These days...

A bit of jamming...

A bit of hugging on the way to school.

Rain rain go away...come again another day

Rainy days... dreading the rainy days. We ended up staying home all afternoon during the weekend. We managed to go for a swim in the morning on Saturday and a breakfast on Sunday. That's as far as we got and then home.

It was a blessing in disguise as I managed to get started on the big project - Felt Playhouse. Need to get ours done soon as the Chinese New Year holidays are coming up and we have 9 days off school and work. Something to keep kids busy in case we get more of these rainy days next week.

All Good

It's now November and somehow I've lost track of time so quickly! All's been good here.

We've been enjoying the nice warm weather still ...

except ... it had suddenly gotten freezing cold today!

Halloween weekend, we ended up not doing much. We don't really celebrate it here except shops and restaurants. We did end up with pumpkin soup for dinner which the kids loved. It was the first time I've made it was easier than I thought.

And finally managed to try out the recipe from Our Kitchen for this lovely focaccia. It went well with our pumpkin soup, although I'm not sure these 2 would be good pairings, but nevertheless, it turned out really yummy!

The ingredients are simple and ones I already had. Used some whole olives instead of seeded ones as those were the only ones I had. Rosemary were from my little garden.

It was perfect and so easy to make. Importantly, the kids loved the simple meal (even if we had to pick out the olives and rosemary from their slices of bread).

Today You Both Are 4

Today is a big day. My twins are celebrating their 4th birthday. Where has time gone? It seemed only yesterday when the doctor told me I'm going to have twins. The memory is still so vivid in my mind and remember every minute of it, how Simon and I sat there in the lounge trying to absorb the news, speechless yet excited while at the same time also not sure what to do.

Happy Birthday...

xoxo
mummy

Pretend Party Again

The kids are very very very excited about their upcoming birthdays and they requested we have a pretend party last Saturday. And we did. It was also for me to test out which cupcake to make and how I will decorate it. The kids even had an opinion on how I should do the frosting while they decorated the top with sprinkles.


The cupcakes actually turned out great and was just the right taste, not too sweet. The recipe was from Bakerella's Banana Cupcakes. And with the frosting it didn't feel too sinful. The frosting was from here which I found via Cake Journal.

One of the kids' classmate whom they've invited for the actual party got the date wrong and ended up at our doorsteps bearing this big bowl of goldfishes for the kids. This was the kids' first pets. The gold one for Audrey is named 'zhen zhu' meaning 'pearl' while the black one for Samuel is named 'mo long' meaning 'dark dragon' or literally 'ink dragon'; 'ink' because of the black colour. Unfortunately, 'zhen zhu' died a couple days later...


Then we followed up the little party with a quick play time at the Okura Garden Hotel's lawn (our new hangout) where Samuel picked up lots of leaves and put them in his bucket and poured all out onto the mat.


He picked more leaves to share with Audrey who had a bit of a fever.

First Kindergarten Mini Album

Finally managed to officially finish a mini album of my kids' first (proper) nursery year. 'Proper' because when they were 1.5 yrs old, we sent them to another local nursery school which was supposed to be longstanding one in our area. As it turned out, it wasn't really great and towards end of that school term, kids hated going there. Can't really blame them. In China, it is quite normal to send your kids to nursery school as early as 1.5 years old.

We were very happy when they got in to Sinan Kindergarten which is also walking distance to and from our home. The kids also were happy. So I thought I'd do a hybrid mini album chronicling the first year. The basic layout was based on Ali Edwards' Layered Template #33 but have adjusted size and changed details. Added also some embellishments to give it a bit more tactile feel.

Here's a look at some of the spreads...







I don't really know all the names in their class (I'm really bad with names and most esp. when it comes to Chinese names.) so I added a film overlay and traced the kids outline and numbered them. Then I asked one of the teachers to help write each kids' name so I can add it into the album.



The school organized for the kids to go on a train ride to the outskirts of Shanghai and the kids even had their own 'special' tickets. Added a little pocket to hold the train ticket on the fold-out page. Samuel lost his ticket so I only had Audrey's left.

I wouldn't have been able to put this together without the teacher's help in copying the photos for me. I love the ones taken during normal school activities or outings.

'Pretend' Tea Party

Today was way too hot to do much so after coming home after lunch, we thought we'd have a 'pretend' tea party. Got the kids to put together some buntings which I'd cut out of an old wedding gift wrapper. They folded the top of the triangle paper and attached it to the string plus added a tape to keep the paper from falling off.

Then they helped make some cupcakes. Actually, it was also for a me trial to see what sort of cupcakes I can make for the kids birthdays in September (I know it's still a long way away but for a very busy person like me, I need a long long long leadtime to plan stuff).

The cupcakes turned out great. The recipes were from Cupcake Bakeshop by Choclit using her Plain and Simple Chocolate Cupcake with the Vanilla frosting and Yellow Cupcake from Martha Stewart's Food Magazine. I especially loved the vanilla frosting because it used a lot less sugar than other recipes. I'm still in search of the 'perfect' frosting that uses even less sugar, if that even exists. So if anyone has any idea it would be greatly appreciated.

And finally, love these cute cupcake liners which I got from Cupcake Social and Bake It Pretty. They somehow just add a nice touch to the cupakes.

Discovering: Pudong

Only recently, we discovered a few new places in Pudong (the other side of the Huangpu River) and just cannot imagine we've lived in Shanghai for the last 9 years and only managed to really explore these places.

I'm talking about the Shanghai Science & Technology Museum and the Century Park which is just adjacent to the museum.

There were just too many things to see at the Museum that we didn't get to see them all in the few hours we were there. Since then we've been back a couple times to watch the iMax shows. The kids were just running around wanting to touch and try everything but didn't know what to touch and try first!After the museum, we decided to find our way to the Century Park and managed to get there in time for the Musical Fountain to start. We'd promised the kids a weekend before that they can go into the fountain this time. So it was the perfect ending to our day at the museum.

Really cool places which we will definitely frequent some more on the weekends.

The Barbie Shop Experience

After several delays, The Barbie Shop finally opened a couple months ago. Both my husband and I are not big fans of Barbie but my daughter, Audrey, has seen other kids around our neighbourhood whose had a few Barbies. So of course, she's been asking for one. After a few months of deliberation, I gave in and finally gave her one as she has accomplished a couple big goals I've laid down for her. So it was her reward.

Anyways, when we heard that a new Barbie Shop will open in Shanghai, my husband and I groaned at the thought of a whole building dedicated to Barbie. We just thought it would be rather tacky to say the least and all too girly.

So today, on our way home after spending hours walking around Shanghai, we decided to stop by the much-talked about Barbie Shop. And both my husband and I were rather impressed at what they've done in terms of decor and the atmosphere. There are a total of 6 floors! The top one is our favourite, The Barbie Cafe. Interestingly the decor was more chic than girly. They served gelato and lots of fresh shakes and cupcakes. We treated ourselves a bit to see if it was as good as it looked. Not disappointed at all. Coffee was nice.

There were a lot of interesting bits in the few floors below and a couple that we liked were the big stairwell mural housing rows and rows of Barbies wearing different costumes and all in the same shade of hot pink as on the brochure.

The other one was the wall that had a few of the bowl-shaped polished metal which had some amusing reflections. The kids just totally loved this. We couldn't pry them off these 'mirror bowls', as you can see from the photo.

All-in-all it was rather interesting and we might visit it again when it's not packed...

Twins Club Gathering

I've joined this group of parents who have twins in the family and we finally decided on a date to meet up. Yvonne (group shot is hers) was great enough to setup the whole thing. The meeting place was just perfect. It was in a new restaurant called 'Sydney' which had a big sandpit area for kids to play while parents mingled and ate in peace.

It was just a great experience to be able to meet other families with twins and it was also very interesting turn out as most families had a boy/girl or girl/boy combination! Both Samuel and Audrey had a great time and so did we.

Shanghai Sculpture Space

We just discovered recently this place called Shanghai Sculpture Space and were impressed at how big the place was and well-maintained it was. Above all, we were allowed on the grass!

When we arrived, the kids immediately were running around looking at each piece of sculpture scattered around the lawn. They kept asking: "What is this?" or "What is that?" As there was also a little hill (more like a mound), they decided to roll down the slope while at the same time singing the song from The Wiggles titled: "Rolling Down the Sandhill". They enjoyed themselves that they kept telling us not to go home yet.

We had lunch at a nice restaurant called BECA Cafe and with the clientele they had that day (Valentine's Day), it felt like we were in Europe. Just interesting to be in Shanghai but to be in a place that didn't feel like you are in Shanghai...

There are some sculptures inside the buildings, too, but some were a bit 'too scary' for Audrey that she kept wanting to find a way out. There were also some design studios inside the buildings around the park and it would be interesting to have an office there. Unfortunately, it is for us, a bit out of the way. We're more used to being in downtown.

Disney On Ice: Princess Wishes

For the first time, we managed to get to see Disney on Ice and this year, they were featuring the Disney Princesses which is quite hot with the little girls these days. Mine is not an exception. She's so into the Princesses.

Anyways, we went to an early morning show. There was quite a crowd even if it wasn't completely packed. But hey, they were doing almost 3 shows a day for 4 days! We went to the show with our neighbour whose kids are almost same age as ours.

The show was great and I think both the little boys and little girls in our group enjoyed it tremendously. They all knew the names of the Princesses. The show was also well-put together. Hope that they come to town again in 2009...

The only drawback was it was freezing cold! inside the gymnasium!!! We couldn't even take our coats off with the cold indoors and outdoors.

Warm spring day

Warm spring day
Originally uploaded by arlyna.

Spring is finally here. It's great to be seeing more greens and wearing less layers of clothes. The kids are enjoying being at the Ruijin Guesthouse even more now that there are a lot things to explore. Audrey loves picking the wild flowers growing everywhere. Samuel enjoys collecting the dead leaves that has fallen on the ground.

Shanghai Ocean Aquarium

Shanghai Ocean Aquarium
Originally uploaded by arlyna.

After trying for almost 6 months to convince Simon to checkout the Shanghai Ocean Aquarium with the kids, out-of-the-blue, he suggested we go on this cold and rainy Sunday.

Both Simon and I expected this place to be a bit tacky and crowded. We were both very impressed with the whole place. Very well done. Some tanks had open top so you were really 'up close and personal' with the fishes. Both kids seemed quite amazed with the huge fishes swimming near them.

There was even a petting zone for baby sharks. We did not get to try it this time but definitely we will do the next time we go. And yes, it is definitely the place to visit again when we have ran out of places to go with the kids.