hello february!!

Feels good to know that February is here, and that Valentine's day is just 2 weeks from now. Don't get me wrong, not that i have a huge hot date on the 14th, but very much that on this day i remember of the friends i have, and each year i would be sending out cards to my friends, and little gifts to my colleagues. Way before i started scrapping (i'm a scrapper for almost 1 1/2 years now), i always get roses for my colleagues, and i bought cards to send to my pals, but ever since i discovered scrapping, for my 1st year as a scrapper, i made chipboard cards wth their names my pals, and then this year for my colleagues, no roses, i'm scrapping each a chipboard of our Pulai Spring group photos, and accompanied with each of your names. Yixi if you are reading this, try beating this!!! (us siblings are constantly "at war" when it comes to festive gifts for the stuffs, we're trying to outbeat each other on gift ideas. He's one creative nut though!)

Talking about Valentine, not only is a day for couples or friends, i know since years back both me & jayce has not really been celebrating this day, the day just comes and goes, no special dinner or date. We've come to that stage that since knowing each other for 13 years, days like birthdays, anniversaries, V'day are no longer spent just of the 2 of us. My father-in-law's birthday falls exactly on the 14th (+ it's also the birthday of my other brother's girlfriend Cheryl) and with kaylen now in our lifes, we get to spent it more in a family style manner. I was just asking Jayce today "Are we celebrating Valentine's day this year with our Romeo"?. Definitely with our little guy!!!

So i'm keeping myself in a lovey dovey mood by creating projects for my dear friends, colleagues & special people all within the next 2 weeks, + i just added my very 1st Valentine's layout of me & kaylen which i have only 3/4 completed last night. Here's a little peek of it which is titled: "My dear, I heart you". Just love those Jenni Bowlin bingo cards...

This came for me in the mail yesterday....all so lovely from Elle's Studio www.shopEllesStudio.com.

Okay, before my little one awakes, i better scoot to get started on some of the Valentine Day projects, + i was itching to compile a mini album for Kaylen for Valentine's Day this year, and had just picked out the paper & overlays to start putting them together. So will be posting about this special project (definietely filled with loads of red & pink & hearts) the next time.

Enjoy your Sunday guys, and thanks for popping by!

Sorry Kaylen dear...

Hours ago we had our "Lo Hei" as always yearly, and this time Kaylen was able to join in with me and him sharing a pair of chopsticks. It was just fun with everyone screaming out well wishes for the chinese new year, and after everyone continued eating Lo Hei. I offered Kaylen the crackers (those you normally would find in any Lo Hei), and this was where something horrid happen. After just 2 crackers, and when Kaylen popped his 3rd piece, he was literally choking. Gasping for a breath, and he seemed not to be able to breathe. Jayce had gone to get him water, but he took some time getting it, and had no idea our lil one is having problem swallowing that cracker. Everyone was starting to crowd round while i carried Kaylen, lightly patting his back hoping that it helped. I even stuffed my finger in his mouth hoping to pull out that small piece of cracker. It didn't help that kaylen was trying to cry, having the look that he was not able to breathe. I was in pieces. My mom came and stuffed her finger in it, and that's when kaylen cried out so badly, and resisting having her finger in his mouth. She managed to push the piece of cracker which was stuck backwards in which he swallowed it. Afterwhich, he was simply unconsolable. Crying so hard, and i thought he was hurt in the throat since my mom did yanked her finger in very deep. We took quite awhile before we could get him to stop crying, and drink some water. Oh what was i thinking to be giving him the cracker which was hard. Was i even thinking at all if whether my little guy is ready for such hard food. Stupid stupid , just stupid. Jayce even asked me before i even gave him the 1st piece if Kaylen can eat this????

I felt soooo bad, and if anything bad is to happen to Kaylen, how am i ever going to forgive or forget that look on his face. It's not the fault of the cracker, it's mommy. Oh i just hated myself so much for causing him that moment of fear (when we brought him down again to the dining table when we had the Lo Hei, he just refused to go there till he made sure that the plate of Lo Hei was not sitting there anymore, oh goodness he remembered).

There's not going to be such matters happening again, i promised myself that i should be thinking first and be extra extra careful as to what i give him. Not ever!!! Kaylen might be growing up so quickly, but that doesn't mean that he is able to take everything. He is still on porridges, and having his meat & vegetables cooked to softer texture and mashed up to small bite size bits, so what makes me so sure that he could have taken that piece of cracker. Sorry my dear to have caused you all the stress and pain, and i'll be extra careful.

Just great!!

It's Kaylen's review this morning at the doctor's and he was certified that he has recovered from the dreaded HFMD! Little guy lost some weight, and it's very much the nightmare of my mom who kept on saying that she took so long to have him put on some weight, and see now, he lost it within days. Oh well, that's what you have with little ones. My mom is the sort that prefers his grandson looking like "marshmallow man" , but for me, just as long as he is healthy which is the most important. So i can just imagine what my mom is cooking for Kaylen today for lunch & dinner, surely something yummilicious.

At this moment, i'm just one happy person that my son is all well again, and yes a very mischevious one indeed. Oh well, boys will always be boys. As much as how much i prefer girls in the past, now that i have my little boy, i'm truly blessed to have him, and to me he is just as good. Many has asked when we will have our number 2, and that maybe number 2 could be a girl this time round (very much wished for by my dad who simply adores little girls and says that my number 2 is sure a girl), and jayce says he would like to have a girl as well. I'm not too stressed about the gender, it could be a boy again, we never know till number 2 arrives. To me, just as long as our baby is healthy, it's all i ask for. But in the meantime, don't think number 2 will come so soon. I just want to be able to spend more time with Kaylen now, and till he is much older (maybe 3 or 4) , we will start considering adding another member to our Lim family. It's just not happening yet, we're happy with the 3 of us now.

Today's a great day so far for me, and hopefully i have some time after Kaylen's gone to bed to work on a new layout. Feeling productive at the moment.

Till my next post, have a good day!

I have been scrapping

Yes, managed to complete 2 layouts during my chinese new year break at home. Here they are:-

Titled : Cherish Life Everyday

Journaling reads:-

Love that smile of yours Kay.

It never fails to make me smile

back at you. Don't ever stop

smiling dear cause i always

want you to be happy.

Love, mommy

Titled: Play Water

Journaling reads:-

See how much you love the water now.

You were initially so afraid of the

pool months ago, but just look at

you now.

Way to go Kaylen.

We're all on half day work today, and leaving soon for lunch with my colleagues at the boss aka my dad's house. So it's off to the scrapbook shop today with Jayce + Daiso our regular fix of stuff. Kaylen's with my mom today, and i will be seeing him before his afternoon nap later.

Have a good day!

At 20 months...

We love the time we have with kaylen, watching him play, and as he grows up so quickly, and developing so much more of his own character, we always find ourselves telling each other "we cannot believe that our baby is now so big"?? At 20 months, kaylen is :-

• starting to know what he wants, and is discovering the power of "scream". it's an headache when you get him screaming, and shortly after screaming he tells us by patting on his chest that he is afraid.


• starting to say a few more words than 1 month back. We're getting - bye bye, car, bar (for barney) & ball.


• showing more of his emotions as he begins to understand what he is watching on his usual barney or bob builder shows

And being parents for the past 20 months, we've learnt to;-

• think further ahead in life, and about how our actions would affect kaylen somehow


• take sacrifices cause it's not about just the 2 of us anymore, it's more about us as a family.


• putting kaylen first when we make any family decisions
• to treasure the precious time we have with each other, and with our little guy and time passed are memories kept forever so it's important to not to take things or people around us for granted
• be more responsible (not that we are irresponsible adults, but with a little guy whose always watching our actions & conversations, we are more careful now) with our actions

This parenthood thingy is much more than all those i mentioned, it has made me think more as a person cause i have a little one to bring up, and always thinking about how my son would turn under our guidance as it's not my dad's days where me or my brothers turned out not too bad as adults, having proper teenage days, and practically our parents didn't have too much a headache bringing us up. So with children at Kaylen's generation, it's a totally different story with the world they are now exposed to , and the influences around us, but one thing for sure, i'm bringing my son up the way my parents and grandparents taught us through. With our family believes which has been passed down from my grandpa days, and what my dad has taught me about life, all these i'm passing them on to Kaylen. Both me & jayce has very different upbringing, and 2 people from very different family styles, so sometimes it's challenging as to how we want Kaylen to be brought up cause we don't always agree. It's not something bad, but we have loads of thinking at times before we decide on what to teach kaylen. Mind blogging at times but why think so much (my brother would agree to say that I think far too much or bother too much, and he would always say to me "just let kaylen be") cause being parents is such a fun process seeing that our little one now is practically copying our every single movement or sound we make. We have our fair share of "why he is behaving like this" or "how should we go about..." or "what if it is like this...", endless at times.

Oh well, i'm having fun being a parent, and that's what matters most.

Just love it

Chiling out at home during the festive seasons is just simply great. I get to spend loads of time with Kaylen (we see his little red dots disappearing, and for the blistered ones they are turning dark red today, and appetite improving), and i know he loves having both me & jayce around cause frankly speaking it is only during the Chinese New Year that we get time off from work to just be with him. It's a good 4 days at home with him that matters most to me, and once we start work again, it's not easy to have time away from work cause it's back to busy busy days again. Time flies, and the 1st month of the year is coming to an end, and in early March i will be away for a good one week to Frankfurt, and it's winter time there which i dread. So much to do and prepare when I return back to work, and i'm so looking forward to having February come round.

You know what i did for the half of today which starts today at 8am (i'm lucky that Kay slept a little longer this morning, and i was up till 3am scrapping!! You heard me, I WAS SCRAPBOOKING, finally!). I made pancakes this morning for the boys, and Kay wanted the part of stiring the mix, and in the end i had to give him the whole pancake mix to keep him occupied (with jayce watching over as he stirs) while i made another bowl of mix.

Yummy pancakes which Kay loves time to time,

a break from softmeal bread & cheese (his all time favourite) or

cereal

After breakfast & bathe time, it's off to kaylen's own playtime, and this time it's with daddy's handphone which is still charging away.

Then it's play in his room with the picture cards with daddy.

It's on to laying down for awhile (these days with the HFMD, kids gets tired easily, and he was slightly slowing down at about 10plus this morning already which he usually doesn't)

And now as he naps (almost 1 hour already, and hopefully he sleeps more to rest and gets well), i get my own me time, and planning on some scrap later on, and surf some of my favourite scrap sites). I simply love the new year holidays. We start on Thursday again, but only for half a day (it's tradition for us to have lunch at the boss's place, and so i have a good half day to spend with kaylen again), so officially work seriously starts for us on Friday which for me has been a good complete 1 week break. It's simply more time for everything.

Here's a peek at what i created last night...+ yes some handwritten journalling which sometimes i wish i had a printer at home, cause i hate my handwriting. Seems to spoil the LO, but what the heck, it does make it my own LO orginal afterall. Needed a happy cheery LO after last week's hectic & stressed out episode.

I'm off, and be back again with more stuff tomorrow...have a happy tuesday guys & thanks for coming by. xoxo

Gong Xi Fa Cai!!!

Warm chinese new year greetings to all, and i'm truly touched to all you gals, Yati & Pooi for sending us regards to Kaylen, and he is now so much better although he does look droopy eyed at times, and tired out easily. Definitely still loads of rest as we go into Day 3 of this dreadful disease. He is due to have a review by his doctor this Friday, and as i read that even with the symptons of HFMD gone after 1 week, the virus is still within his body and he is still able to pass this to anyone. So it's no playgroup, no public/crowded places for the next 2 to 3 weeks. Would very much not want any parent within our control to have their kids going through what we had just gone through. I know this HFMD is so common here, but one can never be too careful to monitor our little one's condition (even with the fever gone, the dotted rash not appearing anymore, and ulcers getting better). This episode surely taught me to be extra careful with Kaylen's personal hygiene of having to wash his hands every time he is home, before food and after playgroup (we are already very careful to ensure that we wipe his hands, but this still happens), and as he loves to have his fingers in his mouth once he has his fave pillow, we should be even more cautious.

So, 1st day of New Year started at 7.15am for me, having to prepare in advance Kaylen's lunch before we leave home for family visits to my dad & my in-laws. The rest follows:

• 8am - Kaylen is awake (after 4 nights of crankiness, finally last night he managed to slept through the night from 8.30pm till 8 am this morning
• 8.30am - Kaylen getting ready to leave the home for CNY visiting (only going to my dad's & inlaws, and no where else, we're going to be home quarantined this year). Managed to take some photos with Kaylen in our new clothes
• 9.00am - at my dad's place, Kaylen having his breakfast at grandpa's, and off to great-grand ma's home which is less than 5 mins away
• 9.10am - no one is up yet at granny's place, we hanged around, and kaylen was having the time of his life palying with the bowl of melon seeds....
• 10.45am - at my in-laws place for a vegetarian breakfast along with my parents, and kaylen is starting to get very sleepy
• 11.45am - back home at Punggol with my parents , feed kaylen quickly , bathed him, and had him take his nap at 12.30pm.

So as i blog away, both kaylen & jayce is fast asleep, and till he gets up (hopefully he sleeps till 3pm), i hope to be surfing my favourite blogs (haven't done that for 2 days already), and even though stuck at home most of the Chinese New Year, i figured out i would have more time for scrapping which i did not manage to start yesterday. My stuff are all packed & neatly tugged away. We don't usually decorate for the Chinese new year (i'm more of a X'mas person), so i have these at home to get me into the new year mood.

These "huat" cakes are in brightly coloured orange, and a lovely pumpkin
Manage to get these pretty coloured Mu Dan flowers this year

And lastly, our photo shots with Kaylen, which Jayce has gotten the "better" look of Kaylen
It was only 8plus in the morning, and just look at Kaylen's face!!! Not feeling too happy.Oh well, have yourself & your family a great new year ahead!!!