Congrats yo! Serene & Casey!

As of 11 July 2010, we have an addition to the Loke family! A beautiful lil angel called Nicole, brought to this world by my sis & BIL. Congrats to the newly minted parents!

 The new parents

I remember much of my childhood being the 2nd eldest grandchild on my mum's side of the family, and since I was the first to have a lil one, I am mighty glad that lil K now has a lil cousin to play with when she goes back to sunny Singapore!

Good on ya', sis!

Here are some pics that I'd nabbed from their baby blog!

I absolutely adore this pic with her lil tongue sticking out!

Of course, to inaugurate this wonderful occasion, I've selected beautiful items from my latest and 'favoritest' online shop which carries wonderful brands from Helmut Lang, Marc Jacobs, Rebecca Minkoff amongst others. I have bought Bodum double-walled french press, Clu pants, Elephantino Infants, Little Marc Jacobs, Seda France L'Argent candles amongst others at hugely discounted prices. Quality and return policy however, are fantabulous.

I've seen Herve Leger, Christian Lacroix RTW being sold as well as luxurious stays similar to those featured in Relais & Chateaux and lifestyle/furniture items from Lladro and  Ligne Roset! I have been a loyal follower since I came to the USA from Day 1 and words cannot describe how much I lurrve them! Much control is needed to NOT click.

Drop me an email at mlokie@yahoo.com so I can refer you. Please! Let me refer you so I can get some referral credits to fuel my shopping habit here. ;p

Writing her alphabets

Since K only goes for her 3-hr school on 3 days and goes for gym & art class on another, the remaining morning we have together just mummy and her, I will try to stay at home and play. I find it rather amusing when she asked to write or colour.

Since she started school the Montessori (Singapore) way at 20-month-old, she has been good with her motor skills as she often come home with sheets of coloring and creative artwork. The reason why I had specified 'Singapore' was because this was obviously not what is being encouraged here in many of the Montessori schools I had visited because they leave the kids to 'explore' and 'decide what they want to do'.  Which is pretty what montessori's decree BUT... oh yes.. BUT not if the teachers decide to sit in the playground TWICE in the 3 hours they are in school. Oh. I have much to say about the education here but this will take a post by itself.

Paul and I had decided from a long time ago that our parenting style is to have our kid/s (future tense) enjoy their early childhoods for as long as they can with loads of play and to never traumatise them for something that will eventually come naturally and when they want to do it for themselves.However this doesn't mean that we can't equip them with the tools for exploration.

Here is a short video of lil K doing a spot of writing. ;)

And then she writes B.

13 Jun - Summer's out and boy so is the heat!

So I decided for us that we are staying home, turn up the airconditioning and vegetate.

I was contemplating whether to bake a cake, make an ice-cream or blend some chilli paste and asked my resident tyrant. She decided for me. 'Cupcakes, cupcakes, cupcakes..' chanted the tyrant.

With a recipe I got online, it was for 30 cupcakes. Seeing that I only had 12 holes in my muffin tray, I decided to halve all the ingredients. Obviously the recipe was written by an amateur, as I followed the receipe dutifully from top to bottom AND flipped a tablespoon of brown sugar into my sifted flour and baking powder. Only to realise that the sugar needs to be mixed in with the butter a few lines down.

So I scooped up the sugar from the mixture and along with it, an unidentifiable amount of baking powder along with it.

Oh, I also have only one measuring cup (which already held the milk on standby) so instead of using 1 3/4 cups of sugar, I 'arga-arga' put in about 6 tablespoons of sugar. Which I also wrote down on the recipe just in case it turns out well and I should need want to recreate this intricate operation.

Oh, thank god I did. It was quite yummy. By the hubby's standards and of course, my cupcake snob or aka tyrant in pink.

My lil helper

While it may seem like she's doing all the work - please. She only had to dirty her fingers and nagged me to clean her fingers.

Oh yes, for some strange reason, even though Paul and I were not the sort of panicky parents, she really dislikes having her fingers dirty. This only dawned on me when she started her artclass and got paint on her fingers. She would not even continue painting until someone cleans the paint off that ONE finger. I am happy to say that this lil particularity has evolved. She now finishes painting before having to clean up.

It took quite a bit of persuasion and I needed to lead by example for her to clean off the muffin mixture. Of course, the moment she had a taste of it, she never looked back.

Needless to say, the choc buttercream icing didn't need cajoling.

Oh yeah...she was pleased.

The final product.

Of course, I will only share nice things with my friends.

** Please, my friends, if you are reading this, please return me my tupperware containers. Either you are container-napping them so that I won't be able to give you sinful food, or you have forgotten.