Little Miracles · Our Blessings from God…

Emma at 17 Months

August 21, 2014 in Emma, Milestones | 2 comments

Scrap Credits
“Celebrate GDS!” collaboration kit paper from Go DigitalScrapbooking.com
Summer Picnic Alphas from retrodiva {designs}™
Boxed words Volume 4-Love & Wedding empty tag from Chantal Taake
St. Patrick’s Day Frame cluster from Suzy Q Scraps

Weight

7.4 – 7.5 kilos.

Height/Length

Not measured.

Teeth

9 teeth: 5 bottom teeth (3 incisors and 2 canines) and 4 upper teeth (4 incisors). Sorry I made a mistake last month about the number of teeth on the top and bottom.

Motor Skills

Emma is beginning to balance herself and reach for places to “walk” to. She is not confident to take unsupported steps yet, but I know it will only be a matter of time before that happens.
Likes to make big splashes in the bath tub.
Likes to move to music and dance.

Communication and Social Skills

Loves to hold the Astro remote and pretend to change the channels.
Will resist and protest when we try to take her somewhere she doesn’t want to go, or get her to do something she doesn’t want to do, or take something she is holding away from her.
Says a few words: “ba-book” (for “book”), “ba-boh” (for “ball”), “deh-doh” (no idea what this is yet).

Food and Feeding

Most of her diet still consists of Mommy’s milk but she is showing an increasingly keen interest in the food and drinks we take.

Some of the foods she has tried this month:

Orange
Extra Virgin Coconut Oil (I used EVCO when I made Emma some muffin tots with pumpkin and carrots and she loved them!)
Lotus Root (in the form of Lotus Root Soup)
Beetroot (from Beetroot Soup; I served her beetroot soup with steamed rice)
Red dates (from soups)
Blueberries
Tilapia
Spaghetti (Gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free)
Ground beef (tried again, this time in an organic pasta sauce)

Emma’s Baptism

August 7, 2014 in Christianity, Emma, Ethan, Growing Up, Hannah, Parenting | No comments

After procrastinating for so many months, what with the move and settling down and all, we finally managed to arrange for Emma’s baptism last Sunday. We figured we had better do it now so that she would still “qualify” as an “infant”…after all, it’s called “infant baptism” for a reason, no?

A few close relatives turned up to witness the short and simple ceremony. This time round, the baptism was held at a different church, one that is closer to our new home. It lasted about half an hour and thereafter we proceeded to have lunch.

Photo-taking before the baptism commenced:

During the ceremony, Emma was busy blabbering away… It was definitely an all-new experience for her, and certainly very educational for Ethan and Hannah too. Ethan had been too young to remember what exactly happened when Hannah was baptised last time, so this time both Ethan and Hannah got to witness everything.

Towards the end of the baptism ceremony, it began to rain very heavily. However, that did not dampen the ceremony. It was a very special and meaningful one for us.

May the Almighty God bless us and keep us in his loving arms now and forevermore.

Sunday Morning at Sports Day 2014

July 29, 2014 in Emma, Ethan, Exercise, Growing Up, Hannah, Milestones | No comments

Hannah’s school had their annual Sports Day just over a week ago. She had been practising very hard for her team event and naturally, she was very excited about the whole thing. She was very concerned about getting to school on time that morning, so I had to reassure her that we will leave early so we will definitely be on time.

At the start of the Sports Day, the classes had the march past. Hannah was supposed to hold the sign for her class, but she says the boy in front snatched it from her.

Then the kids provided some entertainment via warm-up exercises:

Doing the class cheer, in English and Mandarin:

“Teacher asked me to hold the sign again…”

Smallest member of Hannah’s cheering squad:

Video-taking responsibilities were delegated to our videographer-in-training:

Hannah’s class event…..see Hannah in action 🙂

She did really well, and we’re all so very proud of her!

Emma at 16 Months

July 22, 2014 in Emma, Milestones | 1 comment

Scrap Credits
All You Need Is Love QP from Delicious Scraps

Weight

Around 7.3 – 7.4 kilos. Slowly but surely gaining weight.

Height/Length

Not measured, but I can see she is growing taller because her head is almost hitting the table top when she walks under the table.

Teeth

9 teeth: 4 bottom teeth (4 incisors) and 5 upper teeth (3 incisors and 2 canines). A few more teeth are sprouting too, as we speak, but she won’t open her mouth long enough for me to examine them.

Motor Skills

Emma is still not confident to walk unsupported, probably because of her sleep-n-plays, which she has to wear to prevent scratching. I’ve seen her take one step unsupported and then sit down. She is very adept at cruising and moving along couches, tables and such. She also loves pushing toys around and using them as support. Sometimes I let her wear shoes on top of her sleep-n-plays so that she gets a firmer grip on the floor.
She can climb up flights of stairs on all fours now.
Very advanced pincer’s grip and she can locate minuscule specks of dirt on the floor.
She is a very fast learner. When I do our nightly prayer sessions with the elder kids, and I say “Let’s Pray”, Emma will quickly put her hands in prayer position.

Communication and Social Skills

She waves “buh bye” independently and does it when we are ready to leave a room.
Loves to play “chase” with us when we pretend to chase her around the house.
Vaguely saying these few words: “dog”, “ball”
Reaches out and extends her hands when she wants to be carried.

Food and Feeding

Emma is still drinking mostly Mommy’s milk with an increased love for grapes and homecooked porridge.

Some of the foods she has tried this month:

Tortilla
Mango
Hainanese Chicken Rice (just the rice, without the chicken and soy sauce)

She is also able to use the straw to drink. I “trained” her using the actual straw and was surprised she was able to use it after a couple of attempts. She still bites on the straw though .

Earlier this month, we had a scare when I fed her some salmon porridge. I was quite happy at first when she downed it with gusto, however almost immediately I noticed Emma’s lips were very swollen and she had rashes all over her face. I quickly attributed it to allergy, and since she had had nothing new that day, it was very possible that the allergic reaction could be due to the salmon in her porridge. I breastfed her and fell asleep and thankfully after an hour or so of monitoring the swelling subsided and she was back to her old cheerful self.

There’s a high possibility she could have reacted strongly to some kind of preservatives in the salmon we bought because I recently tried with salmon porridge again (this time salmon from a different source) and Emma was okay with it.

The Piper

July 16, 2014 in Entertainment, Ethan, Hannah | No comments

Ethan’s school recently had a simple 45-minute school play called The Piper, based on the popular story The Pied Piper of Hamelin. In the simplicity of it all, I actually found myself enjoying the play.

Ethan was casted as a member of the choir and he had been singing the songs over and over again at home, so much so that Hannah also knew the lyrics to them! Can you spot him in the photo above?

Although in the process of rehearsals and preparations, the original pair of pants I sent in for Ethan to wear as part of his costume got misplaced, it was still wonderful to see all the kids enjoying themselves during the performance.

Looking forward to similar performances in future 🙂

Hannah also wanted in on getting onstage:

Groovin’ to Happy

July 9, 2014 in Emma, Exercise, Funny Moments | 1 comment

(all together now…)

Because I’m happy
Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof
Because I’m happy
Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth
Because I’m happy
Clap along if you know what happiness is to you
Because I’m happy
Clap along if you feel like that’s what you wanna do

Literature Night 2014

July 7, 2014 in Entertainment, Ethan, Growing Up, Hannah | No comments

We attended Literature Night at Hannah’s school just last week. It was an event organized solely for the K1 kids in honor of literary and performing arts. It was a very informal event, but full of rather interesting performances. The family members of the K1 kids were also invited to perform if they so desire.

Hannah’s class started the ball rolling with an entertaining Chinese choral speaking poem recital, followed by an English sign language poem and rounding it off with a Chinese song. She had a great time onstage and was brimming with confidence. We are so very proud of her.

Ethan contributed a 2-song ukulele performance, playing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Little Brown Jug. Good job, Ethan! Too bad the pictures Daddy took were a little blurry…

A couple of days later, I’d asked Hannah to repeat her English sign language poem at home:

Here are the words to the poem:

Thank you, Mom.
Thank you, Dad.
Three small words.
So much to add.
For all your love
and your support
a million words
would be too short.
The words, “I love you”
seem too few
to express the love
I have for you.

A Walk Along The Heritage Trail

June 29, 2014 in Emma, Entertainment, Ethan, Exercise, Hannah, Parenting | 1 comment

Several weeks ago, a old friend of ours paid us a visit. We had not seen each other for yonks, so we had a good time catching up on what’s going on with each other. We also took this golden opportunity to visit the Heritage Trail in Georgetown together with our friend and his family. Although we have been living in Penang for so long, it was Pete’s second visit and the kids’ and my first visit. It was slightly cloudy that day but we managed to cover quite a few key places.

Khoo Kongsi

Obligatory Street Art Photos

Read the rest of this entry »

Emma at 15 Months

June 26, 2014 in Emma, Milestones | No comments

Scrap Credits
Pink Love QP from Delicious Scraps

Weight

About 7.2-7.3 kilos.

Height/Length

Not measured.

Teeth

7 teeth: 3 bottom teeth (either 3 incisors or 2 incisors and 1 canine) and 4 upper incisors. I suspect she is teething again because she has been waking up more often at night nowadays.

Motor Skills

Emma can squat and stand repeatedly unsupported now. She is also very pleased with this accomplishment of hers and loves to bask in all the appreciative applause she gets.
She loves throwing and dropping things on the floor (i.e. casting), and will giggle when we pick it up and let her repeat the same process.
Emma loves to crawl under chairs, through holes and squeeze into confined places.

Communication and Social Skills

She waves “buh-bye” quite readily and on cue now, and sometimes says “Babber” or “Baba” when she does that.
She gives flying kisses by putting her palm to her mouth and then removing her palm. Took her like less than a week to get this.
Flashes her cheeky grin whenever she gets the chance to.
I blogged that she will attempt the actions to “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” but I noticed that she actually recognizes the words too. When I say the words “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” without actually singing it, she will start doing the actions.
Likes to say “There!” while pointing. She uses this method to indicate where she wants to be carried to.
She likes to give/hand us her toys or any item she is holding, most times accompanied by “There!”
“Deh-deh” for Daddy and “Momma” for Mommy is quite consistently used now.

Others

Emma has been able to fall asleep in Daddy’s arms for several nights now. I find it heartwarming that she is comfortable enough with Daddy that way. And of course, Daddy’s not one to complain 🙂

Food and Feeding

Emma is still drinking mostly Mommy’s milk with a smattering of new foods introduced here and there.

Some of the foods she has tried this month:

Soy Bean Curd, which she absolutely loves
Dragon Fruit
She’s also become more accepting of salmon now, especially salmon in porridge. 🙂

Little Missy Had a Little Pedicure!

June 13, 2014 in Growing Up, Hannah, Parenting | 2 comments

I decided to give Hannah a little treat for the holidays and took her for her first pedicure ever! Well, it wasn’t exactly a pedicure because she didn’t get the foot soak and she had no callouses to treat, so she only got her nails trimmed and painted.

Nevertheless, she was very excited when the day came and kept reminding me to be on time because she did not want to be late.

First she got to sit in the big soft armchair while her toenails were trimmed. While waiting Hannah chose her nail polish color. She was so amazed by all the colors available!