LIFE IS ....

It is.

With zoo visits, some scrappy time, retail therapy (thanks to sales at Banana Republic & Children's Place) and happy kids... how to ask for more ??? Plus, C is reading!! Yeah ! Finally !!!

AND i finished this humongous ABC album for fathers' day !!

Nearly killed me, but am sooo happy with the result ! Can you imagine - 26 pages !! I used mostly SFTIO 's Jan 09 kit (Patience) which blended blues, browns, beiges and oranges perfectly !

(cover)


gosh ... don't think i'll undetake something of this scale for a long long time...

here are some highlights..

*M*

*T*

*V*

AND completed this LO of C too - surely one of my faves..

AND we are celebrating our 13th anniversary tomorrow too ! My am i getting old ! LOL !!!

Have a great week ahead everyone !

Apron Strings Jun DT reveal

The Apron Strings Jun kit was such fun to play with !

The Small breadbox kit conveniently themes 3 different mini-kits together with matching cutie bellies to play with. It was just tooo easy to put together ! Featured papers are Doodlebug, Jenni Bowlin and Fancy Pants this month. Plus, Lori puts together a wonderful newsletter to go with the kits each month that lays out just what you need to do and gives so many inspirational ideas to put those pages together.

AND I achieved some 7 layouts and 2 cards with the kit and also had fun mixing the different lines around !! ah, the Jenni Bowlin line with its blues, blacks and reds ... my favourite...

"Grow Baby Grow"

- a tribute to my pint-sized Faye who is still all of 14 kg... Sigh... what does it take to fatten this girl ??!!! AND to add to my woes, i can't seem to find full cream milk in the supermarkets in the US, cos' parents here seem to have the opposite problem to mine !

I just love this close-up.... Faye just gets sooo broody at times. I suspect she might have a split personality !! LOL !! What a complex 4 year old !!

"The many sides of you"

"Free 2 Play"

Away from the stresses of a school-going kid in Singapore, this girl just PLAYs and PLAYs all afternoon ! I love that R now has the time for a more carefree childhood, and we're not rushing from class to class all the time. So glad we made the decision to just pack up and move..

"Reach for the Stars"
A reminder to R that she can have fun, and reach for the Stars at the same time !
Some other fun LOs capturing the day to days of what we get up to !

"SO close"

"Enroute"

"Yum"

Simple quick cards i made with leftovers...

This is now hanging on my kitchen cabinet above my stove..

Thanks for dropping by !!

Bad...

i know...

ME that is, for being so slack in updating my blog :)
Sorry, friends ... guess you can call it a blog rut i was in, and events accumulated to such an extent that it was too tough to put it all down !

So here's the greatly condensed version to explain my lapse.....

San Francisco - here we come !!

While everyone back home was busy preparing for the mid-year exams, the girls here were living it up - on a road trip - driving many miles to San Francisco and San Jose and visiting R's Godma in Sacramento.

Finally some of their own kind (kids) that is to play with !! The girls have been soo deprived - socially that is - and missing all their friends back home. They've hardly any playmates here except each other. And me, YIPPPEE !! Some decent ADULT female company, as i caught up with my 2 friends living here. Plus really great homecooked Chinese food too ! BLISS !!

En-route the scenary up the California coast was breathtaking as we travelled up the Pacific Highway, hugging the vertical cliffs amid foggy clouds like these snaps show ...

R is now quite a dare-devil and will climb over boulders and rocks just to get to the top of a mount to gaze into the Pacific blues...

C was quite happy with other means of entertaining herself....

But their favourite - yea ... shell picking ... STILL

On the way, we said hello to some squirrels, deer and sea lions...

Back to the grind

Now back home, they're hitting the books while their peers are on holiday !! R's lao shi sent her a sample of a Chinese composition that is expected at P2 and i flipped !!! GOSH !! how AM I EVER going to help her to write to such a standard, when i can't even put a decent sentence in Mandarin together any more ! Panic....

Well guess i just gotta focus on what i CAN do... I try to do a core academic subject a day (be it Eng, Math or Mandarin) and a more general knowledge based one - be it geography, history, or literature. Yesterday, we covered the topic of pyramids and MUMMIES - one of my all time favourite subjects ... haahhaha...

here's a glimpse of our homeschool session ...
(that was C's spelling for the day on the top left side of board)

This was R's version of what she got out of it...

And this is C's (very proud of herself) version ...

AND I've been busy with lots of scrapping too for Apron Strings ! Check back for the DT reveal this 15th !!

Apron Strings Blog Hop Winner

And the WINNER is .....

Do email me your address, Linda, and keep a lookout for that RAK coming in your mail soon !!! Thanks for playing along gals ! Please come by again soon !

Museums and a tea party !

Took the girls down memory lane this week, and they visited this air-craft carrier - the USS Midway which had previously served as a flagship in the fleet in Desert Storm stationed at Kuwait.

Now decommissioned and used as a museum, the girls got to see how sailors actually lived aboard the air-craft carriers, and got to climb into the cockpits of several aircrafts on the flight deck. At full capacity, this air-craft carrier could carry up to 60 aircraft on its deck !

We also did the Museum of Man this week - more like an anthropology museum so now the girls have an inkling what their ancestors looked like (ie. apes) and how ancient civilisations lived.

Here C stands in front of a stone shaft, what is called a Stela, in which the ancient Mayans carved their beliefs on.

The girls were fascinated by what they saw and were busy scribbling in their note books. C had me spelling out all the exhibits for her so she could jot them down. She might not remember what they are already, but the process was good nonetheless....
R's favourite - the ancient Egyptians and mummy exhibits.

Here she is - sitting on a pharoah's throne :)

And the kids went to Tea today !!!

A fanciful one at that, organised by our local library. It's called the Mother and Daughter tea, so i got to go too. Many mothers and daughters actually dressed up in similar outfits and matching hats as well, so it was a real sight to see. We of cos' just went in our usual.


But it was such fun ! The girls got to use pretty glassware and walk up to get their tea poured out of elegant silverware, and snack on colourful cookies and muffins. So wonderful that the library stuff and the volunteers put so much effort into it, and all for free too ! It's really heartening the spirit of volunteerism here.

Then off to watch Hannah Montana - the Movie. It was great. As usual, i cried buckets. Not that it was all THAT soppy - it was just me. We really enjoyed it, better than High School Musical, in our opinion.

So all in all, another fantastic week. Hope you all had a great one too especially if the exam season is over :)

Hurray ! the new Apron Strings Blog and a blog HOP !!

If you are here from Amy's blog, WELCOME !!
If not, you gotta start right with the juiciest at the Apron Strings Blog and follow your way here on this fabulous Blog Hop !!!

I'm just over the moon with the AS Blog, cos' it's promising to be a place with loads of inspiration, fun and goodies to droool over :) And what a way to kick-start the celebrations !

Hope you gals got your pen and paper ready for the continuation of our word hunt, cos' here's my piece of the phrase you're collecting "happy wallets". Collect all the phrases from the DT blogs you visit and you stand a chance to win a scrappy Treat ! Easy !! Want more chances for candy ? Just leave a comment on this post and you'll also stand to win a gorgeous RAK from me!!

But seriously, the AS kits are really such a value-laden kit which doesn't stinge on the bellies and which gives you so much variety in the kind of pages you'd like to create as well. I loved the flexibility it gave, like in these from the Mar kit ....


So come on now, get on the bandwagon and hop on over to Vicky Kelly's for more scrappy goodness - she's one talented lady, i tell ya !! Oh yes, and don't forget to check up the AS blog through the weekend for lots of chances to win some more blog candy with all the challenges in store. I've one on for Saturday morning so be sure to drop by !!

Lotsa Fun ..

Managed to squeeze in just a teeny bit of me-time today for some scrappin !
Here it is - using Let's Scrap (sketch#106) ...

(All goodies from GCD studios + 7G stickers)

Thanks for dropping by !!