20 questions by Savio (3.5 years old)

Yesterday I came across an interesting project done by someone: to ask your child the same 20 questions each year on their birthday (starting from 3 years old), and make an album out of it. It would be real fun to see how the answers changes through the years. Isn't it such a brilliant idea?? Why didn't I think of it sooner??

And now Vio is already 3 years and 5 months... Well, better late than never yeah? So I decided to ask the questions that I've compiled to a 3.5 years Vio, and I will ask him again on his 4th, 5th, etc birthday. And yes the answers are fun! Here are his answers to the questions last night:

1. What is your favorite color? purple (quite surprising.. I thought he'd say blue)
2. What is your favorite toy? cars
3. What is your favorite fruit? orange
4. What is your favorite tv show? racing cars
5. What is your favorite movie? cars
6. Who is your favorite (cartoon) character? black car (true enough, he's not really idolizing any of the cartoon character. He only love cars)
7. What is your favorite thing to wear? pajamas (yeah, right! pajamas is the one thing he HATE the most)
8. What is your favorite animal? dinosaur (hm that's interesting.. he never mentioned he likes dinosaurs before)
9. What is your favorite song? twinkle twinkle
10. What is your favorite book? racing car
11. Who is your favorite person? mommy and daddy (awwwwww...)
12. Who is your best friend? Neyla (she is his bestfriend in Apple Tree)
13. What is your favorite food? cheese and tofu
14. What is your favorite snack? chocolate and pudding
15. What is your favorite drink? milo and orange juice
16. What is your favorite game? dinosaur and racing car (amazingly dinosaur is being mentioned again here!)
17. What is your favorite thing to do? play
18. What is your favorite thing to play outside? racing car
19. What do you sleep with at night? hippo
20. What do you want to be when you grow up? Daddy! (awww.. so sweet!)

Now I'm hunting for an album to record this, and I think I just found the perfect one! It's Simple Stories 6x8 mix and match album! I hope I can get my hand to 2 of those (1 for Vio, and 1 for Caitlyn)...

Project Life: May 2012

It's been a while since I last uploaded my Project Life pages! Yes I've done the pages for all the photos until today! Yay! It feels really good to be NOT behind.. hahaa..

Here are the pages for the month of May... Some highlights:

1. We went to Gymboree for Ben's 3rd Birthday Party, and the 2 kids JUST LOVE IT A LOT
2. We bought Ball Pit and its Tunnel for Vio and Caitlyn. So yes, our house is getting kinda smaller and smaller!
3. We went to Chinese Garden on 1 weekend
4. Well, the other photos are mostly some snapshots of our daily lives ;)

Enjoy!

Parent Teacher Meeting

I'm just back from my first parent-teacher meeting for Savio!

So when we reach there, we took queue no.. My queue no was 6. I had to wait for quite a while as the teacher (Mrs Ravin) took quite a while to talk to each parent.

And as expected, her feedback was: Savio was so shy and soft-spoken.. He hardly talk, and even if he answers, it will be very soft. Soooo different from Savio at home. She was so surprised when I told her that Savio was jumping and climbing around, and always screaming at home.

She also mentioned that Savio likes to play. So when they ask him to do coloring, he'll do it quick quick so he can quickly finish and go back to play. And that he often fall down while doing activities in the school..... Also he need to practise more on writing...

And when someone snatched toys from him, he will just keep quiet and sit down, doesn't report it to teacher and he doesn't know how to say no... Sigh... I'm thinking how to encourage him to not feel shy and dare to speak up (just like what he always do at home)...

MMRV Vaccine and Legs Problem?

My poor little Caitlyn is now sick! :(

We brought her to have her MMRV and Pneumococcal injections last last Saturday... and last Friday, she had a slight fever (38 degrees), so I gave her Paracetamol before she sleeps. Luckily, the next day she was alright and as cheerful as usual, though a little bit low appetite. So we still brought her to a birthday party (I will tell you about this in another post)

Anyway, yesterday (Monday), in the morning she was quite alright, still low apetite but she can walk around, jump jump jump, etc like normal. Suddenly after waking up from her afternoon nap, she started limping, and afterwards, started crying whenever she wanted to use her right legs! It's like it's very very painful for her :(  So in the end we carry her around as she didn't wanna walk or move much....

I called the PD and asked whether it's related to the MMRV that she took a week earlier, but he said no... Though some from the internet had exactly same problem after their babies took MMRV vaccine..

And though she had a nap for quite long, she still went to bed early yesterday (whereas normally, it would be a more than 1 hour battle to bring her to sleep at night). And the poor little girl normally loves to sleep sideways, and she CAN'T lift her legs to change position to sideways! So she cried the whole night (maybe every 30 mins or so) coz she can't move her legs.. sigh.........

We were thinking to bring her to PD today, but miraculously after she woke up from her night sleep, she walks normally again! And can even walk fast like normal. Hmmmmm... I hope the problem won't come again..

Handmade Cards

I think I'm now kinda overloaded with creative juice. Blame it to Made With Love (my LSS here). They're having this moving out sale, and I just wanna see how it was. And I saw the Scrapbooks magazines were on sale for only $5 each (originally is $10++ each). Now I've never bought a scrapbook magazines before, so I thought it would be nice to have one.

... Unfortunately I can't choose ONLY one, but FOUR.. Haha! They're all so nice, how can I choose? :p  Anyway they're heavily discounted so I'm quite happy with my purchase.

So.. The scrapbook magazines have LOADS of real nice cards... And when I saw the cards, I really feel like making one!! So here's the result:

This one is for a boy who's having a 3rd birthday party tomorrow:

And this one is... well, I dunno what is it for yet, actually.. So I printed a general message on the front of the card, so it can be used for any occassion. Isn't this card cute? It can rotate to reveal a hidden message! I got the idea from the "Scrapbooks, etc" magazine of course... Gosh, it's apparently so nice to have a magazine on hand, why didn't I have it earlier? Haha..

My Photobooks are Here!

Finally! The moment I've been waiting for! My first-ever photobook (that was meant for me) are here! - actually make it two as they arrived almost at the same time.. Only 1 day different!

I ordered them from Artscow, and I must really say that though the price is really cheap, the quality is good! I LOVE THEM!!

The first one is for Caitlyn's First Birthday Party & Celebration.. It's an 8"x8". I think I paid only about $15 SGD for it? Here it is:

Not bad ya? Well, at least I'm quite satisfied with it! The above photobook was designed by me (each and every page of it!

And here's the other one.. it's a 6"x6" photobook, which I only paid about $8 - $10 SGD? So cheap! This is for our last year's "holiday" to Sentosa! Haha.. It's a project that I've been delaying and delaying since I don't have time to do it! I have planned to make a mini album for it, and I have even bought the papers, embellishments and all that. Then I figured that making photobooks would be much easier and MUCH faster. And well, they look pretty nice too :D For this one, I finished it in 1 day (coz I'm using the ready-made template provided by ArtsCow). Wow, can you believe it? 1 day to complete the whole album! If I were to make the traditional scrapbook, it might take me 1 month to complete :p



Recipes: Cakes

Sometimes, I'm reaaaaallly wondering if something is actually wrong with me.. I should be busy enough, but yet, I feel like I'm constantly looking for things to make me even BUSIER! :p  The newest one is: I decided to compile all the recipes that I have into 4x6 recipe cards and arrange them in an albums! So that everytime I wanna look for recipe, I don't need to search in google again, or trying to find "where's that old recipe.."  And of course, I love things that look pretty!

It's not like I often cook, or bake cakes.. But well, I think I'm just an organization-freak! Haha!

Some of these recipes would be in Indonesian language as they're hand-me-downs. But if you're really interested, please let me know and I'll try to translate it for you! :)

To start things off, here's my mom's cupcake recipes.. Have I told you that my mom bakes veeeeeeery nice cake? :D  Ok these are not the regular cupcakes (with fancy topping and all that).. These are more of the soft cupcakes (not hard type). It doesn't look as pretty as the cupcakes nowadays, but trust me, these tastes nicer.

And here's my favorite Strawberry Jellyhearts recipe that I post about sometime back. Enjoy! :)

We Love Jellyhearts!

Over the weekend, I suddenly felt like making something. Sooo... I decided to make Strawberry Jellyhearts again! (This is the second time I'm making it). It's reaaaaaaaaaalllyyyyy nice and easy to make! Everyone loved it to bits (especially Vio who can't seem to stop eating it)..

Ok if you wanna make one, this is the recipe that I found on the internet (and slightly modified)


Ingredients:

base:
110g digestive biscuits(about 8 pieces), chopped into fine crumbs
40g melted butter

filling:
250g cream cheese, soften at room temperature
50g icing sugar
1 tablespoon gelatin powder
1/2 cup boiling water
1 teaspoon vanilla essence

topping:
1 box Jelly crystal (strawberry flavour) - I used Tortilla
1 cup boiling water
1 cup cold water

Some strawberries, cut into heart shapes

Method:
1. Mix biscuit crumbs & melted butter together and press firmly with the help of a spoon onto the base of a 18cm cake tin. Chill for 30 minutes.

2. Place gelatin powder and boiling water in a bowl. Heat a pot filled with some water until just simmering and place the bowl inside the pot. Dissolve gelatin and boiling water in the bowl. Keep warm.

3. With an electric mixer, beat cream cheese , icing sugar until smooth & creamy. Blend in gelatin solution and vanilla essence and mix well.

4. Using a fork, prick holes all over the biscuit base. Pour the cheese mixture into the cake tin. Layer the strawberries on the cheese mixture. Chill for at least 3 to 4 hours.

5. Dissolve the jelly crystal in the cup of boiling water, followed by the cold water. Pour the jelly on the cheese mixture, just enough to cover the strawberries. Put in fridge. Let it set before removing from the cake tin.

Project Life - April & May 2012

Yayyy... I'm finally NOT behind!! I have completed all the photos until present day.. Here they are! 1 page for the last week of April, and the rest are for May...

Oh wow.. It's only the first week of May and I already have 3 pages! Hoho..
It would be 1+ more month before I start to send these images to print as a photobook! (For this year, I plan to have 2 photobooks: 1 for first half, and 1 for second half of 2012)... Good plan, huh? Hope all will go well according to the plan! :)

My First Photobook!

A few days back I received a nice surprise..

It was my first ever photobook! Ok it's not actually for me.. I printed it to give to a friend of mine who has just given birth to a sweet baby boy. Well, the plan is for her to paste her baby's photos (month by month), and some notes about that month. So I designed the digital pages and print it as a photobook. I hope it would work out well!

Back to the photobook.. It was NICE.. I'm so happy to see my work gets printed and binded. It feels like... well, it feels like I've been published! LOL..I got it printed at http://www.artscow.com/. I'm sooooo happy that I found this website by chance. They offer free photobooks (and other photo items) for new members, we only need to pay for the shipping. At first I was skeptical about the quality, but once I received the photobook, I must say I'm 100% happy! Heeeee...

Can you imagine when I first sign up with this ArtsCow, I went all crazy with the freebies that they're offering! I felt like I want to order ALL of them! But luckily, my senses stop me. What would I DO with SO many things that I don't actually need?? Haha.. But of course I still order few items from them. So far, what I've ordered from them are:

• Photobook for a friend who's just given birth
• Photobook for Caitlyn's 1st Birthday
• Photobook for our Sentosa Staycation last year
• A watch (with self-designed face)
• 2 cosmetic bags (1 for me, and 1 as a birthday present for another friend)
• 3 scrapbook layouts for display

Oh my, that's quite a long list for a short period of time, yeah?? Well, so far I've only received the first item. I can't wait to see the other items!! I hope they would look nice too.

I will upload photos of my 1st ever photobook later, as it's in my handphone ;)

Ok here it is!

Project Life

I'm sorry for not updating the blog regularly for sooooo long.. Truth is, I'm kinda busy lately! Well yeah, I'm full time working mom, and I spend most of my time after work to play with my two beautiful kids, I also run an etsy shop (after all the kids are sleeping), AND I also do scrapbooking in my other free time (provided there are any). Well, that sounds pretty busy of me, huh?

As if that's not enough for me to handle, recently I also decided to do Project Life! Well, ok at the beginning it wasn't really "Project Life". I just decided to do the photos digitally and print them into photobooks, instead of printing it manually in the good ol' way, and slipping them to premade photo album. And why did I make this decision at the first place?

1. Digital pages can have more than 1 photo at one page, and I admit I have TONS of photo to do! So having some photos done at 1 go would be nice
2. I start to have problems keeping the bulky photo album, they're really taking much space! Photobooks would be much thinner
3. I must admit, I'm REALLY lazy to do up the dates. Normally I would select and print the photos, sort them to be in sequence, slip them to photo album, and write the dates for the photo. Now that's tedious and I don't really enjoy the last part.
4. The photos look kinda boring. Ok I admit I love fancy stuff and I just love decorating the photos. So just printing it plainly and slip it just like that in the photo album looks kinda boring to me
5. I found this groupon about photobook from Photobook Singapore, and that's when the idea of doing the photos digitally came to me.

And yes, I have done the photos from January 2012 until present. (though I'm still about 2 weeks behind!). At the first place I'm doing them more like digital scrapbooks.

Sometime back, while I'm busy downloading tons of digital scrapbook freebies across the net, I found this term "Project Life", and hey! I love how that sound! Now when I read more about this "Project Life", I'm totally hooked. Oh my, how can I not know about this sooner??

Project Life is a very smart approach to scrapbooking, founded by Becky Higgins. I must say that it's really smart! One scrapbook page is smartly divided into few sections for photos, journals, etc. Now I find it really good as I can record my daily life, have many photos at one page, and all still looks pretty and organized.

Well, of course I modified the Project Life a little bit. Instead of doing it week-by-week (having a spread for 1 week), I decided not to limit myself. So I will just scrap my photos in the Project Life way, but not according to weeks. So for me, 1 week can have more than 1 spread, or no page at all. So it all depends on whether something worth recording happen that week or not. And so far, I just loved it!! And not all of my page would follow Project Life templates. Some special ones would have a scrapbook page by their own.

Here's the page that I've done for April 2012 so far (1 more page pending, and then I'm done with April!). Mostly in Project Life templates (that I made myself, following the real Project Life template. But anyway, they look the same, don't you think?)

Caitlyn Month 12

Our little baby is now 1 year old!!!

At 1 year old, Caitlyn:

• has 6 teeth (4 on top, and 2 at the bottom)
• love to smile and play peek-a-boo
• can walk! (she started walking at 11 1/2 months)
• is not afraid of new people
• especially loves dog and duck (she'll say "wfff wfff" when she see a dog, and "duck duck" when she see a duck)
• can start "fighting" with Vio. If Vio wants to snatch something from her, she'll try to protect it and say "noooooo!!"  so cute yeah? ;)
• still loves to EAT!