Happy Birthday Singapore and Pink layouts

Hey everyone! How are you all doing?

Yesterday, Singapore celebrated her 44th birthday!

Happy Birthday Singapore!!

Both David and I were impressed with yesterday's National Day Parade (which we've been watching since kids) and I think that this is by far the best NDP show ever!

And it's a no wonder, Ivan Heng is this year's Creative Director and I totally love how the usual national day songs were put together in a lovely medley ala musical style!

There's a great showcase of the diversity in Singapore's culture - an electic mix of races and culture that makes up Singapore.

When we were to say out pledge together as a nation at 20:22 last night, David and I had tears and conviction to our eyes. Sounds too corny but it's really true. There's unity in what we do as a nation.

Truly this is the place where we call home. The place where we grew up with family and friends. The country in which David and I met and got married and started our home and adding to its number.

A place of comfort and safety - familiar with its surroundings and how things work.

At times, we might not agree entirely with the policies or the decisions made for the country, but we know that no matter what, we are proud to be Singaporeans.

:)

Once again, I love you Singapore!!

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This week over at Pink Sketches is Sketch #40.

I did 2 layouts this time round. Really simple layouts with Kraft Cardstock!

Title: Me Likey Ice-Cream
Journalling: You totally love the soft ice-cream in a cone from Ikea - your favourite hang-out with Nana. You can totally have an ice-cream cone all to yourself!! Love, Mummy.

Supplies: Bazzil Kraft Cardstock, SassafrasLass papers, Imaginisce Papers, American Crafts Thickers

Title: Pox of the Matter

Journalling: Twenty Seventh May - You started to break out in watery blisters on your thigh and the small of your back. Before we know it you were covered from head to toe. Praise God that you didn't have fever or any other discomfort.

Supplies: Bazzil Kraft Cardstock, My Little Shoebox papers, SassafrasLass papers, American Crafts Thickers, Making Memories Tiny Alphas and October Afternoon Cardstock Sticker Alphas.

I do hope you like my layouts...I'm feeling somewhat "rusty" after not scrapping for nearly 2 months!

Do come by Pink Sketches and play along with us yah?

Layouts to share this week

Over at DreamGirls for the 2nd part of the month, is an awesome challenge.

I'll bet it's perfect for that summer holidays that everyone is enjoying right now!

The challenge (off the DreamGirls blog):

Prompt: We want to see action photos

Twists: Use either Pink and orange or blue and orange on your layouts

Technique: Doodling

Having trouble with the whole action photo idea? Well, what about sports photos, a first dance perhaps, summer water park fun or even twirling in the summer grass.There is so many cool action shots you can take, and its a great way to remember those "fast pace" moments in your life.

Here's my layout:

Photos were taken recently on Mother's Day in May. Our family had a gathering at my aunt's condominium and Daren had an awesome water-play time at the kiddies' pool.

If you have some exciting action shots to share, be sure to play along with us over at DreamGirls! And to check out the awesome layouts that the rest of the DT did!

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Over at Pink Sketches,

Kelli will be having the sketch on a fornightly basis due to the summer vacations that everyone is having.

And here's my layout.

Title: Bangkok Alley

Journalling: Where - BKK Alleyways near Baiyoke Sky Hotel. With - Daren, David, Sophia. Notes - We saw a man walking with a baby elephant hawking peanuts!!

Supplies: All from Scarlet Lime Dec 2008 Kit: Papers - Making Memories, SEI and Chatterbox, Alphas - American Crafts, Embellishments - OneBrightSpot Calender Tag, Sassasfrass Chipboard Sticker, American Crafts Travel Button, Chatterbox Felt and buttons from Scarlet Lime Kit.

Do come over and have some fun with the sketch!

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Up next is for MomentsRecorded.

The challenge is to use the sketch as provided for by Dorcas, and you need to use at least one color from your photos for your patterned paper.

I mirrored the sketch and used the color yellow from the background of balloons as seen in the photo. I kept the layout simple and uncluttered.... like how I normally scrap nowadays.

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Thanks for stopping by and looking at my layouts! It never fails to brighten up my day to see fellow scrappers drop by and say, "Hi!" and I often would love to hop right back to your blog and drop some love too. :)

Dave is slowly recovering from chicken pox. I really thank the Lord that at least his fever has subsided and the poxes doesn't look as angry as it did last week. He's still recovering, waiting for the poxes to be dried up and the scabs to drop off on their own.

In the meantime, he's so happy relaxing at home, watching his NBA matches via cable and all the TV-shows series on DVDs i.e. LIFE..

I've been busy entertaining Daren. Fetching him around (since I'm car-sitting for my uncle whose away), bringing him to places on my own.

For the first time, I brought Daren to the zoo last Saturday, on my own. Funny how friends would say that I'm so brave to do it on my own and Dave was a little concerned that if I could handle him alright on my own without our live-in helper.

I did and we, Daren and myself, enjoyed ourselves tremendously, having a wonderful mother-son bonding time. And mind you, for a 3.5 year old sitting in a booster seat behind me, could possibly be a challenging thing, but my boy really make this mama proud! I had a really cute encounter with him in the car with this conversation:

(whilst I'm driving)

Daren: Mummy, is this the way to the zoo?

Me: Not yet darling. We need to put petrol in the car before we can get to the zoo.

Daren: Noooo.... cannot. We must go to zoo

Me: But with no petrol, we will get stuck on the road and cannot go to the zoo.

Daren: Ok... we must drive to the jungle and then the zoo

(he associates the road to the zoo through the"forested" looking area as a jungle)

Daren: *starts to sing "Doe a deer" till we reached the zoo*

And after our trip to the zoo and right after I parked the car at our home's parking lot, my little buckaroo unbuckled himself, came forward to the driver's seat and told me:

Daren: Thank you mummy for bringing me to the zoo

*puts a kiss on my lips*

Thank you mummy for bringing me to see my elephants!

Awwwwwwwwwwwwww.....

My heart just melted and I really was touched by his gesture.

That really sealed my day! It made my day! It makes parenting (with all that blood and sweat) really all worth while!

Doesn't it? :)

Have a great week ahead!

And then there was 1 more

who got the pox in the family.

Nope, it ain't me.

My darling husband, Dave, got the pox and it's full-blown!!!!

OMG!

He's having it worst than Daren.... plus he's got the fever too.

(Daren never had an accompanying fever).

So my poor big baby is covered in poxes.

He believed that he had the chicken pox when he was much younger.

My MIL came over last night and I asked her if he did get the poxes. She said that he had the measles...

So I'm like confuse...

Maybe Dave thought the measles he had back then were chicken poxes?

He really can't remember.

But I'm certain I've had full-blown chicken pox before.

Nonetheless, I hope my poor baby recovers soon... especially from the nagging fever!

In the meantime, stay tuned...

Cheers!

Aaaarrrrggghhh!

Took some time to blog

(yah...this is a none scrap related posting).

I was busy busy with Daren. He got the pox.

Chicken pox that is.

I took time off from work to care for him and to stop him from putting his finger to the poxes (is there ever such a word?) and picking at them and scratching them out. Offering to put calamine lotion every 2 hours or so to relieve him of the itch.

It's easier to manage in the daytime coz he's occupied with activities i.e. simple writing, drawing, colouring, join-the-dots or playing bowling with the plastic-make-believe pins or plastic golf clubs.

And that's not all.

we are having people coming to view our place.

Yupz.

We're selling off our home and in search for a bigger home since we plan to expand the family.

And by the Grace of God and beyond my expectations,

the valuation of our home was really high!

In fact, the valuation price alone had already profitted when we first purchased this first home of ours. And I'm pretty sure it might be enough to cover the renovation of our new home to come.

Nope, we have yet to find a new home yet. We were advised to sell off our current place and then start hunting for a new place once we've a confirmed buyer!

So we'll be pretty busy these few months to come!!!

I'm just praying and hoping that the "right" buyer that comes will fall head over heels in love with our house and doesn't mind paying a slightly premium price.

Wish Dave and I all the best!!!

Slow Mojo Slowly coming back to me, Scrap Table

Hey all!

How's everyone doing? It's been a long slow weekend for me.

I finally got back into a scrappy mode on Friday, did a couple of layouts for some DT work.

=)

And my highlight for last week?

My long awaited "scrap" table came in from Ikea!!

Yay!

Thanks to my darling Dave, he's willing to "sponsor" this Gateleg Table from Ikea

How cool is that??!! I like that it's collapsable on both sides so that I can stow it away at a corner of my study area and that it has 6 drawers for storage of some tools/embellishments! Now I can organize and store my items in an easily reached area. Think I'm gonna use my Dymo Tape Writer and label which drawers contains what items.

Thank you darling!!

Anyway,

over at Pink Sketches this week is Sketch #30.

Here is the my layout for this week's Sketch:

{3 Goats Gruff & Daren @ 16 months}

As you can see I used minimal patterned paper. I played with my Ranger Distress Crackle Paint for the borders and added 2 strips of Sassasfrass Lass Bungle Jungle range of papers as well as its oh-so-cute chipboard Stickers!!

I found some older photos of lil Daren at the pre-renovated KidsWorld at the Singapore Zoo when he was 16 months!! Sigh... time really flies and he's such a baby still at 16 months!

I like this layout, simple but colorful!!

Coincidentally, this layout is also done for MomentsRecorded Challenge #7 :)

Do take time to come play along with us over at MomentsRecorded.

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I've been in a scrapping rut lately. I feel really tired out to be able to scrap anything.

I'm not sure if I might be "burning out"...or it could be plain tired out physically thus affecting my mojo.

But nonetheless, by the grace of God, my mojo's slowly coming back to me. I think partly because I know Dave is back home from his work trips and he could help me care for Daren at night.

May my layouts continually give glory all to the Lord as it reflects His goodness in our lives time and time again. :)

I hope to be able to do some more non-DT related layouts!

I still gotta finish up somemore of my Perth trip layouts! It's coming May very soon and I hope to be done by then! Not to mention a smaller 8 x 8 mini album from Making Memories' Passport Range for my MIL!

Will catch up with you all soon!

Love,

Sophia

Picturesque Post

This week over at Pink Sketches. Here is Sketch #29:

Here is my layout:

Description: I did this for my god-daughter, Jayda. She's such a cutie! I used part of the K.I Laced cardstock as a mask when I glimmer-misted the white cardstock. I smeared Stickles over the laced cardstock as well as the alphas to give it a slightly textured look.

Supplies: Papers - Bazzil Cardstock, K.I Memories Laced Cardstock, Making Memories Flower Patch, Imaginisce, Alphas -American crafts Thickers, Making Memories Tiny Alphas, Embellishments - Tim Holtz Philosophy Tags, Making Memories Ribbon Trims and Buttons

Do come over and play along with us for this week's sketch.

Do remember to email your entry to Kelli yah?

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I had a really long (and tiring) but fulfilling weekend.

Dave travelled and still is travelling for work and he was back home for about 24 hours before he flew off again.

We went for some dim sum at Yum Cha at Chinatown.

Totally YUMZ!!!!!

I like that for the price we paid, it's really nice and not overtly expensive!

We were too hungry...so I didn't take much pictures in the dim sum restaurant.

BUT.

I did take some photos of the nice and brightly coloured shophouses.


Love the colour of this shophouses!

You gotta love the assortment of colours here too!

Here's like a lane of shops to attract tourists to get some souvenirs.

Then off we went to the Marina Barrage to meet up with Dorcas and her daughters, and my good friends with my god-daughter. We thought it would be good to bring them there for some water-play in this hot weather.

I'll let the photos do the talking here :)

Here's inside the gallery :

A Huge "Wall" made up of plastic drinking bottles

Levion

A happy and bouncing boy

Here is outside at the water-playground:

Jayda

Levion

Daren

(it's so hard to take a nice picture of him here, He keeps facing his back away from me)

A slightly better shot (but his face is not looking into the camera)

Kerris getting a dip with her little feet.

Can you see that Kerris is one contented baby?

One of my favourite pics of the day

(despite that it's not the most ideal "composition")

There's still a bit more photos to share. I'll do so when I find the time to load up the 2nd part of it.

In the meantime, have an awesome week!

Happy Easter!!!

Pink Sketches is back with Sketch #28:

And here are my layouts:

(I did an extra layout to cover for dear Sarah)

Journalling: This is our family's 1st time to the Singapore Flyer on 14th Feb 2009. We became Friends of the Singapore Flyer.

Supplies: Paper - American Crafts, Alphas - American Crafts and Prima Marketing, Buttons - Sophia's own

Journalling: This is your first meeting with Levion for a playdate at the zoo. Both of you were taken to each other instantly.

Supplies: Paper - Sassafrass, Alphas - American Crafts, Tim Holtz Adage tickets, Dymo Tape and Buttons - Sophia's own.

I'm having a ball of a time playing with those Sassafrass papers! I'm hooked! In fact, for the {Playdate} layout, I like the behind pattern so much, I'm working on doing another simple layout on the back too! These gorgeous double-sided pattern papers can't be wasted!

Will share the back layout once it's completed!

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How was everyone's Easter weekend?

Mine was rather packed and then, I have the onset of a nasty cold coming my way now.

My family was off to the zoo on Good Friday and we arranged to meet up with Dorcas and family too. It was also a playdate for both our older kids, for them to interact. They were so cute together!!!

Daren was quite friendly towards Levion, and well, Levion took sometime to warm up to us all. But once she warmed up, she's a really warm and friendly lil' girl!!!

It was crazy crowded at the zoo I tell ya! The queues were snaking but Dave and I decided that we would renew our Friends of the Zoo membership and so we did! (It helped that the Q for that was shorter as compared to the regular entrance tickets Q).

We reached at 10.15am... we finally got in at 12pm! Even the Little Tykes Explorer Wagon had a wait list! So being the typical, sensible a.k.a kiasu Singaporean that I am (kiasu = scared to lose out, loosely translated), I left my name on the waitlist for a wagon so that we could ferry the pre-schoolers around. It was a good thing I did that as half and hour later, they called me and I had an available wagon! When I got to the counter, there was an Indian man demanding why can't he have the wagon as he was back there twice! The service staff politely told him that this is because I had placed my name on the wait list. Then again... I remembered having to ask the staff what was the clipboard they were holding to for... and I had to ask if I could be on the wait list.

The wagon was a good rental investment! The lil' ones enjoyed sitting in it and getting pulled around.

We didn't get much pictures this time round though while walking around. But we did get some cute shots of the little ones in their wagon!

Then there was the waterworld at the Kidz' Rainforest area. But our poor babies didn't get wet much and it started to drizzle/rain! Everyone was making a beeline for the limited shelter spaces. Daren and Dave continued playing in the rain ( since Daren is wet anyway, Dave reasoned.)

I could see and tell that Daren was really enjoying himself! Levion had to be out of the rain as she had just recovered from a bout of fever not too long ago. But she was really concerned about Daren and kept asking to "find" him. So I brought her out once she's dried and dressed, with an umbrella of course. So we stood in the rain with an umbrella watching Daren running around the waterplay area. But soon, the drizzle got heavier and heavier into a potential downpour, I had to get Dave to bring Daren out of the waterplay to dry him up. Gosh, we're so NOT going to let his grandparents know that we allowed him to play in the rain, else we (the parents), will get an earful from his grandmothers!!!

Our Friday ended on a wet note.

Weekends came and we spent our weekends recuperating from Friday!

LOL!

But we had some nice family time with Dave's mom to celebrate her birthday (in advance as Dave will be out of town) on Saturday at a restaurant nearby our place. I had to ask Dave to convince his mom not to cook and to keep the prepared dishes back into the fridge (we would be back at her place for dinner on Sunday instead) with the help of Daren's asking her in his limited Cantonese.

I mean, it's her birthday!!! Don't let the birthday gal do the cooking. Bring her out and pamper her with some family lovin!!!

She was a really happy lady on Saturday night. =)

Indeed the bliss and warmth of family gatherings really leaves wonderful memories in our hearts! It's these little things that we do to show that we care, even though we have to "insist" and "convince" our loved ones to do so. At the end, happy memories are what lingers behind!

Don't you agree?

More layouts to share

LOL!

Yes...I did a couple more layouts this week.

Here's one for MomentsRecorded challenge #6:

• cutting work to be seen

• Use of scalloped edge paper


• Use of photo corners


• Use of buttons (can you tell it's my fav?)

{I am 3}

I love this range of Sassafrass Lass papers! Especially that yellow crossword puzzle paper! It was the last piece in my LSS!!!

erm.... yes I did go shop a little last weekend. I got entitled to an instant lucky dip to offset my purchases....and I got the dip for 8 pieces of patterned paper for SGD$4.40!

What a deal!

So I got 8 pcs of those cute Sassafrass papers!

It's not my usual choice/style of papers.... it's really my first time getting those cutesie papers!

Ok...I'm rambling on and on.

But do check out MomentsRecorded challenge hosted by myself and Dorcas.

It's a fun, fun challenge blog, especially for scrapping moms

(but NOT limiting to moms, everyone is welcome to join in!)

Come play with us k?

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Ok...I did some more really simple layouts for the land of Koalas and 'Roos.

Focus is definitely more on the photos.

Here they are:

Koala

Kangaroo
All pictures were taken at the Caversham Wildlife Park.

So you've seen the double paged in my previous post

(it's done last week by the way hehehe)

I did one of Daren in the goats enclosure.

So here we are looking at the Koalas and 'Roos...

I've got one more planned before moving on to the Bunbury and Busselton photos - on the farmshow we watched and Daren up close and personal with some lambs and milking a cow!

So stay tuned yah??

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To my dear friends visiting my blog and wondering and asking where I get all the energy to do so many layouts or at one time?

Well....

Don't be fooled by the blog posting!!!

LOL!

Some of the layouts seen for the challenge blogs

(for those that I'm on their DT)

Had been done like a good 2-3 weeks in advance.

So when each time the 1st of the month or 15th of the month comes, it will seem like I've been on a scrapping roll!

I usually scrap about 2-3 layouts a week (including Pink Sketches LO).

And yes, I normally scrap at night (weekdays and weekends).

&

Prior to the night that I will sit down and scrap, I will print out the photos that I want to scrap on as well as pull out the kits or paper stashes that I have to go with the photos (this in itself is already rather time consuming).

And I would set them aside for the following night's scrapping.

Sometimes, I just like to keep the layouts simple and to the point with minimal embellishing.

But there are the occasional moments where I like to put more details and embellishing the layout.

Basically, I use the DT work as for my own personal layouts and albums that I wanna do.

What about you?

How fast or how frequent do you normally scrap in a week?

Pink Sketches #27

This week's Pink Sketch #27:

Here's my layout, and yes another double-paged layout:

(Woohoo!!!! I'm on a double paged roll!)

THe new CHA released Prima Flowers.

I thought it's a perfect touch for that hot/dry summer we had in Perth.

Journalling: 27th Dec 2008 - Off we went to the Swan Valley area where Caversham Wildlife Park was. We packed our own lunch & went to see the various MARSUPIALs unique to Australia. It's a fun, fun day but really hot & warm with flies!!

Supplies: Cardstock: DCWV, Patterned Papers: Kaiser Scrapbook, Been There Done That, Flowers: Prima Flowers, Buttons: designer's own, Alphas: Autumn Leaves Clear Stamps Freestyle Alphabet, Journal Tags: Label Tulip Stamp and Scarlet Lime Remember Stamp.

Do come over and play along with the Pink Sketch girls and remember to submit your layout to Kelli at kelli11181984@mac.com :)

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I had some time over the weekend and did 2 non-DT related layouts.

One was on Daren's recent Pirate Themed party, I recycled his invitation card as part of his layout and recycled some parcel string as well on this layout.

Here it goes:

Some hidden layer below the Basic Grey Archaic pp.

The party invitation, lovingly made by Liza Yet for her son, Aaqil.

Some stiching done here.

I love the crystal skull! Really cute touch!

I used some Tim Holtz Hitch fasteners too and philosophy tags as well

(yup, some new stash to play with).

Here's another page with some "new" K.I memories papers:

(in my stash that is)

We were at the goats' enclosure within Caversham Wildlife Park where children get to go in and feed the animals. Daren was really excited on this one and he got to feed the goats. He was surrounded by lots of goats and some sheep!!

I kept this layout simple and plain.

I know I'm...

seriously overstashed when I'm using patterned paper as a background paper for my layouts like 90% of the time!!!!

Don't get me wrong now

It's perfectly alright to use a patterned paper as a background, especially when it fits the photos nicely.

And I still love using cardstock

hmmmm

I wonder if you understand what I'm trying to say.

LOL!

But if you ever noticed I've been using patterned paper as a background for my layouts more often that the norm...it would probably mean I'm seriously overstashed but still loving to hoard those beautiful papers!

On the brighter side, I'm thinning my LabelTulip kits (October - January) and utilizing them to every piece of scraps even! My November and December kits are unctouched at the moment. Need some mojo on how to utilise them best!!!

BUT... my Scarlet Lime kits... the Sep'08 is 1/3 left, Oct'08 kit is 1/3 utilized, Nov'08 and Dec'08 kits are still untouched!!!

Boo Hoo!!

Seems like the 6x12 album would be the best way to use them up!!

Do you have the same vice as me???

*Grinz*

Share them with me!!!

I'll RAK you some of my hoarded and well-loved stash too!!!

(Help me spread the word around yah??)

You have till 5th April 2009, 1159hrs (Singapore Time)!!

Love,

Sophia

It's the little things...

that goes a long way.

As most of my dear friends know, I've been battling with the Battle of the Bulge.

I've been feeling weird in my body...I cannot ignore the signs that I'm experiencing too.

I've put on far too much weight too fast in a short span of time which is really hazardous to my health. So if I can't afford a personal trainer to help me get started to get back into shape,

I've decided to make the little things in my everyday count in keeping that bulge down:

1) Opt for a healtheir breakfast meal - Instant oats with 2 spoons of Milo powder

2) Take the stairs to the 5th floor where the laboratories are each time I have a blood sample to process at my work place.

3) Go for a quick 30 min brisk walk each day after work and before dinner, maybe bring Daren along with me for a walk/quick run.

4) Avoid sugared/sweetened/carbonated drinks: I've unknowingly and happily been drinking far too much of these stuff since God knows when in the past year!! It's like a must-have everyday at home! But the calories are crazy!!

5) Go to bed earlier so that I can avoid snacking/supping late at night!

6) Bring salads to work for lunch.

I think the above are easily achievable and doable...just gotta tweak the changes in my everyday lifestyle. I started my instant oats for breakfast today! And I sure hope to be able to continue that everyday!!

Oats are good for the heart and should help to lower cholestrol over time.

(I have to listen to my heart...if not, I'm stressing it's health)

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Did this on Sat night while watching Criminal Minds Season 3 on DVD

It was a really quick and simple layout.

The focus was more on the collage of photos randomly throughout my Perth Vacation and then printed on an A4 photo paper.

It's used as my "cover" page of my Perth trip in my travel album.

There's just something about the Perth Skies that makes the photos taken really awesome!!!

Wassup????

Heya everyone!!!

How's your week been?

I had a journal club presentation on Thursday and spent most of my Mon-Wed preparing for it.

I'm glad it's all over...was really nervous as it was my first journal club. Actually I did enjoy it, reading scientific journals and presenting it to my colleagues.

My boss thought it was good as I presented to the lab what's been hot the past year in the area of cancer research and its advances.

I shared my prepared slide show with Sherry, so of course from her experiences of countless of presentations, she shared a couple of useful tips that can help further improve my presentation skills and powerpoint slides!!!

Seriously, I went home to actually jot down what she shared.

I really love that girl!

She's totally self-less and cares enough to share her knowledge and expertise rather than keep everything to herself. That's truly what a teacher is all about!!!

Anyway

Pink Sketches #26 is up! Kelli decided to keep this week's sketch simple. And I too decided to keep my layout simple.

Here's the Sketch:

Here's my layout:

{Memories}

I decided to go down memory lane by scrapping on my very rare picture of myself nursing Daren when he was 3 months old. I really miss the moments I had with him. It's like time stood still for us both each time I nursed him, enjoying every moment of it.

Journalling (Partial): This is a journey that I want to always remember. That as a mother, I've given you my best, my love via breastfeeding you...

Supplies: Crate Die-cut paper, Scenic Route paper, Basic Grey paper, Jenni Bowlin Paper and journalling card, Kaiser Pearls, Heidi Grace Punchboard Hearts, 7 gypsies Velvet Flower, Making Memories Clipboard Clip, and Creative Imagination Remember Rub-On.

Pink Sketches #25

Happy Spring time to my international friends from the USA!

It must be an exciting change for you all from the cold, cold winter??

Pink Sketches is back with Sketch #25!

And do check out my other fellow teammates' work!!! It's truly awesome!!!

And here's my layout for the sketch:

Hidden Journalling: We took a road trip down south to Bunbury & Busselton. We stayed at Ferguson Valley near Bunbury at the Ferguson Farmstay. Daddy drove while Mummy read maps.

Supplies: Bazzil Cardstock, Been There Done That pattern papers, Creative Imaginations pattern papers, American Crafts Thickers, American Crafts Travel rub-ons and Maya Road Sheer Travel Journal Tags.

Yupz! Those are my road trip photos from my last Dec'08 Perth trip. I'm playing catch up in whatever ways I possibly can =) I even got the Making Memories Passport range 12x12 D-ring Album for the trip! It's really exciting! I've got quite a few more layouts to do with lots of photos to put in!!!

You know, sometimes when I scrap and Daren comes up to me and points to whoever was in the photos that I was scrapping on, I would put aside whatever I was doing and channeled my focus on him instead and explaining to him of when the photo was taken. We even went through his first year album and I asked him,"Who is that baby in the photos?" He would quickly reply ,"Daren Chan!"

We would then recount the moments and for certain things that I "caught" him on camera doing i.e. blowing bubbles... he would say to me that, "Mummy, I want to blow bubbles"....

On my! There's a lot of things recounted on that he wanna do!!!

Well, I'll gladly oblige!!

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We had a birthday invitation to a Pirate-themed party. Liza Yet had so kindly extended the invitation to some of us to attend Aaqil's bday party.

Since it's Daren's first even themed-birthday invitation and not knowing what to expect except to be dressed in his striped T-shirt, we brought him along to Aloha Changi.

He was soooo excited that he didn't even take a quick nap while on our way up to the place!

(we travelled from West to East in my my mom's mini van)

And when we finally arrived there, I was really blown away by the set-up and all the little heart-work details that went into making the party a success!!!

The goodie bags that came with a plastic pirate sword, had Daren's name stitched on it!!!

There was a pirate's bandana and the waist belt made of cloth and an eye-patch too!

Here's my little pirate going, "AArrrggghhhh!"

Look at this uber cool Pirate Ship!!! It's made by the bday boy's dad!!!

Awesome!!!!

Party Games by the party Host! Daren really enjoyed being "involved"

But....hahaha, I guess a 3-year old's attention span is still not quite there. He wandered away on his own after a while but still kept close to the group. Do you see him trying to "walk the plank"?

Having a go at the Pirate Ship Pinata!!! Bday boy is on the right!

My favourite "nature" shot for the whole year? This beautiful orangey sunset in the East of Singapore!!! It gives me the "small, fishing village" feel, come to life from my old history lessons of Singapore!!

By the time we left to pick my mom up.... Daren must have been so tired that he dozed off in the van at about 8pm!!!! I panicked as we were still a long way from home!!!

But while waiting for my mom, he did wake up but was all grouchy and itching all over!

But nonetheless....he had a fun, fun, fun day (in his own words!)!