Entries Tagged as 'Family'

Weekend updates – super busy

We had a super busy weekend, starting with clearing some stuff and furniture for new cabinets arriving next week.

On Saturday, after lunch at Square2, we bought new in-line skates at Novena Square / Velocity for Esther and David, as the second hand skates were getting small and Esther’s skates actually cracked (plastic was just too old). They are Bladerunner skates, adjustable from sizes 5-8.

David, Esther and Joseph also built their own Mindcraft Biomes with our bits and pieces of Lego.

We had dinner at Star Vista, using mostly vouchers we got in a lucky draw at this shopping centre.

A little update on Samuel, napping at the bouncer with the siblings’ gift, the penguin squeezy.

Then on Sunday, we had carolling practice after lunch, David was playing a drum, Esther the ukulele and YowCH on the electric guitar. On Christmas eve, we will be playing for either National University Hospital or Alexandra Hospital.

Unfortunately, the electric guitar was knocked early in the morning and the neck slightly dislodged, so we bought a new one after the carolling practice. We got a display unit Ibanez Gio GRX140BK for $299 (original price being $499) from Cristofori at Funan Centre.


This is heavier than the now limping Suzuki but plays better and sounds richer. It has 4 pick-ups, but only one tone dial.

The afternoon soccer practice was cut very short with a heavy afternoon pour.

Leaving soccer early, we picked Esther, Grace and Samuel from Funan and had dinner there. Esther got her ballet results, not too bad for Grade 3 getting “Commended”. She had 3 months less practice due to her bicycle fall last year!

After dinner, we drove over to Queensway and got David his basketball shoes (needed as the timber floor at the school hall is very slippery). It is rather difficult to find child-size basketball shoes, but much easier to get soccer boots.

A very busy weekend indeed.

A little update on Samuel

His jaundice is getting low, should be cleared by this weekend. He feeds well, and turns his head by himself. He can also raise his head from prone position like a sphinx. He is generally active and likes attention.


This shirt is a gift from YowCH’s colleagues, very nice. We call it the minty-chocolate suit.

Basketball for David, new shoe cabinet

With David playing basketball in school as Co Curricular Activity, we got him a size-5 Mikasa black basketball, for his own practice. We tried it out at the playground last Saturday.


While we were playing basketball, some neighbourhood friends came by and they moved on to court soccer.

Joseph was at the playground climbing frame instead.

Our shoe cabinet was pretty beaten up, so on Sunday, we got ourselves 3 units of IKEA Stuva cupboards stacked up to be the new shoe cabinet. The minions were most helpful in putting up the cabinets. Not shown is YowCH handling the power-drill.
Old shoe cabinet (broken door):

Minions working:

New shoe cabinet (nice):

Samuel’s party at church, shopping and soccer

On Sunday, we bought snacks for church-friends, serving angku kueh and glutinous rice. We pre-packed the rice into bags, with help from friends and Esther.


After church, we went out shopping for a while, the first time Samuel goes to Orchard Road.

Later, David and Joeph went for soccer training, they trained very well and played seriously.


Samuel’s 1st month parties at home

We threw a party for YowCH’s office, this time only for close friends and direct colleagues, on Friday evening, 29 Nov.



Mum, dad and Gene also came.

We had great food from Stamford Catering, and drinks-menu. We also served liquors and Esther was our bartender.

On Saturday afternoon, 30 Nov, we had another party for Grace’s KKH friends (current and previous), some relatives (Grace’s cousin, YowCH’s sister), eFG and YowCH’s old ASEAN scholar friends from Temasek JC.

Joseph birthday at KKH, Samuel party at KKH

Today, Joseph celebrated his 5th birthday in school with his friends. He asked for a longan cake!

Unfortunately, no guests were allowed into the Childcare Centre due to disease outbreaks, so the family did not join him. All the photos by his teacher.


We gave goodie packs of Lego Chima to his friends.

After picking Joseph up from childcare at about 4:15pm, we brought Samuel to the Lab and met Grace’s colleagues. We also brought angku kueh for them.

Joseph turns 5, Fuji XF1 camera for Grace

Today is Joseph’s birthday, he is now 5 years old. For lunch, Joseph asked for beef noodles from Xin Wang.

This is how 5 years old look like.

You can compare with age 1, age 2, age 3 and age 4.

For dinner, we had pasta and pizza at Pastamania (Funan Centre). David and Joseph skipped football training today due to some rain and also to celebrate Joseph’s birthday together rather than to rush around.

While we were at Funan, YowCH bought Grace a present for the delivery of Samuel, a new COOL camera, the Fujifilm XF1. Although it is almost one year old, it is still a very cool camera. Super high quality images with a mechanic zoom lens! Review at DPReview is here.

Sample image at ISO800 25mm (widest):

100% crop:

Sample image at ISO800 100mm (longest):

100% crop

The colours are FANTASTIC.

At a wedding

We attended Matthan and Yi Ling’s wedding at church. Joseph served as the pageboy, bearing the ring. He did a very nice job of it.

Esther helped with the opening of the doors, also did a good job.

David was also helpful, he was in-charged of lighting the candles of the bride’s maids, but unfortunately, the lighter broke, and some adults ran to get the back-up lighter and lit those candles very urgently instead. Nevertheless, he was on standby for any candle that might be snuffed.
Samuel sat through the entire 2-hour ceremony without crying, mostly carried by David who took great care of him, and by YowCH.

Here’s a post-event photo of us.

And this is a photo of the ring-bearer, door-opener and the bride and groom.

Samuel’s 1st month party at T.Y.Lin

Today, we celebrated Samuel’s first month with a party at T.Y.Lin (the first of several such parties). We got nice pastries and tarts from Prima Deli, soft drinks and 4 mini-kegs (5L each) of Golden Ale from Brewerkz.

Samuel was very happy throughout, and YowCH’s colleagues passed him around!

However, there was plenty of leftover food and drinks. Only about 8L of beer consumed although we opened 3 kegs. So we called in some friends to help drink up the remaining 7L. There was great fellowship, but the beer still remaining another 3L or so.

More parties next week.

Samuel attends Church, Joseph “James Bond”

This is a nice photo of the 4 Yow-minions, on a Sunday morning.

Samuel attended Church for the first time today.


It has been a few years since we sat in the baby room.

After church, we had lunch at Xin Wang, West Coast Plaza. This is our second family photo. Can’t see Samuel’s face, though.

With our friend’s wedding coming up next week and Joseph being the ‘ring-bearer’, we dressed him in the James Bond suit.

Cool!