Thursday, November 1, 2012

Horse riding fun!

The kids are on holiday and since Laetitia's horse-riding camp two years ago, I had been thinking about bringing her horse-riding. Finally, the opportunity came and I brought both kids to Gallop Stables at Horse-city (Turf city along Bukit Timah Road)

Laetitia and I were taking the 30mins semi private lesson and Loic was going to do a 20mins guided pony ride.

We had lots of fun and Loic thoroughly enjoyed himself too. He asked to go pony riding again the moment he saw me when I finished our session.

That afternoon when I asked him about his experience, he told me that when he saw the pony come out of its cage, he went "whoa!" and when the pony went back into its cage, it made the sounds "yeehee yeehee"! *laugh*

Laetitia did have fun too but I suspect it was a little less interesting compared to her school's horse-riding camp in Rider's Lodge in Malaysia. She was able to ride a horse rather than a pony then. Therefore comparatively. A pony would seem less intimidating.

Here's the kids and I on my ponies and horse respectively.

Sunday, October 7, 2012

Happy Birthday Papa!

Today we celebrated E's birthday and as a surprise I made him a Yoda birthday cake!  It was a young Yoda but it took me a few nights to finish making!

To keep it a surprise, I had to make the head and store it in a corner of the fridge. In addition, I had to ice the body and made/kept it separately in a friend's house. On the night before the celebration, I had to sneak out of the house and put the body in an air conditioned room followed by pretending to go to bed at the same time as E before subsequently waking up when he fell asleep to work on assembling the car together. That took another few hours and before I was almost done (without having any time to work in the wrinkles), I had to go back into bed so that he would not realize that I was up to something! 

Well, the result was all worth the crazy effort! He was very happy and we all had a very memorable celebration with our friends! 


Friday, September 7, 2012

Loic's first day at Maternelle!

Time flies and now my baby boy is all ready to enter the French official education system by going into Maternelle! Just like his sister did three years ago, now it's his turn. Except of course he has his sister in the same school.

The French school in Singapore, Lycée Français de Singapour (LFS) is a school for kids from 3 to 18 years old.  It is governed by the French education ministry and follow the French syllabus.  Since we are a rather mobile family, we feel its best to keep our kids in the French system.  On top of that, in the last three years, we have been very satisfied with how schooling life has been for the big girl. 

So, on the first day, we sent both kids to school and the boy settled in quite well. The school was very gentle in the way they ease the kids into the system.  So, for the first few days, it was only a couple of hours and I was to stay with him quite a bit.  Loic is a very independent boy and I had no worries about him settling in. 

First day of school. Playing with some of the boys while I'm in the class with him.

Leaving school on the second day!  Still all cheerful! 

Anyway, after two days, he was ready to take the school bus with his big sister! Instead of being scared or panicky, he was all excited and ready to go! 

The obligatory photo before the school bus arrives.

And off the go!

And that was it, la rentrée for my kids!  And yay to lots of free time for mummy since the school has three long days and two short days. :)

Friday, August 10, 2012

Summer in France

Since we left Paris, we make it a point to go back to France at least twice a year, over summer and Christmas. And this summer is no difference, we took the kids back to France to visit their grandparents.

It was a lovely summer and I took the opportunity to take the kids individually out. I like spending one on one them with them.  It helps that I am giving them undivided attention and I firmly believe that this is an essential part of our relationship building and parenting. To ensure each child that they are loved as individuals by us, their parents and that we value them enough to want to spend time alone with them.  

I took both of them separately to Toulon and we had lots of fun. With the girl, we did girlish things like go to the street market to look at little stuff like bangles and accessories. We also took a walk down the port. 




With the boy, we went on the "petit train de Toulon"! And oh boy did he enjoy that! 




The weather was just lovely and I ended the time spent with them by having lunch in the restaurant before heading home.

And to end off, here's a photo of the two of them with a classic face made by Loic, my little Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbs)! :)



Monday, February 20, 2012

Loic's 3rd birthday!

Happy Birthday my little darling!

It's Loic's birthday today and I had been terribly busy the last week preparing for it. The bulk of my time was spent making Loic his birthday cake, a Thomas the Train Engine cake. It is the first time I try making a 3D cake and the first time using fondant. And oh my goodness was it a tough job. It took me a total of 10 hours to complete the job.

I started making the face on Thursday night, spending 4 hours in total baking 7 small chocolate cake (3 of which I brought to the office the next day) and creating Thomas' face with fondant.

Check out the face right after it was made.



Thereafter, on Saturday, I went on to baking more cake as more was required. I also had to prepare all the fondant as I had to complete the cake that evening to bring it to church the next day for the birthday celebration. I started work at about 5pm and only finished slightly passed midnight!


The steps it took to complete the process of making the cake.








When I woke up in the morning, Loic ran to me very excitedly and said "THANK YOU MUMMY for making my Thomas cake!" My helper had shown him the cake before I was up. He also happily brought his papa to the fridge to show him the cake. Loic was definitely very pleased and happily shared with everyone that his mummy made him a Thomas cake. I'm glad that even though Thomas did not turn out perfectly, to my little boy, it was special. Here's when we brought it to church to celebrate!

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Chinese New Year!

This is the second year that we are spending CNY in Singapore! I can hardly believe that we have been back for two years.

Chinese new year is one of my favorite Chinese festivities are it is culturally rich and there are so many different traditions and customs for the children to experience. From traditional Chinese new year goodies like bak kwa, love letters (egg rolls), pineapple tarts etc to yusheng and lion dance, the children's senses are all highly enlightened! Laetitia and Loic are obviously soaking in all the fun stuff while being immersed in one of their ethnical roots. I have to say I am glad that the two of them are spending some foundation years here where they can experience what being a Singaporean Chinese means.

Here's the kiddies on The first day of CNY at my mum's. And on the second day at my cousin's where we had a lion dance performance.