Tuesday, March 20, 2007 ;
1:06 PM
Sat 17 Mar
After the work day, I was supposed to bake ds2's birthday cake for Sunday's celebration with his sunday school class. But there was simply no time, so we drove out to get a cake. I wanted a plain bare cake so I could decorate it myself. I had to do something personal for him, else I'd feel bad, cos we didn't get any presents for him.
Just like for ds1, I had wanted the cake to be his present.
Unfortunately, there wasn't any plain cake. So I had to get a brownie (US$5.99). It was the only thing that had a plain flat surface. haha
Ok, so these are the 3 steps I took to decorate the "cake". I got the idea of a present-like cake from a magazine, but kind of had to modify everything else due to the unique nature of this brownie.
1st step: use fruit tape (those 7-11 candy? but this is made of fruit juice) to make the ribbons. The cross part then the bow. The center "knot" was a roll of the same fruit tape. I wanted tape of a uniform bright colour but they had rainbow coloured ones only, except for red.
2nd step: I cut a "2" in a piece of paper to act as stencil, then placed over the cake and sprinkled the coloured bits.
Step 3: I wrote "Justus" in green frosting. That doesn't go well with red and brown but it was what ds1 chose for his birthday and that was the only colour I bought then.
Next morning:
Sunday Mar 18
After Sunday school class, ds1's class and his class (plus the teacehrs) sang him a birthday song then we cut the cake together.
These are his Sunday teachers. He has another wed class teacher, pictured in a previous post. The one carrying him is the main teacher. She has taught this cradle roll class for 'n' years, since her kids were ds2's age!
Pic below: Cutting the "cake" with the other kids looking on. All very eager, leaning forward, hands on table pose... :-)
Below: our whole family shown.
I let ds2 open his presents although the actual day is on 22nd, because we already celebrated and cut the cake, it would be confusing for him to wait till then.
The one below is from Mary and Zhiyang (thanks!!). He opened it himself and immediately said "choo choo train!" then sped off to play with it. Both of them love Thomas the Tank Engine. Good thing I took a pic first.
Guess what? Today the battery ran out liao... dh is going to get new ones, cos ds1 also keeps wanting to play with it. :-) it was a good chance for me to teach ds1 to respect ds2's things and to ask ds2 for permission to play with his things too. Fortunately ds1 was good with that, but mainly cos I think he knows he doesn't like his brother to touch his things too. He is very possessive over his own toys and I think he feels his brother has a right to do that too. Funny thing is ds2 doesn't really care so much yet, so everytime ds1 asks, ds2 will let ds1 have it.
This is from my parents: a parcel sent over which reached us on Sat but we were out at the "Work DAy" and they redelivered on Mon (today).
The opening of the presents, parcels or letters is the part I like best. So opening this parcel was also very exciting.
The stuff for ds2 were: a musical card, chosen especially by my dad... A shapes poster with ds2's photos... ds2's favourite Ikea rat soft toy (which I had no space to pack when we came over), monkey, and Happy Feet penguin... ds2's fav Plain crackers... And another piece of his blankie.
haha that has a long story to it. When ds2 was born, I switched from my thick comforter to a thin ah-ma-style blanket. Because ds2 was really good at spitting up milk, and having pee or poo leak out of his diapers onto the bed, I needed linen that was not expensive and could be easily washed and dried. So whenever I was nursing him to sleep, I'd be having that thin blanket there, and somehow as his fingers got more dexterity, he will always toy around with my blanket and feel it.
That progressed to: during daytime when he was crawling around on my bed he will like to lie down the blanket, smell it and rest his cheek on it. Then later on, he liked to play Peek-a-boo with it.
Needless to say, he got very attached to that blanket. However, when we were leaving, there was simply no space for anything else -- our luggage were maxed out already. My mom then cut out a small square and trimmed the sides... Good thing we brought that small square along cos it was his comfort object on the plane, and also here, when everything was unfamiliar to him initially. Even now, he will still carry it around with him , sometimes with the blankie in his mouth, like a puppy and walk around in the house.
I was telling my mom the blankie gets dirty very easily cos he'll use it to wipe tables (mimicking me) or dry his tears and put into his mouth. He'll also spill food on it cos he sometimes wants it with him at the dinner table. Yet, if I dump it to wash, he'll know and get angry, because the feel and the smell is different right after the wash. Also, during the wash, if he notices it missing, he'll fuss.
Now, there is a replacement, yay... I can wash them more frequently liao. :-)
The rest of the items were food and snacks, yay... There are sunflower seeds, red dates, Gou Qi Zi, dried longan, meat floss with sesame seed and seaweed, Eu Yan Sang herbal lozenges, Ribena pastilles, peanuts (Chinese kind), Eu Yan Sang herbal egg mix and Bak Kut Teh spices.
When we opened the parcel, ds1 and ds2 were both present and ds2 went for his rat first. He chews it by the tail.
I find this very creative and cute, must be made by my mom, I think, haven't asked her yet. It's got the various shapes framing ds2 at different stages of his short 2 years of life so far. So must take a close-up shot.
I think I mentioned the church gave us a lot of presents for the kids when we first arrived right? There were so many I decided to only open a few and kept some away. Some I opened on exceptional gloomy winter days, some I opened during ds1's birthday (like the Lightning McQueen car and dinosaurs). I saved this for ds2's birthday cos he loves the letters of the alphabet.
True enough, when we opened the box, he went straight for the cubes with the letters while ds1 raved over the train. I was very happy it occupied them for a long time and had components that thrill both of them.
The church people are really so kind and generous. This train set can actually do much more. It has 3 songs, and can read out the phonic sounds and letter sounds when the cubes are placed onto the carriage of the train. Apparently there would be a different song for each letter of the alphabet too.
But, seeing them play so happily with just the train and the cubes separately, I'd just keep that fact from them first. Let them tire of playing with it this way, then suddenly surprise them with the sounds, then they'd play with it longer, with renewed excitement. This way, the toy can be useful for a longer time, and that gives me more time to cook and to blog, since they are happily occupied. :-)
Just nice, because from next week onwards, dh will have 2 consecutive concerts where he is performing, so there are many late night rehearsals till dunno when in April or May. Super long days just with them alone, and possibly for the whole week, doesn't make me excited... so if the more distractions for them, the better it is for me. :-)
dh's mom, their paternal grandma sent some money for ds2 and we used that to buy a toddler tricycle for him. (We bought a bike for ds1's bday, so did a similar thing for ds2). Great!
rainbows every day, do not worry for the morrow
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Pic below: Cutting the "cake" with the other kids looking on. All very eager, leaning forward, hands on table pose... :-)
Below: our whole family shown.
