A new beginning

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Birthday Celebration for Grandma

The kids celebrated grandma's birthday recently. They enjoyed the dinner, and blowing the candles out.

Thaddeus Baptism

Found a few pictures of Thaddeus's baptism in Xmas 2008.

Thad and Ruby

Thaddeus recognises Ruby from the calendar that we have at my place and Grandma's place. If you ask him, "Where is Ruby?", he would point to the calendar.

I hope they recognise each other when they meet.

What happens when you feed grapes to a baby?

Grape juice. Freshly squeezed, straight from the mouth, onto my shirt (and his) !!!


Don't blame me for it, he says......

The New Mega-Shopping Mall - ION Orchard

This is what it looks like. Haven't roamed in it yet. It's right opposite Tangs Orchard/Marriott Hotel, and above Orchard MRT Station.

Thaddeus 1st Birthday Party

Celebrated on 15 Aug 2009 with family and some colleagues.

What Have We Been Up To?

Not in chronological order or frequency.

1. Going on aquarium escapades - our favourite!

- we have visited (repeatedly) for past 2 months - Qianhu Aquarium, Nanyang Sea View Aquarium, 328 (located at Clementi Ave 2)

2. Toured around Kranji area

- Bollywood Veggies - ate at Poison Ivy Bistro with Mum & Dad.

- Hausmann Marketing Aquarium - fed koi, saw the biggest Pacu fish, exotic fish like Arapaima I cannot remember which one was longer - the Pacu or the Arapaima, because it was certainly longer than me! Couldn't take photo cos the pond was too dark!

3. Visited nurseries

I have visited nurseries in the Thomson Road area, Far East Flora at Queenstown and Hort Park.

4. Hung around furniture places

- bought an Ikea 4-drawer cabinet at the "As-Is" bargain section for S$203!

- bought 3 full-back leather dining chairs (Effezeta) for S$69 each at a carpark sale at Castilla!

So many things going on, you can understand why I haven't blogged for a while.

Update on my Fish Inventory

I now have 15 tanks (or sort of "tanks").

2 betta tanks - 4 male betta

1 temp tank - 1 female betta

1 breeder tank - 1 pregnant guppy and 10 fry (not related)

1 hospital tank - 1 sucker fish and 1 guppy

1 tank - 8 guppies

2 temporary tanks - 2 blue lobsters, 2 red lobsters

1 temporary container - 1 shrimp that just moulted

1 small tank - 1 honey gourami, 3 sucker fishes (plecos)

1 small tank - 7 common goldfishes

1 small tank - 6 red-eye tetras

1 mature tank - 1 honey gourami, 1 dwarf red gourami, 2 blue colbalt gourami, 2 pearl gourami, about 18 developing guppies in a breeder unit

1 square tank - 5 glowlight tetras, 6 buenos aires tetra, 6 harlequin rasbora, 2 sucker fish (leaf type), 3 rock shrimps, countless glass shrimps

1 Dymax tank - 2 angelfish, 1 dwarf cichlid, 3 algae-eaters

I feel like I own a fish shop. My kids think it's never enough.

Sophie and her 2 favourite men!

Daddy and Grandpa!

Lunching at Bollywood Veggies' Poison Ivy Bistro on 2 August 2009

Garden is Done!

The garden has been DONE! On the back near the wall, you have a mix of Gardenia and Jasmin sambac plants. Both are flowering plants with white petals that are fragrant if you can get a whiff of it. In the pots you have another plant, which also gives off a lovely fragrance, but I've forgotten the name! They were re-potted and have been in our garden for some time!

Against the other side of my wall, we put red Ixora plants, and Tibouchina which has purple flowers.

Thad and his Favourite Gadget

Yup, Thaddeus has a favourite gadget and it is a TV remote control.

He finds it fascinating that by pointing the control at the TV, the screen can change. So, whenever he gets a hold of it, besides attempting to nimble it around to pacify his teething gums (which I react by freaking out everytime), he would point and aim it at the TV. Sometimes he succeeds in changing the channels. Sometimes, he just wants to hold it.

My Fish Inventory

This is what we now have in our fish tanks. Today's latest editions we had to put in the acrylic round tank (it's not really a fish tank, it was meant to be kitchenware!).

Big Tank = 22 fishes.

- 2 Silver Sharks, 1 Tin Foil, 2 Angel fish, 4 Sucker fish, 4 Longkang fish, 7 orange platy fish, 2 goldfish-like fish

Medium Tank = 27 fishes, 2 snails.

- 2 Pearl Gourami, 2 Thai Gourami, 5 Tetra (black and white), 18 Baby fry (16 guppies, 2 longkang), 2 Orange snails

Dymax Tank = 11 fishes.

- 6 Cherry Barbs, 5 Golden Algae-eaters

Acrylic Round Tank = 6 fishes, 8 snails.

- 4 Baby Angel Fish, 2 Sucker fish, 8 Bumble bee snails

Overhauling the Garden

We recently went to the Plant Nursery in Thomson Rd area and bought a selection of Ixora (S$4 per pot), Gardenia, Tibouchina, and Jasmin Sambac plants so that our front garden does not look so disorganised. Hopefully, they all survive. Apparently, the Jasmin plant needs pesticide every week and within a day of coming back, its leaves were already being chewed by some insect.

Let's see how it goes......

Thaddeus is Scribbling

A first attempt to hold a 'pen' and scribble with the Magna Doodle board.

Thaddeus can now walk around the house with hand support, and even managed to climb up our sofa and our bed all by himself! It's getting dangerous to leave him alone to wander.

He also learnt to shake his head (when we say 'No'), and nod his head (when we say 'Yes'), though it takes a lot of coaxing and the right mood for him to do these on your command!

What is 19-1-2+2?

I think I now have 18 baby fishes.

It was 19, then -1 (because I miscounted), and minus 2 (because I found that 2 had died when I cleaned the tank), and plus 2 (when I suddenly realised that our longkang fish gave birth).

It happened yesterday, when I was staring at the longkang fishes (they are in a separate container from the rest), and then I saw 2 small baby fishes! It was so sad that I found only 2, as I was certain that they should have given birth to quite a number. I thought my baby guppy fishes did a wonderful jump from their 'tank' to the longkang fish 'tank', but realised that these 2 baby fishes are really bigger in size than the baby guppy fishes, and they are a little orange in colour!

Still cannot believe it!

I have 19 babies......

Baby guppies, I mean.

I recently adopted a fishtank of 7 guppies (3 females, 4 males) from my colleague. He already 'delivered' and gave away 1 batch of baby guppies from the 1st pregnant female guppy, and seeing that there was probably another one coming, I segregated the 2nd pregnant guppy on Saturday, and praise God I chose the correct one! Because I came back to work on Monday, not knowing that the guppy had already given birth, and promptly fed the tank as usual...and went about doing my work, as usual.

Then my same colleague walked in to my room, and said that the guppy had already delivered! I was flabbergasted as I didn't see them and suppose it happened during the weekend.

Stay tuned for the guppies' development. I brought them home today. They are so small you can't probably see them if I take a picture.

And Zack said...

"I love you Mummy".

It happened when I tucked him in to sleep and whispered an "I love you" to his ears on Friday. He then replied the above spontaneously to me. I was so happy!

Motherhood is made of such moments!

Trip to Pasir Ris Kids' Kampong

Recently, Ethan had a chance to go to Pasir Ris Kids' Kampong again with his friends, Faith, Li-Yer and En-Yer and her friend. It was hard work for them to try and catch the fishes, and everyone was sweating it out, but Ethan enjoyed the company and the activity very much.

He especially enjoyed touching the carps and letting them 'kiss' his hand.

What's around The Old School

Last month, I had some time to kill, and I had the chance to walk around "The Old School", where MGS used to be.

It is now home to a number of design houses. They also had 2 restaurants/bar, one called 'Timbre' and another called 'Chalk'. I also visited the 2902 Gallery where they were hosting a "The Dimension of the Plane - Communication Design in Germany". There were lots of information on the boards, but I learnt a few new things - there is such a thing as a font book, and the cover design of design books are really fantabulous.

I liked the fact that I was wandering around in a tranquil environment, at leisure and feeling refreshed along the way. This should be the way and I know why the companies decided to put up at this new location. It's very a calming and lovely place to be in. I felt inspired to do creative things.