Things on My Plate

I am so sorry for the lack of updates. Been really tied up lately. There are just too many things on my plate that I am trying to manage.

1. Renovation related (coordination etc)
2. Ethyl's additional programs that she requested. Have yet to do a research on the schools I have in mind.
3. Work. Many many changes that really makes me feel so jaded.
4. Marriage
5. Working on a timetable for the kids (especially Ethyl). Her humongous appetite to learning really put me on my toes. She is doing K2 assessments that I bought! Gosh...and without much guidance.
6. The need to pay more attention to nurture the little boy.
7. Taking charge of their weekends meals. I really needs lotsa recipes from Mommy dearest!

What have I missed out?

He is sad...

because the renovation shall be completed in a few weeks time.
because he will soon not be able to see his dar;ing grandbabies daily.
because he can't wake up to a smiley and cheeky grandson.
because he is going to come back to a quite and empty house most days of the week.

My PaPa, is feeling sad. I can sense it, though he doesn't say.

He can still visit the babies as and when he is not working. Driving up to Pasir Ris ain't really too far.

I am sure the kids will miss him too!

Reno Progress After 3 Weeks

The progress has been slow. Inital handover (HO) date supposed to be this month end, we had postponed for it another 2 weeks as I do not want to rush them and compromise on the works.

Here are some pictures.

My vanity cabinets, shoe cabinets, TV feature wall


Our wardrobes design


My kitchen


my altar


I still have a small tv console in the MBR, 2 bedside tables to be custom made, one dresser (still don't have any idea where I want to put...

My full Blum kicthen is not possible as the carpenter said, other systems were just as good. To fulfill part of my vanity, he agreed on some blum and tandembox.

The entrance, pebble wash flooring to be done.


MBR cove light


hall area's false ceiling and cove lights also up. Nest up is painting and carpentry!

The Joy of Sharing

Jiejie is the ultimate love of my boy. Both loved one another.Brayden is never stingy to show his love towards his sister. Love them to bits!!

Ethyl Is Brave! Her First Dental Visit

Her fears were the buzzing and drillings sounds. My fear was she'd cover her mouth and refused to cooperate with the dentist. She had a phobia about dentists, I know her fears as I had my fair share of bad experiences as a kid.

Declan went to the dentist some time back. His experience was good, and I have been sharing the positive outcome of dental visits. Telling her the importance of her set of healthy pearlies and how it will affect the overall appearance if she fails to take good care of her teeth. She is very mindful about her appearance and image. I reminded her that a good and healthy set of teeth is vital. With Declan's positive "review" from his virgin visit, topped with her self-conciousness, it was a breeze to talk her into leaving the house with me without any tussle.

While waiting, she read a book about oral health. It was a good read. She read about braces and the general oral hygiene and the right way to brush her teeth.

When it was our turn, I let her go first as I will be cleaning my teeth, afraid that the buzzing sound will scare her off. I could sense the tension. She was a little apprehensive when she was asked to sit on the magic chair (dentist chair).

Dr Yeo, upon knowing that it was Ethyl's first visit let her play with the chair, pushing the buttons and making the chair goes up and down, played with the lights etc, letting her have a feel of the environment before the real check sets in

Ethyl was first told that Dr would use a mirror to count her teeth...they counted and Dr Yeo looked up and said, "She has been brushing well. A healthy set of teeth, but did you notice that she has a cavity in one of her front tooth

I nodded and told her that is one of the push factor that I brought her there.

Then she proceeded to scaling and polishing. Dr Yeo will decide if she wants to fix that cavity depending on Ethyl's reactions.

Dr Yeo showed Ethyl how she will perform the polishing. She "painted" her nails with the equipment and asked Ethyl if she feels comfortable to do it on her set of teeth too. Ethyl obliged.

Ethyl did well for the scaling and polishing, so Dr Yeo asked if she could dig out the "worms" hiding in the teeth; she agreed and Dr Yeo did the filling manually. Dr Yeo explained in details to Ethyl and at one point, when Ethyl saw a threatening big equipment on the dental assistant's hand, she cupped her mouth immediately and refused to coorperate!

In the end, we let Ethyl played with the equipment and slowly coaxed her into getting her procedure done.

I am glad that we managed to get it through! Ethyl did well, and she is so proud that she sat through the whole session without much fuss! She was later given stickers and a little gift.

She was told to wean off her bottle as it could be the milk that causes her front tooth to decay. The milk will have sugar that passes through her teeth and may have settled there, so after a prolonged period, causes a cavity. Her teeth is very healthy, I brushed her well :) Nowadays she is brushing herself too! She is quite glad to be praised by Dr Yeo on her effort to maintain her teeth!

Her next appointment is 6 months down the road. Hopefully her teeth will be as good and well kept!

Well done Baby!

世上只有

一首非常好听以及让人感动的歌。。。
一首让我无数次落泪的歌。。。
以首现给妈妈的歌。。。

Backdated – Mother’s Day

Ethyl girl made me a card! I loved this card as it is my gift from my darling baby.

The sweet girl with a lovely card from her. My greatest gift for the year! The words inside is touching. In her own words…

Baby, Mommy loves this card so much! Thank you for appreciating my effort! You kissed me the moment you opened your eyes and hugged me the same moment too! I love you Sweetheart!

Our Lil Guy

I am so lag in the updates for the kiddos! All thanks to the changes in work and load from reno, I am kinda overstretched and sleep is a luxury!

We went IMM again over the weekend to confirm the toiletry fittings and settle all the other needed for delivery to our new place coming Friday.

See how happy little boy is? He enjoys kiddy rides, and we spent 6 bucks for one shared ride, and one individual rides each.

Next, little boy is cruising!!!

Finally...

The wall can be hacked! Hack! Hack! Hack!!!

In fact when we were house shopping, we ever considered getting a condo somewhere in the east. As property prices were sliding, it seems a good time for us to get a private property.

However, the fact that I love having a stair in our house and really loved Masionette, thus we decided to get a mansionette.

The wall can be hacked, meaning my nice pebble wash entrance, shoe cabinet and seatee, a water feature can all be materialised!!!

Cool! Will try to fill this space with more pics :)

Updates on Reno

It has been a long while since I updated on my house reno works.

This is going to be the 3rd week, the attempt by my nice and popular contractor uncle to speed up is futile when this HDB decided to hold the approval for like almost a month! Sigh...with that wall still there, not knowing to hack or not to hack, my tiling works has to come to a standstill. In other words, my tiling works has bottle necked!

Anyways, here are some of the updates of the pictures for the past few days.

The kitchen mosaics...not perfect, needs to be rectified.



hall tilings...white and I love the whiteness of it!



The common toilet on L1. Loved this feature wall.



My roller shutter at the bigger balcony.



Part of the kids' bathroom



The new wndows for all my toilets. WHite frames with tea-colored glass


Well, I also had some buys...bought the Grohe shower for the kiddos and Mom. This is gonna be their "luxury" during shower as they do not have a rain shower in the bathroom they share :)



My 2 basins...loved it!

For the kids


for MBR Toilet


The damage for the toilet fittings and all can esily set us back by more than $3k...not cheap leh...

Shall We Make It 5?

My nick on Renotalk is familyof4. The cluster comprises of Hubby, 2 kids and of course yours truly.

I am playing with this thought with a wee bit of fear actually. I love my kids, one person says I have beautiful kids, why not have more? BUT....all my buts and what ifs.

Hubby was telling me that Mom wanted me to drill a hole and install the sarong at my new place which I am not too willing to. She said something that I missed, and Hubby filled in for me. Mom said, "what if you have the third kid?"

This possibility ever crossed my mind. Having said that, we will try and prevent it from happening.

Today, Brayden went for review with Dr Tang. He, for the don't know how many times encouraged us to have another as we are still young. I told him I am not ready both metally, physically and financially. He looked at my Prada frames, Gucci bag and said, "just live simply".

How to live simply when I already am living pretty simply? The little indulge that I get is like only once every few months. The education fee that we are saving for them now might not be sufficient as the standards of living keep soaring.

Well, I digress. It is true that I want my kids to also be able to join the dance classes, singing, dancing, music, swimming and abacus. All these are lesser of academics. At least at this age, I want them to enjoy the different activities provided for them at large.

Ethyl's new school will be having music classes, speech & drama (Eng/Chinese) and art. We are signing her for swimming. She requested for ballet classes, which I am also letting her have a try. All these adding up with her fee and expenses, it can easily add up to a 4 figure amount.

This is taken into consideration that Brayden is going to pre-school next year. He will not have many classes for the time being. Bearing in mind that we also have to set aside a sum for emergencies like medical expenses and some unforeseen circumstances.

Currently, I think we will stick to 2. Am giving ourselves another 2 years. By the time I turn 31, if we feel we still can manage financially, we will most likely have another monster. Since our new place is bigger than before. Having said that, provided Mom still feels that she wants to continue helping me. Else we will just have to stop at 2.

We Squeezed Out a Family Day

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Yes, the renovation has worn me out and we really had to compromise big-time on family bonding.

Told myself that Friday shall be the family day, no renovation shopping nor anything to do with the new house. No rushing here and there, no visiting to Pasir Ris.

Well, we managed 95% of it. How about the other 5%? We were shopping around at Marina Square and got the kids a kiddy sofa at Molecule. Damage to my wallet is $260.00. I had a very happy kid at the end of the day! ;)

The loving siblings had a walk around Marina Square. See how Brayden sayang jiejie.

This train ride brightens the girl’s day :)

After shopping aimlessly for a while, we went to meet Anna and family at Vivo City. Had our dinner at Sushi Tei.

See the girl enjoying the ramen.

This is our cheeky boy. He also had his homecooked dinner there.

The cousins enjoyed each other’s company.

Our 3 cuties!!!

With the humungous blue baby whale.

My darling girl with that huge Levi’s shoe!