Full Moon

The days just fly by now. Mia will be seven weeks old in a couple of days. We had a belated Full Moon celebration for her on 4 Jan with some family and close friends. This day was all the more special as we had both sets of grandparents with us.

Our little Miss Chubby now weighs 3.5kg. Yay!!! Quite an achievement given how small she was at birth, a mere 2.39kg. She's growing so quickly that she's truly lost that new born look.

My days are now taken up with feeding, changing nappies, as well as trying to keep the same routine for Ryan as before. I now can appreciate what other mothers mean when they say that with the second child, there's really no such thing as a fixed routine. Unlike Ryan who had a very fixed schedule for nap times, poor Mia just gets dragged along in the pram regardless of whether she's awake or in the middle of a nap, when I have to go pick Ryan up from school or take him to his taekwondo lessons etc. But I have to say, she's handling it like a champ. She seems to sleep through just about anything, waking up only when she's hungry or uncomfortable.

Where it all began...

6 weeks later...

And now we are four :)

Family table - enjoying the Peking duck

Good friends and good food

Girlie talk with Aunty Dee

The Patersons meeting Mia

Uncle Peter getting a little clucky ;)

Ryan and Nic enjoying their own little dessert buffet

Keeping the kids occupied while the adults enjoy the food and company

 

We're missing two here!

Three cheeky monkeys

Sweating it out on the playground

Three generations of Hans and Ngams

Firsts...

It has been an exciting (and also tiring) few weeks since we brought Mia home. We are still adjusting to having a baby at home and settling into our new routines. Shad and I love having a tiny baby to cuddle again while Ryan loves his new role as big "Kor-Kor". We've been very lucky so far, Mia has been a relatively easy baby. She feeds and sleeps well, and cries only when she's hungry or needs a cuddle (this will probably all change tomorrow now that I've written this!). She gave us an unexpected surprise in week 2 when she slept for 7 hours straight one night, hopefully this is a sign of things to come :).

Here are some snap shots of some "fun things" we've done over the last few weeks.

Beach babies...

First family photo at our favourite beach, Shek O beach

Snoozing in the sun

Food for all, including the little Missy!

Snorkelling 101...

Exploring the marvelous underwater world of... the bathtub

"I got a live one!"

Mia's first meeting with Poh-Poh and Kong-Kong...

"I can make things move with my hands!"...

Mia discovers the joys of touching things (25 Dec 09)

Ice-skating fun...

This ice-skating thing is easy (as long as I have my trusty chair for support) ;)

Diligently waiting for the next instructions from the coach

Picnic in the park...

Happy foursome in the park

Pizza and burgers at Disneyland Hotel Gardens

New Wheels ...

Daredevil Ryan on his maiden scooter ride

First time out at Inspiration Lake for the little munchkin

Mia's first boating adventure...

Lovely ladies enjoying the sun and sea breeze

Captain Ryan taking his job very seriously :)

One extremely tired little boy

The First Noel...

Christmas this year was all the more special for us with Mia's arrival. Once again, we are reminded of just how blessed we are to have two healthy, beautiful kids.

Our "new" happy family :)

Woodland Pre-School Christmas Concert

An X-tra special Christmas package

Christmas fever hit our home the moment we brought out our Christmas tree. We continued our little family tradition of decorating the tree together then giving Ryan the most important job of placing the star on top of the tree. As the presents began piling up under the tree, it was very amusing to see the poor little guy's will power tested to the limits. Shad and I had managed to "persuade" him to wait until Christmas to open up his presents but each day we were asked the same question, "can I open my present NOW?"

We decided to have a quiet dinner at home on Christmas Eve this year with Mum and Dad who are here for the holiday season and a few close friends. Christmas Eve night has always been very special for me. Growing up, that was the time when all our family would come together for a huge meal then sit around and sing carols until it was time to go for Midnight Mass at church. While we didn't make it to church this year, we still managed to keep up the tradition of lots of yummy food and great company for the night.

A turkey and ham Christmas dinner with the Chins, Hans and Ngams

Opening up presents with Emeric and Aunty Ava

A Christmas snuggle for Mama

Can't wait to try out Mama and Daddy's Christmas pressie

She may be tiny, but she stretches like an old pro

The extended family portrait

We had two of Ryan's classmates' families over for lunch on Boxing Day. Ryan, Samuel and Alicia are good buddies at school, and I suspect that their little siblings Mia, Zoe and Andrew will also grow up to be good friends. The three littlies were born within days of each other :), so it looks like we'll be seeing lots more playdates in the days to come.

Ryan and his fishing buddies Samuel and Alicia

Synchronised feeding session for the trio of second time Mums

Triple trouble :)

Proud Dads with their special Christmas packages

A Very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year Everyone!

A special, post-concert reprise performance of Let it Snow...

All About Ryan

A Day in the Life of a Pre-Schooler

This post is a little out of sequence as I started it before Mia's unexpected, early arrival ...

Ryan has been attending Woodlands International Pre-School for over two months now. So far he seems to be enjoying it and looks forward to seeing playing with his friends each day. However, of course there are still days when he wakes up and cries, " I want to stay home with you Mama" when we try to get him dressed and ready for school. But thank goodness, there are less and less of those days now. We've settled into a comfortable routine, Shad wakes Ryan up and gets him dressed, we eat breakfast together, I drive the little fellow to school then go run my errands, pick him up from school three hours later then head home for lunch. So far, we've been pretty happy with the Woodlands system, and impressed with the processes that they have in place. The crucial thing for us is that there seems to be a lot of importance placed on parental involvement, and the kids seem genuinely happy while they're at the school.

Dress Up Day...

The classroom of terror...!

Halloween day at school - in costume
. Mama's contribution to the Halloween party - mini chicken puffs

Morning Tea with the Kids...

The school organised a one-hour session one morning for the parents to join the kids in their classroom. Sitting on those itsy bitsy kiddy chairs, we watched the kids go through their daily activities - circle time, story time, Mandarin lesson and snack time.

Average attention span of 27sec
.

Ryan and his buddy Samuel having a snack

Ryan and Daddy taking a break during the "Kids in Motion" exercise session

Daddy regressing to Kinder'

Ryan came home one day with a huge bite mark on his face, a result of a "toy sharing incident" (as his teachers called it). While Mama and Daddy were concerned (which resulted in a conversation with his teachers), Ryan did not seem too affected by the whole incident and went to school the following day with just as much enthusiasm as any other day, except this time armed with some self defence moves :)

Battle scars (not a love bite, sadly)

During the last few weeks of my pregnancy, we tried to spend as much time doing "fun things" (as he calls it) with Ryan, letting him choose the activities himself. Each time we had a blast whether it was going out to the park or doing arts and craft at home.

The deep concentration of a skilled artisan

A 3.5 year old on a clothing strike

A final outing with Mama as an only child

30% of the ice-cream made it to his mouth

A reluctant pose with Mama

Hanging out with school buddy Samuel

How much for the monkey?

Happy and full after a teppanyaki dinner

Virtual tennis lessons on the Wii with Uncle Peter