got myself another two pots of herbs (Rosemary and Thyme) during my second visit to the Oh's Farm... and I've even baked a chicken with the two herbs I've bought.
Recently bought some more seeds from a DIY shop and decided to plant some more fruit and vegetables... made some plant labels and was all ready to work on planting! *grin*
I guess I am a practical person... I like to plant things that I could finally consume or have some good use of instead of admiring... so all that I've planted are all edible... *smile*... and there's my little herb, vegetable and fruit garden...

Ok am crossing fingers and toes tight now that they will all survive under my brown fingers... *wink*

Little Missy's New Toy - Paper Doll

I remember when I was little, I used to be crazy about paper dolls... and those days the paper dolls were a great way for imaginative and dramatic play for us...

The other day, while blog hopping, I discovered a mother making paper dolls with her little girl's face on it and thought Little Missy might be interested to have a set of her own paper dolls with her face on them *smile*

I googled and found loads of wonderful sites with free paper doll downloads. I just replaced the face of the paper doll with Little Missy's and printed them out. I had them laminated to keep it durable and added some velcro tape on all the elements... and voila!!!

Little Missy had so much fun with her own paper doll set... even Tim wanted a set of his own... *LOL*

Simply Homecooked - Secret Recipe

I am a lover of chicken winglets... cook it in any style it will always remain my favourite :)

Just a couple of weeks ago, I discovered a wonderful recipe that my dad handed to me... the chicken wings were simply delicious and the best part was it's soooooooo CRISPY and it's not even deep fried... cool!~

The secret to frying crispy chicken wings was actually so simple... hehehe...I used to think corn flour worked pretty well for me... but rice flour was even better! It didn't cause the fried chicken wings to turn soggy even after leaving it out for a while...

Here's the ingredients -
1 packet chicken mid-wing (approximately 600gms)
Rice Flour *(secret ingredient)
Bread Crumps (Japanese)
1 Egg beaten

Marinate for the chicken wings -
1 tablespoon oyster sauce
1 tsp sugar
1 tablespoon sesame oil
A few dashes of pepper

Method of Preparation -
Step 1) Marinate the chicken for over 2 hours
Step 2) Dip chicken wings into rice flour
Step 3) Dip chicken wings into beaten egg
Step 4) Dip chicken wings into bread crumps
Step 5) Leave the chicken wings to set for an hour
Step 6) Heat oil on high heat
Step 7) Lower the fire to medium and start pan-frying the chicken wings
Step 8) After the chicken wings have turned golden brown remove from pan and drain off oil
Step 9 ) Serve with dijonnaise or mayonnaise

Bon Appetit!

Messy Fun - 30 Day Challenge (Day 28-30)

We are into the Ocean Theme for our Messy Fun art activities... and since our hermit crab activity we continued with the following art activities -

Day 28 - Mr Seahorse
Base on Eric Carle's Mr Seahorse, we worked on this piece of art using a seahorse template and glitter glue... the kids rubbed the entire seahorse with glitter glue and pasted a googly eyes to add interest to the entire piece of art work... *FUN*

Day 29 - Jellyfish
The daddy was back after work when we were about to start this messy art activity... and he joined the kids to have some family bonding time together... *contented*

Simple art using cupcake paper liners and some raffia strings... instead of using googly eyes, I printed some "craft eyes" using hard card stock for the kids' use...
And here's the final pieces of art... not bad huh? *smile*

Day 30 - Puffy Fish
Finger printing for the scales of the fishes - back and front... the kids were more interested in mixing the colours of the ink pad... *grin*
Stapling the two sides of the fish together and stuffing some tissues in between to "puff up" the fish... extremely messy due to the ink being smeared all over the table...fortunately the ink were water soluble... it was a breeze to clean, really...

While the 30 day challenge has ended, we will continue with our messy fun daily... this time, I've ensured that I keep to a timetable of activities within the day... no more excuses for me to skive on a daily activity with my kids from now on... *smile*

Invigorate Your Senses

We've found a new place of outdoor fun where the kids have vast amount of space to run and expend those boundless energy at...
The Toa Payoh Sensory Park... it's a brand new park that has been in constructions for an extremely looooooooooong time (no exaggeration!)... I am so glad that it's finally opened...though the park isn't quite completed yet...
The kids never did gotten anywhere else in the park except for this playground on that day that we visited... was really quite delighted that there's finally a playground that's designed for kids age 2 to 12!!!
Part of the sensory element in the playground came from such manipulatives that the kids could engaged themselves in... let the pictures tell the story...


I walked through this gallery of snippets of Toa Payoh...and I got to know more about the history about Toa Payoh... not a bad idea... stimulation of the visual senses and perhaps the emotional senses too?
The plants and flowers are so BEAUTIFUL... very manicured and well trimmed... signs of a brand new park! *smile* Definitely not complaining... at least we have another place to go to if we are sick of the Toa Payoh Town Park... nature that's within our estate is really not a bad idea of nature fun at all...

Nice little space for morning exercises or even those evening strolls after dinner... suitable for a lovers' park too *wink*... no wonder this park is named a 3 generation park! A place for everybody!

Worth a visit... *smile*

Birthday Party!

How time flies... watching the kids grow day-by-day, it's beginning to don on me that I am truly getting old...

We celebrated Caitlin's birthday last Friday... she just turned 3 year-old... can't help but to reminisce the time when I first knew Adeline and her little girl... it's been a good one year now...

It's great that we've come this far together with our children... *smile*... cheers to many more years to come in our walk as play date mates as well as SAHMs...

Messy Fun - 30 Day Challenge (Day 25-27)

Day 25 - Planting
Have always like my kids to learn more about plants and how they grow... however, I have "brown fingers"... all the plants that come under my hands never quite make it for very long... so I've quite given up hope that I could grow any plants well at all...

Then there was a glimpse of hope for people like me, to grow a little garden of our own... *smile*... try the hydroponic method of planting! The guy who sold me this kit from Oh's Farm, assured me that anybody with no green fingers can grow plants using the hydroponic method - the best part of it all... no watering of the plants is required!!! That was the catalyst to my purchasing this hydroponic herb kit (costed SGD10). It came with four different types of herb seeds (Lemon Balm, Dill, Sweet Basil and Italian Parsley), two bottles of nutrients (in solution form), a pack of vermiculite (looks like soil but not), 4 pots and a styrofoam box to store water... voila!!! I have my little herb garden!
The eager beavers... my kids were extremely curious about planting...
We have the vermiculite all over the place when the two of them tried to fill the little pots up...


Day 5 of planting the seeds, we saw the Sweet Basil sprouting tiny little seedlings... can you imagine the sense of "achievement" I experienced? *LOL*...And here's the little garden, on day 7... while the Sweet Basil grew very quickly and healthily, the rest of the seeds were slow in germinating... we saw skinny Dill seedlings sprouting out, and discovered some roots pushing out of the Lemon Balm...while the Italian Parsley is still "hibernating"...

The kids were excited about these plants...everyday, they'd hover around the garden and see how much the plants have grown... *smile*... isn't nature wonderful? *wink*

Day 26 - Hermit Crabs
Have decided to take a different approach in these messy fun art... by supplementing the activity with a story reading...
on this day, we read the book "A House for Hermit Crab"...
The kids get to work on this eye-hand coordinating + building of fine motorskills activity... The mosaic activity page... the kids were to fill the empty circles with the label stickers.
Next they worked on a hermit crab craft using paper plate, googly eyes and some colouring materials.
Tim enthusiastically squeezed out lots of craft glue just for those googly eyes...
The end product... *smile*
How can I deny a boy of a photo with his bestest friend, Chicky... *smile*

Day 27 - If You Give A Mouse A Cookie
We read the story, we worked on a simple cut and paste craft... and then we...

played a rhyme game together... simple, easy and fun! Noticed how Tim tried to make me reveal where the mouse was hidden only at the very end... *smile*

Puppet Fun

Yeah... I've been "poisoned" by the procrastinating bug again... and the repercussions of it? Loads and loads of photos and stuff to update... *fainted*

Anyways, lets begin with this activity that was done like a couple of weeks ago (yeah that long, I know)...

Puppetry... Tim was recently keen on puppeteer-ing... he started using his stuffed toys as his puppets and not long after, my dear friend, Jenny, loaned us this set of Itty Bitty Puppet Show game set.
This activity encourages a child to make mini-puppets that are just the right size for little fingers. Included in this small little game set is a fold out stage for role playing with the puppets, a great opportunity for socialization and definitely with added imaginative play value.
I love it that this game set comes along with a story book with many stories in it for the kids to manipulate the puppets as the story is being read.

That night, we acted the story on "The Mighty mighty dragon and the Teeny Tiny Toad"... though Tim wasn't quite following along the story-line, we had a lot of fun as a family anyways... *smile*
We put up a small little stage of our own, using two kiddy chairs and a blanket over the back of the chairs... Tim really had a blast that night!
The father and son puppeteers behind the scenes teehehe... great family bonding game I honestly feel!