Long day - 10th Dec

I had promised S that they could come to our house next week but then looking at their timing and my timing. I can't seem to find any day which I am free the whole day. Sigh..........tell you this school holiday is like any ordinary school day for me

I had the intention of signing che-che up for the Scrapbooking class on Friday, today, while I send mei-mei to school. I can "eat snake" a little on my own.

However, at last minute asked the girls to join us for class. In the end, mei-mei didn't go to school as well. A bit troublesome to leave my friend there while I leave to pick her up. Not that I make good company .... aww...you know what I mean.

The girls went for their class while ML and myself fuss about that lil' girl, who was really angry for being left out.

About 2 hours later, we picked the girls up and they showed us their masterpieces. Very nice!

Adjourned to Coffee Bean for the kids to have some snacks. The kids played ... on iPhone. Wah.... we brought the kids out and they were in their own iWorld.

We proceeded to TM thereafter for mei-mei's class and a Xmas Party.

Science Centre

I asked ML the day before if she was free to join us for a trip to Science Centre today. Then turned out that she could get us free tickets. Wah! So paiseh, ask her for company end up it's a freebie for us.

Maxine, che-che's BFFAEAEAEAE, wanted to join us as well. So kind ML helped to pick her up.

Kids generally had fun looking around. Not sure if they learnt anything.


We're the XX chromosone.

Birthday

We had a celebration with this group of kids from the DAZZLING GIRLS Club.

First Dazzling Mother, May Ling and myself met earlier to decorate cakes for the 2 birthday girls. One is a mummy and another is a 6 yr old girl. Well, I should say a big THANK YOU to her coz' I've never decorated a cake in Icing Room before. Not that I need it as I bake and decorate my own cake. It was a good experience.

Dazzling Girl, Summer partnered me. And we decorated the mummy's cake.

Sherry and che-che decorated for the 6 yr old girl, Trixilia. At first their cake look alright. Until they decided to put more and more and the cake look ...???? (which had the birthday girl crying..)
The night is young while this big group of noisy patrons tear the restaurant down. As we left the place, we made the kids thank each mummy for their contribution. The kids went "Thank you, Aunty XX and may God Bless you always." - what they say in school. All mummies were satisfied and walked away, the kids chorused "hey! you all thank us!!" The kids are really funny! Well, as sporting mothers we lined up in a row (following them) and thank them. Haha!

After dinner, we adjourned to T3's Macs for some ice-cream. Argh! Diet plans all gone down the drain!

The girls helping the baby in the group. And she walked! Ooh... hope this friendship lasts a long time and we'll see Baby Saby learn to walk to getting married many years down the road.
11+ and the old folks were really tired. The Energizer kids didn't want to leave; hopped around while we look on with weary red- eyes.
Thank you ladies for a wonderful time!

Oh my brownie! Oh my brownie!

Girl asked to bake as she hasn't done so for quite a long while.
I haven't done any replenishments on baking stuffs. Brownies sounded like a good idea as it requires the simplest ingredients. Tried a new recipe as I ran out of Top Flour, did a cake brownie instead.
So what's the difference between a fudge brownie and a cake brownie? One is supposedly higher than the other. One calls for All-Purpose Flour; the other Cake Flour. And ...?? read more here to get more answers

Here, ah girl whisking.
The outcome! Hmm.........I hate it when I get this kind of crumbly top when I am going to decorate them. Dense and chocolaty taste leh! Taste the same as fudge brownie to me??
Che-che decorating some brownies with more sinful 'heaty' stuffs

Her 'art' and she's so proud of them

Happy 8th Birthday, Athena!

Hubby took leave for today, to celebrate his oldest daughter's birthday.

But first thing in the morning, my dear girl received a wonderful; unforgettable present from her - SCHOOL DENTIST??

Hahaha! I couldn't help but laugh at her. *bad mummy*

The rest of the day was spent doing what she wanted most. The simplicity in a child's life is reflected here.

Lunch @ her favourite place - Sakae Sushi

Window shopping right after her Love & Berry game at the arcade. We wanted to go down town but last minute Peggy requested for everyone to come back today for a last practice before their exam next week. No choice we stayed around Tampines Mall.

Daddy, though disapprove of her eating sweets bought her a bar of Cookies & Cream from Hersheys. Made her day.. no choice mummy have to close one eye too!

Treat from daddy before her show. Her favourite Tissue Prata. My girl was so happy.

Treat : Rapunzel in 3D

Back home after lesson, we sang her a birthday song. She get to enjoy the small cake by herself. No big cake coz' we're stuffed!

Athena & her new sunglasses

>Happy Birthday, my sweet girl!

Birthday Ball - 24th

Birthday girl is up before me .... wah....mummy only had 4 hrs of sleep. So tired!

2 of her friends came by in the morning. I had a quick bite, thank goodness mom came by with fried beehoon. I ate some to fill my stomach as I might get too busy to eat.

Left home at 9+. Party is from 11am to 1pm, but I needed to put up some decoration; set the food table.

Arrived the place at 10.20am to see a nicely decorated place beyond my expectation. Wow! I didn't put up my decoration except to paste the Tiara Club rules on the door, which I think nobody paid attention to it. Heehee!

I spent some time to set up the food table. It's a good thing there's Delifrance below. I placed order a few days before and simply collected them there. There's also Bakerzin and an Italian restaurant which could not prepare my food in time for me. So, chose finger food from Delifrance instead. Scared my guests starve leh!

The next best thing about this place is that Cold Storage is smacked on the same floor as Curly & Spike. I didn't have to worry about the drinks. Apart from the heavy 12 bottles of water I lugged there (coz' needed to do label at home what!), I bought the packet drinks from there. Only setback, no chiller to chill drinks.

They styled up my birthday girl first, to get ready for the party. Slowly her friends came, they were either occupied with their makeover or doing craft. Aricia, though came early was the last or second last to do her makeover. Sigh... she was busy running around.

I noticed too, that office workers while walking past commented "so nice". Some stop to see the table so I assume they must be referring to the food table not the internal decorations. I feel so flattered. *embarrassed*

What's for mum-mum?

1) Tuna and Curry puffs

2) Ham & Cheese croissant

3) Sandwiches

4) Cut fruits - bought from Delifrance as I was collecting the ordered items

5) Snacks such as : jellybeans, agar agar, pretzels & chocolate (which was given away individually later as nobody knows its meant for them), marshmallows, popcorn, chocolate

Not a lot of that is sustainable for lunch. So I do apologize to my guests. But it's hard to find places to do small catering. No time to cook at home, that early in the morning. When KZ had to help me prepare breakfast and get the children ready for me.. how to cook?

After everyone had their makeover, they did a catwalk.

Birthday song was sung.

Goody bags given out. Athena gave out their membership cards as well. Gathered the kids and Queen Kelly was tasked to read out the 10 rules of being in the DAZZLING GIRLS club. And the girls finally graduated and became Princesses in this club. Keke! Some girls were puzzled, asked me "what to do with this card?" Hmm... 10% discount? No, my dear. It's this bor-liao Aunty trying to find some nonsensical thing to do.

My lil' girl holding out her membership card

With that, the party ended. Thanks to all her friends' presence who made this party possible. Thanks to staffs of C&S who gave my girl a wonderful experience. And not forgetting, thanks to this mother who gave birth to her, right?

In preparation for a grand ball

When it comes to girls parties, you can never go wrong with fairies; princesses; diva. But then it also depends on the age of the child.

After mei-mei's birthday, che-che did say she also wanted a Little Einstein birthday - which I DID give her a HARD STARE. Little Einstein for her age?? In my mind, I had an idea in mind.. and whether that idea turns into reality depends on a couple of factors.

1 month went by, then followed by weeks. 2 weeks before her celebration in school I was still considering if we should have a party for her outside. On her concert day, 15th, I decided to let her have it.

After the celebration in school the next day, I went down to Curly & Spike to make my deposit.

It was rather untimely too that she was only left with one more school day on Thursday. And then her P2 year is over!

Informed friends by SMS and in the night, printed out invite. I told you I had the idea in my mind so everything was a breeze.

Ahem... maybe that was what I thought. In reality, it was no joke preparing everything in 6 days for a party.

16th - Tuesday

Night time printed out her birthday ball invite, following the same Tiara Club book format. Keke! So, now you know it's based on a Princess theme. I can't do a Disney Princess because she's way too old for them so Tiara Club is the next best solution.

Maybe abit bor-liao, wanting to add something else in the invitation (like I did a pass for her Dora party) so added this typed Temporary Membership Card.

Weeks before I had purchased this online to standby. I mainly used it for decorations. Though it helped a little, I've to sacrifice my beauty sleep to print, cut and assemble. I didn't get to use the banner in the end coz' the place had it decorated well beyond my expectation. Not wanting to throw away my wasted effort * think my sacrificed sleep* - I asked KZ to put them up in her room. It matches their room, don't you think?

The wordings were printed out in my own format and glued.

Oh! They didn't have this bottle label so I did this myself, scanning out pic and re-doing everything. Forgot to take pics during the party, so I have this miserably-taken photo under dimmed lights in my kitchen

And I'm extremely pleased at how everything turned out. Sweet pink.

Chocolates

Ooh.. just gotta use my mold. I have one castle mold but it didn't turn out as nice as what I had expected, so I used back this same crown as I did for Aricia's party 2 years back. Again, using the scanned pic, did the text and did a label

Prepared some pretzels (forgot to take pics), covered a popcorn canister, did a label for the rocher chocolate. Did the card tags for food etc..

Did these cutlery packs too! Okay... I'm crazy, I look too much into details already

More editing and printing over the next few days. Everyone knows that I like personalised things, since I still had my template from the Hello Kitty celebration I did the same for this party. I love the way the labels turned out, all DIY-ed from scratch (which only this crazy mother would do for her children)

Honestly, anyone would feel tired. But then ... I always feel so challenged to make things look asthestically nice.

Cake - No intention to have it done outside since it's going to be a small party. Will end up with lots of extras. And I certainly don't need the extras fats too! The cupcake picks all ready to be dived into chocolate-ty cuppies.

23rd (Monday)

I sent Ari to school in the morning, so was a busy mother going from school-home-school. I packed in the cupcake sticks in a bag.

Since the day I drop the invite, only once did I have the time & opportunity to scour the whole mall trying to look for something. One last try today, if luck has it that I will not be able to find it -then I'll drop the whole idea.

And I did! Yippee! Those tiaras that I have seen before are very expensive. And boy! am I glad I found these cute tiaras at $7.90 each. They have even smaller ones but I didn't like it. When I said it's cheap, one mummy commented "this is cheap?" Ok, so my dear friends .. please take good care of the tiara I gave your girls.

Photo taken with her 2 of her current collection.

I love the myriad of colours on each tiara. Of course my girls had special privilege, they chose what they wanted. And I bought them 2 each.

Pop by the party shop upstairs and manage to find these for the 2 boys.

Prepared buttercream for the cuppies in the afternoon.

Arranged for her Berries class in the evening. While waiting, I was cutting the goody bag tags.

24th (Tuesday)

One last try to find the titles of the books on the girls' list. I asked their mummies for their girl's desired book title/s from The Tiara Club series.

I didn't have such luck with Popular. Went to 2 different outlets (Fri went to Compass Pt, today went to Tampines Mall) on different days and they carry .. the old stock? Want to cry already.. I don't have time to try other bookstores. My birthday girl have all the titles they have on their shelves. Ended up buying her Roald Dahl books instead.

Afternoon : baked cuppies. I really miss baking!

Evening time was preparing the last 2 batch of crown chocolate when KZ reminded me about birthday girl's birthday dress. OMG! I actually forgot to buy her her birthday dress?!?!?! Rushed out to nearby Compass Pt.

She's all excited for next day's event. I'm tired but had to persevere on. I haven't pack their goody bags yet. Argh!

Back home, rushed through dinner, continued with the incomplete crown chocolates; then packed the kids' bags

In girls' bag :

1) Princess scrapbooking sticker

2) Princess notebook

3) Princess-y theme cute rubber band

4) Crown Chocolate

5) Nail Sticker

6) Book

(note: I didn't put in snacks except for the chocolate. Didn't want to overload kids with unhealthy stuffs - Haha! look who's talking?!)

For boys : Wanted to keep to a theme - Ben10. But books were too wordy for the 2 young boys. So their goody bag are rather chapalan kind

1) Outer Space scrapbooking sticker

2) rubber band

3) chocolate (can't be bothered to change. Moreover I do not have any mold of that transport category)

4) Thomas book

5) Thomas snack

6) Stationery set

*yawns* 2+ in the morning.. I need to get up early tomorrow