a bouncy castle of sort

When Alan brought Kristin to the bouncy castle a week ago, she was there barely 10 minutes and left. Daddy said she did not dare to let go of his hands.  

Aug 3rd, it was our last opportunity to immerse ourselves in this summer adventure playground. So it didn't bother me that Alan wasn't around to come along. Anyway, other than the first visit, I had been there alone with the kids on two separate occasions. What's more when there's company of 4 others (2 adults and 2 kids)?

Sometimes I wonder if the kids are making things difficult for me... All the heart-attacks I had whenever she fell too near the edge or someone was bouncing close next to her...

Anyway, this clip is for you, Daddy.

Last Day of the 4th Year

This looks like a simple and fun activity: You don't pedal with your feet, but "wind" the train with your arms. 
It was part of the set up at the adventure playground in the city centre. It's been two great weeks of fun for all the kids in Frankfurt. We were at the adventure playgrounds about 4 times altogether. The first week was wasted mainly at home since it was rainy and cold.

Anyway, back to the FUN activity we've seen from the clip above, on the last day of visiting the playground, I was a little distracted that I allowed Bryan to try it out again all by himself.
Reasons being: 1) I was tied down to a tantrum-bursting girl who was nothing but unreasonable, whining for Pocky Sticks and clinging onto me like a koala! 2) Bryan had done it before. He should know the drill.

Bryan was about 5 kids down the line after Kristin had gone for her trial. About 5 minutes after he was on the track, I heard him screaming and running towards me, asking if there was blood on top of his left eye. What? Again? Yes, there was blood and a cut, hopefully not too deep. And I just chucked Kristin her Pocky sticks, left her to my friends and ran towards Bryan. It was almost at the same place where he hurt himself two Thanksgiving ago. Thank God, his sight was spared.

Prior to this accident, Kristin also had a slight bump, on her right eye, where her double eyelid cuts. Hers was just a slight abrasion. Nothing serious.

While I brought Bryan to the First-Aid station, my friends saw another boy sustaining similar injuries. So, parents, never let your child board this train, no matter how much fun it promises.

In case you're wondering why Bryan looked a little strange on his 5th birthday video clips, it's the new scar that he will have to live with for the rest of his life. Not only does he have one, but two of those scars to remind me of God's grace and the preciousness of sight!

My son, when will you learn to be more cautious with life?



P/S. Call me superstitious but just a couple of days prior to this accident, Bryan mentioned about having a theme of pirate for his birthday on Monday. And on the night before the previous accident, he announced to Alan and me that he wanted to make pirate his ambition. The next time he mentions anything about pirate, I would think thrice about leaving home for any errands at all!

5 years - some milestone indeed!

At birth, Bryan weighed 2.775 kg 

and was 50 cm long. 

His head circumference measured 33.5 cm. 

At 5, Bryan weighs 21.6 kg 

and stands at 113 cm tall. 

One round his head is 51 cm. 

Oh boy, has he grown or what! 

cake-cutting..

Well, we all know that brownies have sticky, chewy tops.

So this plastic knife wouldn't cut through, lest you think my son was really "sawing" the cake!  

Anyway, you might have noticed by now who couldn't wait to sink her teeth into the brownies! 

clips redeeming or not...

Bryan was given strict instructions to let Kristin blow out all candles. 

This girl just can't wait for her birthday to come... 

She just told me today during dinner, "And Mommy, for my birthday too? You will bake a cake? Make my birthday come tomorrow, ok?" I replied, "But Daddy won't be home yet. He'll be home for your birthday." She said, "Oh! Ok."

Bryan's 5!

Yes, he is.

Unfortunately, Daddy is travelling. So this was a quiet affair tonight after dinner.

Here are some photos and video clips for you, Daddy!

The cake:

Kids helping to decorate the cake:

The happy Birthday Boy with his little sister:

Mommy and kids:

The birthday song (Take 1):

The birthday song (Take 2):

This is taking a long time to upload. Have been trying from 10pm - 1am.

Take 2 will follow. Well, you'd have guessed it anyway. A more peaceful take of the birthday song. :)

France Road Trip in July

No time to blog, so let the photos tell the story... 

our photobook with Shutterfly. 

Having fun with hor-fun...

I never really appreciate simple hawker food until I'm overseas. One can buy simple dishes like char kueh teow, fried carrot cake or hor-fun easily at any hawker centre without thinking much of the preparation process. 

In my student's days, I had my share of experimenting in the kitchen. I used to stay up late at night working on a carrot cake (not the sweet cake!) recipe from my mom. Or I was always an eager player when someone needed help to make guotie or jiaozi. During one of Alan's birthday in Berlin, I remembered we made lots of finger food, e.g. curry puffs, po-piahs and pan-fried carrot cake. 

However, that's all history now. Those were the good old days where there were no children in my life. Nowadays, I'm not so BIG with kitchen experiments anymore. Cooking/Food isn't really a big thing now. The only BIG thing on my mind during each meal time is HOW CAN I FEED KRISTIN QUICKLY! 

Last Sunday, we decided to give the Chinese restaurant in Bad Homburg another try. It was disappointing the last time we ate there. But I thought it was because of the street festival crowd, thus the busy restaurant couldn't come up a decent hor-fun dish. Yet, dinner on Sunday was equally disappointing. I don't think we would be back again. 

Actually I had in mind to do char kueh teow for lunch today so that I could freeze some of it for dinner tonight. It would be an easy dinner since we have swimming for the evening on agenda. 

Then I thought, I could try for a hor-fun lunch instead.

It turned out pretty well. In fact, Bryan said it was his best lunch ever. (By the way, he uses the superlatives when it's something he likes). He hasn't quite tasted the original hawker hor-fun yet. In any case, it's better than what the restaurant served - that's what he said! 

Looks like I haven't quite lost it: A group of friends (2 from Munich and 2 from Berlin) once came to visit and cook hor-fun for me when I was a student in Kassel. Though it happened eons ago, the recipe is certainly still fresh in my head. So are the good old days... 

Ok, this was lunch: 

The fried kway teow...

The sauce... 

The dish... 

The verdict... 

definition of the week...

Bryan: Look, Mom, it's a bib!

Bryan exclaimed happily as he showed me how he had bitten off his Gelbwurst into the shape of a bib. 

Mommy: Do you know what a bib is? 

Bryan: Yes, of course. It's something a baby wears around her neck so that her clothes will not be dirty when she eats. 

Hmmm, looks like he hasn't forgotten why he had one on when he was a baby. 

France, Road Trip, Part 1

When Alan showed  this to me on our Lumix, I thought, "What? Blue screen on camera?" 

He told me he took a picture of the sky! 

So to prove to you that the weather was absolutely fabulous throughout our road trip, this was how the sky looked like, every day! 

These pictures were taken in Sault, one of the days when we did the lavender route. It was actually late in the evening about 8.45pm. 

harvest...

I still haven't watered my plants for obvious reasons: 

1) It's been predicted to rain the next few days. 

2) The weather's been cool. Definitely not a sweltering hot summer here. No need to drown my plants. 

A vast difference from the glorious week we spent in Provence and Cote d' Azur where temperature was always a pleasant 27 deg, dry and breezy. 

When we came home, we found some fruits/veg ready for harvesting. My mom always tells me to snip off dried leaves, wilting flowers and of course, in this case, fruits that are harvest ready. In that way, the nutrients in the soil will be used effectively for the other buds to bloom and thus yielding more fruits. No books there... just some wise words from someone who used to spend her free time in her youth working in a pineapple plantation - definitely not her favourite pastime though. 

The kids and the crops

an experiment in botany...

Question: Will a plant survive when all its leaves are snipped off? 

Before I left for our road trip to Provence, I snipped off the leaves on one of my rose plants. Well, I wasn't exactly doing this for the sake of a scientific experiment, rather there were too many aphids growing on it and I had to chop off the leaves since the pesticide did not work. 

When I came back late last night, rather in the earlier hours today, the first thing I did was to check my balcony of plants that have gone without water since July 5th! (I still haven't watered them this afternoon.) To my surprise, this was what I saw on my rose plant: 

Of course, the picture was taken much later today. It was pitch dark when we came home.

See the young leaves shoots? 

Hey, my rose did not die! 

Now I'm waiting for Lilian to report on her pea plant. Read her post here. 

P/S. Sarah, I don't think I'll try for a spice garden in Sg. The reason why I'm so into gardening here is that I don't have to water my plants every day, nor do I have to check the water on the dish below the flower pots. The flower boxes come with soil which is fertile with pollens from the Botanical Gardens in my backyard, and the plants don't require water every day. They are sort of out in the open! So even when I'm off on vacation, I don't have to bother anyone to help me water my plants. That's why gardening is made easy here! ;) 

a picnic a day...

keeps the children healthy and gay! Ok, I mean gay in the good old Middle English way!

Yep, we live next to the Botanical Gardens of Frankfurt. And I know back in Singapore, the Botanical Gardens will never be in my backyard. Not a chance, man!

So while it still lasts - the good weather, the good life here, I gotta be in Palmengarten on every possible sunny day. This was the third time this week. I'm slowly running out of ideas on how to entertain the kids. We did bubbles, rolling on grass, animal movements, football, soccer, water play, playing tag, pretending to walk on tight rope, scissors-paper-stone all this week...

While Daddy took a cab to the airport, we took a walk in the park. It's a fun lazy Sunday afternoon thing. Just the kids and me, a picnic under a huge tree.

Hmm, I think our toes really resemble one another!

Somehow, my kids never failed to attract attention as they trotted along behind me across Palmengarten. I guess it's the same back in Singapore: We'll be so enamoured with kids of a different ethnic group.

of greens, reds and purples...

This will be my last year of gardening. In the beginning, I was overwhelmed by the lavish space for flowers. I really didn't know what to do. We moved in November 2005, and that winter was long and hard. Most of the flower boxes were buried by snow for most part of the winter. But once spring arrived, I was pulling out weeds almost every week. That was when I was "called" to put some plants into the flower boxes.

So here they are... I'm missing them already. I won't be able to move them back to Singapore. And the next tenant will probably "murder" them all. Sniff! Though most of the plants won't survive the winter, my poor lavender and roses perhaps won't live to see the next spring.

Self-harvesting some lavender for the guest bathroom...

the longest word is...

SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS... yay...!

When Bryan started to ask me for the 99th time about arriving at our hotel in Friedrichshafen in the car a couple of weeks ago - our road trip to Lake Constance, I decided to distract him a little:

Me: So Bryan, do you wanna learn the longest word in the world?

Bryan: Yeah.

Me: It's super-

Bryan: Super-

Me: cali- , fragi- listic- expi- ali- docious, while Bryan was mouthing each part after me. Not bad, the fella got it within the last 10 minutes of our drive, while Dad and Mom were a bit confused with the navigation.

We haven't thought much of the word since the episode until last Saturday evening. Bryan suddenly blurted it out after dinner, It's supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. Hmmm... he still remembers it. And oh, it's time he watches Mary Poppins, I thought.

When Alan left for London on Sunday afternoon, I decided to let Mary Poppins do the babysitting, for the first time ever. She was just perfect for Bryan. But the hocus pocus didn't work with Kristin. Sigh...