Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Wordless Wednesday: Month of celebrations

February is a special month for us. It's the month hubby and I got married. EV and AA were born in the same month too. And to add to the already joyous mood, Chinese New Year usually falls around the same period, so it is even more bustling for us.

And so.. here are a few photos, which are not only of our celebrations, but also leave me speechless. These are the very special people in my life, and no words can describe just how much I love them.

We started our adventure of a lifetime in 2009
EV's birthday
AA's birthday

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Sunday, February 24, 2013

CNY Play Dough Play


Today is the last day of Chinese New Year, and we did something special to mark this special end to a special festive period. 

We made play dough pineapple tarts!

They are super easy to make. You just need some homemade orange-coloured and gingerbread play dough. Here's how I made mine, using a recipe that I've tried-and-tested numerous times to get the play dough to just the consistency that I like. 

Ingredients: 
Half cup flour
Quarter cup salt
1 tsp cream of tartar 
Half cup water
Half tbsp oil
For the orange dough, use 1 tsp of orange colouring
For the gingerbread dough, mix in either cinnamon powder, nutmeg powder or both.

To make the dough, I put the all the ingredients together in a pot and cooked it over medium heat, stirring it continuously until the dough thickened into a thick blob. Here's a picture of EV helping me during one of our previous play dough making sessions.


Then I put the dough on to a clean surface and kneaded it till smooth. For the orange dough, I put in the colouring into the pot before cooking, while for the gingerbread dough, I put cinnamon powder while I was smoothing the dough.

Now, to make the pineapple tarts, that was the fun and easy part that EV liked. 


The gingerbread dough was used for the tart base, while the orange dough was used for the pineapple.


And hey presto... yummy pineapple tarts to 'eat'!


EV was in quite a 'happy birthday' mood too, as we had celebrated a couple of birthdays this month. So she made a blue 'birthday cake', using straws as candles.


Great and creative play dough fun on a sunny afternoon.

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Mummy's in school too!

I am rediscovering school. 15 years after I left school, I now call myself a student once again, for educator training.

Let me coin a new term for my new role - student mummy. And while I'm at it, let me add wife, daughter, daughter-in-law... phew! We women are a tough lot!

So now, I've taken the bold step to add 'student' to my already demanding roles. What are my thoughts? Wah! Siong! (Singapore's lingo for 'it's downright stressful and demanding). In the first week alone, I've had two presentations, a 300-word assignment and a 200-word online session to prepare, all due within the week! This explains my exhausted brains. I have at least two early days that start at 830am, which means I'm up at 530am, out by 630am as it takes me two hours to get to the wild wild west where the birds don't lay eggs. And then there are days when I'm not back till 8pm. 

Since school started about a month ago, I've been spending less time with EV and AA, as compared to past year when I had my maternity leave and took extra time off work. I miss them terribly every moment I'm in school. My heart melts each time I return home to see AA reaching out for me, or hear EV say 'mummy play with me.' 

I don't deny that being a student is hard. Being a mummy with two young kids is even harder. But what I have learnt from the past crazy month is not only do I have to treasure every single moment with dear EV and AA, but how crucial it is for me to have good time management so that I can maximise time with the family, and yet be able to juggle long school days as well as heaps and heaps of readings and assignments.

It is not easy being a student. And I hope that my kids will not have to face the huge amount of stress that I am facing now. I guess they won't, unless they become a student mummy, or daddy, like me.

In a way, I think the term 'student mummy' does fit even if I'm not in school. After all, I study the art of parenting every day. That makes me a student of the school of parenthood.

So what have you learnt today in your school of parenthood?


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