Blast from the past - Sad bear

Is this the saddest bear in the world? Found this picture on an old memory stick...

Tyler school trip to Philippine Air Museum

Seems every week there is another school trip. This one to the Philippine Air Museum at least promised to be more educational than 'learning how to eat chocolate'.

I was pleasantly surprised that although it was a small museum with very few exhibits it was quite interesting seeing the displays (in particular the one on Hiroo Onoda) and then going outside to see the planes.

Tyler seemed to enjoy himself (who doesn't enjoy planes..) and we took a lot of pictures.

Here is a sample..

 

 

 

Little Tokyo

To get to Little Tokyo you can take a taxi not a plane (To Tyler's disappointment). Once there you can eat at many different Japanese restaurants and enjoy the garden.

Siew Gin with Tyler, Poppy with Julius and Rina with Ryu and I (as the token man) had the chance to go eat Japanese food..

Here we are waiting for our food !!

After we finished eating we went to explore the garden.

Check out Tyler and Ryu with a giant rabbit

The boys climbing on the bridge with Policeman watching on

And the ladies by the sign

1Malaysia

1Malaysia has been an ongoing program that stresses national unity and ethnic tolerance.

On our recent trip to Malacca we saw many example of the 1Malaysia official logo, but none bigger than the one below.

If you look carefully you can see Cody, Alira (yaya) and Tyler posing by the big number 1

Cody takes the plunge

Cody and Tyler often go to the park and during the last year we have seen finally go from stationary to mobile. He still doesn't have a good understanding of stairs (up or down) tending to launch himself forwards and relying on us to save him, but over the last few weeks he has been using the slide.

He has also learnt a few signs, and really understands that if he signs 'more' then he gets to repeat what he was doing.

This comes in really useful when it comes to slides. We have a ritual where he goes down the slide, comes out the other end, signs more, gets picked up and carried to the top, rinse and repeat (for hours....)

Here is a picture of Cody in the slide with his brother waiting to help

Tyler has progressed to 'Tummy one' slides, head first, feet first and all other combinations and has finally learnt to slide down the Firemans pole (illegal in Germany I am told !!)

Siew Gin the supermodel

Siew Gin has always been a supermodel, but now we have proof. At a recent launch of her book 'how to get your kids to eat and stay sane in the process' we got the opportunity to take a test to see if she officially qualified as a supermodel.

You can be the judge !!

Tyler volunteers for a picture !!

Lately Tyler has been joining his parents on their trips out to restaurants, and most days he eats without complaint. For the last few months he has also taken to hiding when we try and take his picture so many family shots are minus Tyler.

However occasionally he does surprise us by volunteering for a picture. This one is taken outside Ayala museum..

Just kids!

Here are some random pictures of the kids.

Tyler and Ryu and Julius(in the back)

Tyler and his new scooter

Only in Philippines!!

The boys tickling their daddy

Tyler in a bobby car wearing a robe!!!

Cody goes to school!

Tyler's school was doing a new student recruitment event where they invite soon-to-be students to come visit the school. We took Cody there just as something to do with him as we hardly spend any Cody-only time.

We told Tyler that we had to take Cody to school and he wasn't allowed to come and he seemed to take the news quite well. Of course, he got to go spend time at his friend Julius's house which was a plus!

The school did a circus festival theme and must have had a very poor turn out as only 3 new students showed up!! ha! Seemed like such a shame coz they put in quite a bit of effort. But i think Cody had fun though the whole following instruction concept may still be beyond him!

His favorite activity

Threw the ball in disgust half way thru the song and went to look for the car!!!

Did not like sand in his feet

Was intrigued with singing at first but then got bored and played with pillows instead

While other kids were busy stuffing their faces, my son just drank water.. sigh...

My goof balls

Now, why can't they be this nice to the camera at all times?

Cool dude!!

Cody for some reason had the urge to ride the Twist car on his own today. He made surprisingly good progress on it within a day and was able to manuever around the house with turns and all!! Will upload a video at some point. It's quite funny! And to make it funnier, he insisted on wearing his brother's sunglasses!!

And here's one where he's going around with his brother!!

Ginger Bread House party

After 9 months in Manila, i had finally gathered enough friends to have a party! And hearing about all the Xmas parties back home made me feel a little left out, so i decided to have a party to join in the fun!! :)

Since i spend most time hanging around Tyler and his friends, it's only natural that they are invited. I thought decorating the ginger bread houses would be a fun family activity. I had an initially big dream of making a gingerbread house for each family. But after making the first house, i was tempted to just make one house for the whole party!!! Instead, i compromised at 2 families to a house(which was a good decision at the end!)

At 9:30 am(wait till you have kids, you would realize this is the perfect time for kids parties), some guests started trickling in and soon we had enough people to start decorating. We gathered all the kids and they were all excited and we told them that we had to build the houses and they had to be very quiet and still or their houses would collapse. So they did! At least for 5 minutes!! And then they were off! ha! And there i thought it'd be fun for them! How wrong was I??!! Anyways, i think most of the parents that were left to finish their houses had quite a bit of fun.

Shhh.. or your house will fall!!

Not sure..

My house building partner. Roof too heavy!!!!

None of the house were quite complete. This is what parenthood does to you!

Tyler and our house

The feast.. i cheated and bought food! Remember 9:30 am party!!!

All except Tyler!!!

And here are more pictures:

Pictures from GingerBread House Party

Tyler and Yi Xuen

Tyler has a mischievous streak and enjoys winding up his brother and cousins. However, i had noticed he is a little better behaved when Yi Xuen(my sister's baby girl) is around and is often times quite tender to her. Maybe he knows she's a girl or something. He can even pronounce her name correctly! :)

Maybe because of all the adventures they have together??

The myth of Santa Claus..

see how far we try to convince Tyler that he exists!!!

Tyler had no clue who Santa was. When i told him Santa brings presents, he said "like Grandma?" or something to that effect. So, i decided that it is time he gets to know Santa and what better way than tv? He seems to get it when he watches it on tv(maybe after the 500th time, you do get everything!!). Anyways, Polar Express was downloaded and introduced during meal times! And Santa Claus was born into Tyler's mind!

So, from then on, we started talking to him about Santa bringing him presents and how he has to write him letters and etc. So, here is our Santa story!

Tyler's Xmas letter to Santa Claus. Left it on a Xmas tree and when we went back to check, lo and behold Santa had come to pick up the letter!!!

He even nearly wrote his own name, he can only do T and Y!!!

Preparing food for Santa, cookies and milk

He was horrified that Cody took a bite!! ha!!

The next morning.. no more milk and cookie crumbs

And of course, Santa had to deliver!!!

I think we got him convinced! hehe....

Cody's Frenectomy

Cody was born with a tongue-tie and we've known about it since birth. As it didn't affect breast feeding which usually is a big concern with infants, we left it alone. But since coming to the Philippines, we've been nagged by our paed to get it cut. So, we did!!

It was a simple procedure but Cody has to be put under general anesthesia. I have to say, though i've seen Tyler go thru it before, it still affects me when i see it done on Cody. The way they lay there unconscious just is somehow disturbing.

Anyways, Cody's surgery went off without a hitch apart from the 20 min top-of-the-lungs screaming after the surgery. Apparently not due to pain but from the effects of anesthetics and apparently quite normal. And I believe it as after 30 mins, he bounced back to be the happy bubbly Cody that we know! And on our way home, he was sticking his tongue out and wiggling it around with glee!!!

Our little trooper in his hospital gown with Mommy!

Cody swabbing around in the recovery room which was SERIOUSLY cold!!!