Sunday mornings of yore brought me to Philadelphia

Oh yes, first trip outside of Dallas/Fortworth in the US of A and the first place I wanted to go was the Sesame Place in Philadelphia. The Sesame Street characters reminded me of wonderful Sunday mornings with the family tucking into homemade pancakes (my papa made them) with honey and blueberry peanut butter/jello but I never really was too crazy about them (nopes, no Sesame St shrine at home). But the ivory key strains of Rainbow Connection, Elmo's song and that inane 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12 song with the pinballs never got out of my head after all these years.

The sweet memories of those days got me wanting to share this fabulous tv programme with my lil one. One of the first songs she can sing along to is Elmo's song. So we've got 3 days in Philadelphia with a day just for Sesame Place and then we trudge on to New York (any city girl's mecca in the face of  mass media consumerism and popular culture)  after watching reruns of Devil Wears Prada, Sex and the City, Friends (even though it was never filmed on location) and oh yeah, Gossip Girls. Woohoo!

In any case, here are some pics of our first journey together as a little family unit - believe it or not - as the hubs' working hours never bode well for long family holidays with the kiddo.

Here are the pics of our first day of travel. Daddy's first holiday with K and it was nothing like the last time with me 6 mths back where she screamed and kicked for 10 mins before takeoff. This time, it was all toothy grins and goofy faces. The man got it easy I say, too easy.

'We’re going on a trip in our favorite rocket ship
Zooming through the sky, Little Einsteins
Climb aboard, get ready to explore
There’s so much to find, Little Einsteins
We’re going on a mission, start the countdown
5, 4, 321
Everyone to rocket, rev it up now
RRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

 Wrong airport - hahah - thanks to mummy moi. And off we got on a train to Philadelphia! Small booboo - more sightseeing opportunities!

 K was great - colouring away with her Crayola mess-free ColorWonder crayons. This was a godsend for us as it was pretty much her favourite in-stroller activity plus it makes her sleepy. ;)

While the kiddos slept, I met a kindly, old lady of African-American descent, dressed in her Sunday best, who just attended the graduation of her grandson in New York. She said she is 75 years old and has been living in Philadelphia all her life. She started naming her grandchildren's names and where they live in the USA and around the globe. That conversation lasted for nearly an hour.
 

 Finally we reached Philadelphia's iconic 34th street Station. It was huge and cavenous but it was a welcoming sight after having to circumvent a new route here with a delay of almost 3 hours!

 The skyline. I see alot of new buildings - nothing of the old historic ones in sight from here.

We got a hotel just besides the Reading Terminal Market (RTM)- best location really because it is central and walking distance to almost everywhere and of course, child-friendly and near the convenience store for milk top-ups, fresh fruits, snacks. Being Singapore-trained foodies, we simultaneously agreed to grab some notable grub from the market. High on our list of famous Philly eats was Dinic's. But, we were too late as at 4pm, they were sold out on roast beef. All they had left was some pulled pork - which we had. Not too bad but it was nothing like we expected.

 Passed by a random guy playing some boogie woogie.jazz riffs and breaking into a song. Nice.

 Just to get a feel of what I heard ... except this boy is kinda exceptional.

And we moved to a quiet nook of the RTM where we found a really really old rare book store. We found books on black magic, alegbra and plays. I discovered an early 1900s edition of the 1894 play 'Salome' by Oscar Wilde, with illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley. Amazing. There was even a few cubbyholes for children.

With a couple hours of sunlight left, we took a stroll down the historial area of Philadelphia, starting with the Independence Hall. Oh man, birth place of the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution from the 1800s.

In real life. Not that much different to my untrained eye. Ok the 1800s visual is covered by trees but at least the clock tower looks similar.

We walked through the historic district and managed to visit the Liberty Bell just before closing. A not-so-heavily guarded cracked bell and a few murals on the side. I would recommend giving this a miss. We were in and out in 3 mins. It was easy to take in the sights of the historic district as the area wasn't as big as we had expected it to. With still more sunlight, a light breeze and a map ripped out from our hotel's magazine, we made our way to Penn's Landing where it is supposedly where one of the first settlers, William Penn, made his name in Philly. Of course, history states that it was a busy port for a century in the 1700s and by the 1900s, it looked gross and they decided to revitalize it to make it somewhat more presentable and of course marketable.. Kinda same story as our Boat Quay and more recently Vivocity. So big scale events are to be the focus and unfortunately, none were what we saw. There was a fair of sorts but it was so out of sorts that we were again, in and out in 5mins. We knew that there was a navy museum nearby but we weren't so keen on that kind of history and decided to roam around a little more.

Dinner plans were to be this well-reviewed establishment which serves the best philly cheesesteak and with my helpful iphone, we located it just 10mins' walk from Penn's. It was packed indeed.

What best way to match the favours of the cheesesteak but with beer.

Even K thinks so.. while she don't enjoy the drink like we do - she cools down too by touching the cold cold bottle.

It was also yummz.
Some random moments of mummy & daughter.

 With more than 6 hours in transit and 4 hours of sightseeing, we decided to call it a day and end the day with a nice hot bath and trips to the convenience store to stock up on water, juices and snacks and get enough sleep to ready ourselves for Sesame Place the following day.

Oh yes, at bedtime, the ever-zealous mummy moi took out a can of milk powder (fortified with loads of Omega-3 DHA, iron and etc etc.) and upon opening it, found out it was brown in color. No it has not gone bad but that I had bought chocolate milk powder. Not sure how I managed this feat - from buying it from a store, packing the can into the luggage and all the while, not realising it was chocolate. The tyrant resisted it even though Paul and I valiantly took a few swigs of it and declared it drinkable!

So yet another trip to the convenience store to buy a bottle of milk. Very eventful first day.

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.

Cookie cookie! we love kooky cookies!

After inheriting some baking stuff from a lovely lady who had moved back to sunny Singapore.. decided that I shouldn't let all these ingredients go to waste and started experimenting.. Here are the fruits of our labour.. considering that all the ingredients are hand-whipped in the biggest bowl that I own, with a pass-me-down whisk that came into my possession back in Singapore and which the action of skilled whisking, was never needed in the last decade.

Tough work.. putting cookie dough onto the tray.

My valiant effort to make sense of the cookies.

And a special something for lil K

Whoever said that this update has a happy ending?

But at least, my biggest fan didn't have a care in the world whether it is shaped like an elephant or a messy choc chip chunk of dough. Cookie is cookie. Ahh... the past 2 years of watching Cookie Monster do his thing have not gone to waste.

Birthday Wkend Part 2! Dallas Museum of Art

Continued... The birthday weekend started the wk after actually, as there were a few to-dos during that same weekend. I had to take my driving test and also work a shopping trip down at the outlet mall to make some friends and their family members really happy.

We had dinner at Cool River Cafe, which honestly, was nice and cosy. While I did not take pictures as the lighting was so dim, here is a pic that I'd ripped off their website.
Cool River Cafe, Dallas

...The weekend after a quiet day of 29 Apr, we went down to the Dallas Museum of Art, located in downtown Dallas. It was my first trip to downtown Dallas (not counting the one time I took a detour with the schizo GPS which had led me there instead of that dinner party in Carrollton. Naturally it happened in my first 3 mths in Dallas when my internal GPS had not been tuned right yet).

Atrium Cafe, Dallas Museum of Art

Delicious quesadillas which K devoured. (I'm really glad that K is a happy eater)

A picture taken by K, the budding photographer

Papa Paul (pcube) with K at the little fountain

The Nasher Sculpture Center was our first stop as there was supposed to be a children activity on the weekend. That I read on the website. But what I had missed out was that that only happens on the 3rd Saturday of each month. Blah.

 A happy coincidence of a family portrait

The joyful child

Playing peekaboo

Walking off our heavy lunch, outside the Nasher Sculpture Centre's famed sculpture garden

Pcube & K, the denim-ed duo

Back at the DMA, we chanced upon this gallery and walked on in.

It was an interactive gallery where we were invoked to work with the materials at hand. There was a wall full of panels made up of different materials such as nails, cut-up pingpong balls, leather, suede amongst others. We are encouraged to touch everything we see. K did what she could.

There was a kiddy section where kids are encouraged to physically take part in imaginative play, beginning with this book by Antoinette Portis where it encourages the reader to take ordinary household items and transform them with their minds into a fantasy wonderland.

To further cement what is being illustrated in the book, the gallery provides boxes of various sizes so that we can get started straight away.

K only wants to hide in the boxes and play peekaboo.

We also did a play on the words. ;p

 Our lil elephant family

Found a book that has information that is really new to me... which got me thinking.. what is Singapore's equivalent? I am pretty sure I don't know all the answers..

Out of the small but impressive collection of art-related award-winning books.. I liked this the most.

The book is all about a lil girl's introduction to a few of the greatest artists and illustrations that identify each of their individual styles.

Shortly after, we went to Arturo's corner and played with some of the tools.. which are similar to what Montessori education provides so Kaylen was having an easy time with them.


An impromptu jamming session... featuring Kaylen on percussion!



Finally, a feature mosaic wall that I really like..

I'm really looking forward to coming back again! It was quite funny that while I was at the Information Counter.. there was a furious man who demanded that he gets his money back as the Dallas Museum of Art was 'rubbish' and 'a complete waste of time'. While we didn't have time to tour the galleries, I hope to come back to see what they have in store!