Cate the Munchkin Face

Sorry, there's no real story here but I just couldn't resist sharing this picture that Cate's school sent me today of her munchkin face....

It's lovely that their school sends me daily pictures of them doing various activities in school!!!

Christmas Eve with Paul's Japanese Brother!

Paul's Japanese brother (long story, but he is really Paul's brother and he is really Japanese) has come to visit from Osaka, Japan with his girlfriend Yuki! His name is Takashi "something-Japanese" but we call him Andrew Chew.

They had left Japan a couple of weeks back and went to Bangkok before Singapore. Funnily, when we asked Yuki what she fancied eating, she said "Japanese"! So anyway we booked dinner at the Japanese Dining Bar oppposite our place. We always love going to Japanese restaurants with new people and even better, new Japanese people! What do I mean by that.... Well, Paul and I love Japanese and go all the time but we ALWAYS order the SAME stuff! It is only when we go with "new" ppl that we try new stuff.

Aunty Lin was VERY popular with the girls and they just couldn't leave her alone all throughout dinner! I hope they don't put her off having her own kids!!! :P

After dinner, Emma and Aunty Lin had a memory game challenge and lao shi did not give chance!!! Emma was CREAMED! Poor tot trudged to bed defeated....

There's nothing like a nice quiet Christmas Eve dinner with family.... :D

The sisters have each other....

Emma is dressing Cate up in all the items she can find in her dressup drawer.... They came into my study singing "Hula huuula... that's how we say HELLO!....Hula huuula....."

My girls are so nuts.... I guess whatever keeps them occupied on school closure!

And here it was Cate's turn to dress her Cheh-Cheh up....

Am so glad that Emma and Cate have each other.... they have so much fun together all the time....

**happy and contented with my 2 girls....**

Emma's first set of "Lines"....

Over time, with developing a mind of her own,... Emma has developed "a mouth". Answering back, snide remarks. Until a few days ago, Paul and I decided that enough was enough gave Emma her first set of lines to write as a punishment. We have lots of punishment techniques and I guess they were just not working.
For example:

* The Cane- Hardly use this cos our dear daughter doesn't seem to feel pain hence this seems to be one of the least effective

* The Naughty Place - It used to work pretty well but not anymore now that she is older

* Confiscating Toys - Again, used to really work, but not anymore

* TV Ban - Last time we used this, she seemed perfectly happy despite being a TV addict...

When we first gave her the punishment of writing 100 lines of "I will not be rude to others.", she was really excited, getting her stationery out. She even told Paul that maybe she should write 200 cos she is very good at counting. Anyway after like 30 lines, she was complaining, telling us that her hand was getting painful. By about 40 lines, she was crying "It's too much,... it's too much for me Papa...." tears streaming down her cheeks. So in the end we let her get away with 59 lines (to sides of lined A4 paper). Let's hope this works!!!....

Team Hoyt - they make us look like whimps!

Am sure most of you would have heard of Team Hoyt. I just came across this again after a long while and was so touched by it I actually cried. I can only imagine such love he felt for his son. This is about how a dad took his handicapped son on all his races and competed as a team. Doing marathons and ironman distances. Swimming with his son in tow in a little rubber boat, cycling with a specially made bike with his son strapped to the front, running and pushing his son in a wheel chair.

Marathon Personal Best: 2:40:47
Ironman Triathlon Personal Best: 13:43:37

When Dick Hoyt (the dad) first started competing in races with his son, he could barely swim.....

You can read more on http://www.teamhoyt.com

Team Hoyt makes me feel like such a whimp complaining about feeling the pain running piddly 10k races.