12 months and not walking?

While some babies that are same age as Vio (or even smaller!) has started walking, Vio can't walk yet.. How I envy those whose babies already walking.. I'm wondering when will Vio start walking? Well of course I know "every babies develop at different pace", but when you heard your friends, whose baby are only few days apart from Vio, or even younger than Vio, said that their baby is walking now, surely you can't stop that feeling of envy and wonder when will urs join the walking club, right? ;)

[caption id="attachment_970" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="I'm standing!"][/caption]

Well Vio can stand without support now, as in he doesn't need to hold on to things to keep him stable while standing. But so far we haven't seen him standing up from sitting position without holding on to something.. Hopefully that will be soon!

[caption id="attachment_971" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Action while standing"][/caption]

But one possibility is that.. Vio is taller than other babies, so more difficult for him to "keep stable" while standing? wahahaha... yeah yeah i sound like i'm looking for excuses.. haha..

If he's on standing position then we move his toys away so that he walks toward the toys, he chose to sit down and crawl towards the toys, then stand again... *sigh*  I'm just wondering whether we're being toooo protective to him? So far, someone will always keep watch at him, 24 hours a day. If he lose balance a bit, we all will protect him so that he doesn't fall down. Well, in a way it's good, but at the other side, I'm just wondering whether we're a little too protective here?

And yesterday night, I was walking around the house with Vio, holding him only with 1 hand.  He can walk quite well with 1 hand hold, but at times he just want to walk fast so he will almost lose balance, but so far he's not falling (yet). When seeing that I'm holding him with 1 hand only, my MIL and FIL was saying: "no no.. he can't walk like that yet.." And i was like.. -_-  If we always keep holding both of his hands, when will he learn to stabilize himself while walking? Won't he keep relying on us to keep him stable?

Birthday Gift for Savio

Vio got many birthday gift for his birthday... And the last one to give it to him might be... us! His parents! haha.. We've bought the gift few months back at Toys 'R Us, but we just gave it to him last weekend.

When he see the box, he's all excited. And he just can't let daddy finish building it up.. He wants to play with it already..

[caption id="attachment_965" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Open it.. Open it.."][/caption]

It's a cube with 6 sides, all playable. There's a phone & door with lock, shape sorter, things to turn turn turn, etc etc. Vio's fav of all is the bead chaser. Hm what do you call that ya? The one where the bid can be moved to follow a certain path... but what Vio loves is that.. it can make rotating motion! -_-

[caption id="attachment_966" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Turn turn turn"][/caption]

Christmas Time!

Oops.. Christmas is long over, yeah? Ok ok I know.. Kekekee... Only got the photos now, so that's why I can only post now ;)

Anyway, as the previous years, we went for our Christmas "photoshoot" in city area. This year, we're going Orchard Road on 20 Dec 2009, starting from Plaza Singapura. The full crew includes pi, me, Vio, Allie, A'a and Budiman. Yay.. it's Vio's first ever Christmas "photoshoot"! :)

We began with... dinner at Yoshinoya. And Vio insisted that we gave him some of our food too. So.. that makes his first time eating real-rice that's not porridge-rice.. And he loves it of course.. it's adult food afterall! After filling up our "fuel", we began with the photoshoots..

[caption id="attachment_959" align="aligncenter" width="200" caption="Happy Family"][/caption]

And for this photoshoot, Allie and me has bought a T-shirt together! Hmm.. just so happen that while we're going shopping after having lunch together, both of us like this T-shirt, then decided to wear it for the photoshooting.. lol..

[caption id="attachment_960" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Nice nice?"][/caption]

And I just love this reindeer..

[caption id="attachment_961" align="aligncenter" width="199" caption="The Reindeer"][/caption]

By this time, Vio started to get tired.. So we only joined them for the photoshoot until we reach Paragon. After taking the group photo, we went to queue for taxi to go home.

[caption id="attachment_962" align="aligncenter" width="199" caption="The Whole Gang"][/caption]

.. BUT unfortunately the taxi queue was soooooooo looooooong, it was divided to 2 section. After finish queueing in 1 section, go to the other section to continue queueing.. wow.... so after waiting for few mins, we decided to walk to Lucky Plaza taxi stand instead, thinking that more taxi is going thru that road...

... but the queue was also very long.. we waited for about 40 mins for our taxi I think.. pi was quite upset waiting for the taxi and saying, next time no more Orchard.. sob sob..

Anyway, Vio was so tired he finally fall asleep at the cab.. Overall we had quite a good time, even though we only took few photos, definitely not as much as previous years. I think the total no of photos is not even half of last year!! :)

The Birthday Party

Yay finally can write about Vio's birthday party! Presenting....

[caption id="attachment_949" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="The Invitation"][/caption]

Based on recommendation from my sister, we booked a place at Bakmie GM, Mall Kelapa Gading, and hey, we like the place! It has a separate section for birthday functions and the decoration was not bad too.

At first we were worried that not many people will turn up, because we inform the guests (who are mainly relatives and close friends) at the very last minutes, as in few days before the party! But surprisingly, quite a lot turn up! The adults alone was >80 people. Quite many hor? ;)

[caption id="attachment_950" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Birthday Cake"][/caption]

I must say I looooove the cake.. It's just so cute!! My sister has really got an eye for cute things.. Kekekeke.. The cake was ordered from AJ Bakery. I love the designs and the cute baby pooh & friends figurine. And even the lapis surabaya cake was nice!

[caption id="attachment_951" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Birthday Banner"][/caption]

Kwakwakwa.. What do you think of the banner? Nice or not? I designed it and it was printed near my home for only... Rp. 80,000.-  ($11)  Wowwww.. isn't that super cheap? Hahahaa..

The guests was quite on-time actually. At 11am, our first guests reached the place..

[caption id="attachment_952" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Our First Guests"][/caption]

And soon after, 1 by 1 guests starts to come. I lost track of who comes at which time! We were so busy entertaining the guests. Around 11:30am, the MC starts games for the kids. Some were singing birthday song for Savio, also have the guessing game, and the chair-game. It was quite fun! Well, of course Savio can only observe what's going on. I bet he has no idea it was his birthday party! Kwa kwa kwa...

[caption id="attachment_953" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="The Birthday Boy"][/caption]

After the game, we had blowing off the candle and cutting of the cake. All the kids "helped" us to blow the candle happily. Savio don't know how to blow candle yet. I bet he also has no idea it was his birthday cake.. Hahaa.. 

[caption id="attachment_954" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Kiss from Mommy & Daddy"][/caption]

The adults (aka. pi's friends) were also playing games. They were asked to sing "Happy Birthday" song for Vio in a "unique" way.. And by unique it means goyang pinggul, etc, showing off their own style.. Hahahaa..

Halfway thru the event, Vio was very tired, he fall asleep! Oh dear... some guests that came late didn't get to see him while he was awake. Too bad they can't see his "mata genit" that he kept showing off that day.. Hahahaa..

[caption id="attachment_955" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Sleeping Baby"][/caption]

And.. not forgetting the important part... Vio has maaaaaany many gifts!! There were clothes, toys, shoes, and ang-bao too. Actually quite a lot of people gave clothes, now Vio has so many new clothes I'm not sure he can finish wearing them before they're too small for him! Not so many people were giving him toys (well, not as much as I expected it to be).. so does this mean I can buy somemore toys for him? Hahahaha.. --> finding excuses to buy stuff for Vio ;)

[caption id="attachment_956" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Wow.. So many presents!"][/caption]

A cute thing was that when Cheryll saw there were so many presents, she was so happy and say "Yayy.. kadoo..". She thought it was for her! Hahaa.. and Marcell was the most excited one to open the gifts. And Savio was just meddling around in the gift, happy to see many new things around..

Cousins

Savio had fun playing with his cousins during our visit to Jakarta. He met Koko Marcell before, when he came to Singapore, May 2009. But this time it's his first time seeing Cici Cheryll!

[caption id="attachment_944" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Marcell & Cheryll"][/caption]

Marcell is 5 years old now, and Cheryll is 2 years old. So they're bigger than Vio for 4 years and 1 year respectively.

Cheryll was just soooooo cute.. When she see Vio holding on to something or riding something, she'll scream: "Mauuuuuuu...!!!" She wants to do/ride the same thing!! It includes the high chair that was too small for her already. When she saw Vio sit on the high chair, she insisted that she want to sit at a high chair too, so my sister took out the old high chair that was way too small for her already, but hey, she was happy!

And when she saw Vio is in a walker,  she screamed again: "Mauuuuuuu.. !!" Obviously she has passed the walker stage, she can walk already! And actually, last time she didn't even like the walker!

Also when she see Opa (my dad) is carrying Vio, she'll stretch out her hands, want to be carried by Opa too, where normally whenever Opa wants to carry her, she doesn't want! Hahaaa.. isn't that cutee!

[caption id="attachment_945" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Cute Cheryll"][/caption]

Marcell and Cheryll also have amazingly many many many toys, some of which were borrowed by Vio during our stay there. Marcell has an amazing collection of trucks. He really is a big big fan of trucks, he wants to be a truck driver when he grows up! Hahaa... and he knows a lot about trucks for a 5 year old.. He can tell (even before looking at the brand): what brand the truck is (Volvo/Daihatsu/etc etc), how many wheels, what type of truck it is, whether the truck has ban serep, wow.. amazing hor? And he can draw truck and aircon very well too.. very detailed! Not like a 5 year old drawing..

Anyway, here is a photo of Vio with his cousins..

[caption id="attachment_946" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="We're Cousins!"][/caption]

I hope one day Vio can meet his other 3 cousins..

Studio Photos

Savio had his first-ever studio photos! He had it together with cici Cheryll in Dark Room, located in Mall Artha Gading, Jakarta. Well, I'm quite satisfied with the result. Vio was quite smiley at first, he kept showing his "mata genit" to the photographer. But at the last costume - tigger costume (and it's the main one that I wanted actually!!) he started to be unhappy and cried... so didn't manage to capture nice ones with tigger costume..

Anyway.. Rp. 200,000.00 for 12 photos is quite a deal hor? It's... less than S$30!! Wow...

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Back to Reality

We're back!! (Sadly)... Holidays always end fast, don't you agree? ;)

We had a great time in Jakarta! We ate lots of nice nice food, which includes dim-sum, Siomay Bandung, fried chicken with its "kremes" which is very very nice, various Chinese restaurants, pempek, and also not forgetting.. my favourite fried rice: nasi goreng tek-tek! Hoho.. can't get that in Singapore!

We also held Savio's first Birthday Party! Yay... But the details will be in other post, otherwise this post will be too long.. and anyway, most of the photos are still in my camera.

We took Air Asia flight. Our going plane to Jakarta was delayed for about 30-45 minutes. We were already seated nicely on the plane, and the plane started going, and I remember saying to pi, praising Air Asia that it's on time! Then there was an announcement that the plane is going to be delayed.. Aiyo... 30 - 45 minutes feel muuuuch longer with a baby around... Halfway thru the flight, Savio was already very very bored to sit still, he kept crying and crying and not interested in all of his toys. He'll only be quiet when we brought him walk around! *sigh* and it was such a small plane, so it's difficult to walk around. I felt so relieved when the plane (finally) landed in Jakarta.

Overall he has no problem adapting to new environment. In fact, he's eating really well! (Maybe coz I gave him adult food which tasted nicer than baby food). But it was quite difficult to make him sleep in afternoon time. Most of the time he'll nap in the car, while we're on the way.

And the mosquitos in Jakarta seems to love Vio very much, they kept biting him!! He now has lots lots lots of mosquito bites, especially in his face and hand. I think in the face alone, he has about 10 bites, all with big red spot.. So poor thing.. Must be so itchy, coz he kept wanting to scratch the bites. But luckily, he doesn't know that he can scratch using his nails, so now he's scratching using the back of his hand, which is good... Well of course I did apply many anti mosquito lotion for him, but seems like it's not effective enough :(

Luckily on the plane going back to Singapore, he's not cranky. When the plane was about to land, he was falling asleep! Which is good... hehe..

There are many other stories to tell, but I'll write in in separate post. Just to show a photo of us in Mall Kelapa Gading, one of the mall in Jakarta:

[caption id="attachment_926" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="@ MKG"][/caption]