Hallowe'en Cupcakes

This is waaaaaaay past due (about a month now) but wanted to give a big thank you to Debbie and Natalie's Olivia for inviting us to decorate cupcakes with them at grEAT. It was tons of fun! Thanks also to Bern for the great pics :)

The mums and girls who participated.

The girls help to fill the cupcake tins with delicious valhrona chocolate cupcake batter.

All of us paying rapt attention to the "teacher".

Natalie watching closely as the "teacher" creates chocolate ears for her owl cupcake.

Natalie with her three cupcakes: a monster, a skeleton and an owl.

Back home, Natalie digs in to the skeleton. The owl was for me and the monster was for Clark :)

Natalie shows off her dirty post-cupcake mouth.

Pics of Lauren

Below are photos of Lauren from over the past month. She's now 13 months old and growing fast!

Lauren with her hair parted and combed to the side.

Looking goofy.

Naked baby after a bath. She has the softest skin!

Remnants of tears in her left eye. Her hair is brushed to the side.

Full-on bangs -- I think her face may be too round (not long enough) for bangs just yet. Here she is hanging out with me at Shangri La buffet. She loves to stand and gets impatient strapped into a high chair during long meals.

This is what I see when Lauren crawls over and wants to be picked up.

One of Lauren's ugly expressions... maybe her gums were itchy? She's a slow walker because, as you can see, she prefers to climb over walking. We try to bring her to the other side of the walker, but she'll just crawl back around and climb up again.

Looking puzzled in her sleep.

More peaceful sleep. I'm jealous of her long eyelashes.

Sleeping like a baby...

Am I cute?

Lauren is only 13 months and she's already doing the cutesy close-up shots like the J-girls do. Kawaii!!

Happy Halloween!

It's the funnest time of year again for the kids... Hallowe'en! What could be more fun than dressing up and eating lots and lots of candy? Below are some photos of the girls and their cousins Nicholas and Michael in costume.

Our girls Lauren and Natalie: the Pumpkin and the Fairy!

Happy Hallowe'en family and friends!

Lauren kept trying to pull off her hat so we had to squeeze in some quick photos.

Natalie the fairy is flying!

Michael is a pumpkin, too but he's a standing one.

Lauren and Natalie smiling with cousin Michael while Nicholas hangs in the back.

Michael has something in his mouth and Lauren is trying to figure out what he's eating and whether she can steal it from him.

While Nicholas and Natalie watching some TV, we played dress up Lauren and Michael. Michael didn't like being a duck as much as a pumpkin.

Poor Michael... so cute though!

More weekends, more presents

Natalie is excited when weekends arrive because, although she loves school, weekends mean having the chance to open her presents cupboard, carefully examine each wrapped gift and choosing one to open. Thank you to the Huas and to the Hills for gifts opened last week and this week.

Thank you Uncle Kevy, Auntie V, Toby and Caleb for the wonderful girlie cook book and cookie cutters. How did you know Natalie loves to bake?

She helps to make a classic banana bread like this one. We've made it 4 times already and she is super helpful mashing bananas, mixing eggs, creaming the butter and sugar together, and shaking the sifter (and squishing the little flour balls).
Also a big thank you to Olivia and the Ma Hill family for the lovely card and beautiful long dress. It's super comfortable and a perfect "weekend" dress. She wore it just today :)

Lauren's school application photo

Here is Lauren's school application photo. Hard to believe she's already applying to schools. They grow so fast -- Cliche but true!

Another birthday gift opening

Remember how Natalie is only opening one birthday gift per week? At this rate, her gifts will last until Christmas, woo hoo! This week she was SUPER EXCITED to open her gift from the Simmons and discovered a princess-worthy stash of high-heel shoes and jewels. Thanks Mandy, this has you all over it!

Here Natalie is super excitedly posing with her new shoes and princess accessories.

Check out the cute little heels. Natalie wears them at home all the time until her feet hurt. When dancing, one fell off and she said it's ok, princess shoes always fall off, like Cinderella.
The princess crown and a sweet princess-y smile.
The (almost) complete look. She says she doesn't need the earrings because she has real ones, but she's keeping them so her cousin Vanessa can use them next time she visits.

Later, Natalie asked us to put her into another recent birthday gift - this beautiful princess dress. And now the transformation is complete!The little princess with her proud Ba-ba Clark.
And me, too!

Piano and hug

Natalie's begun to show real interest in learning how to play the piano properly so we may sign her up for lessons soon. See Video 373 of Natalie playing her first "song" (it's do-re-mi-fa-so) with proper fingering.

Natalie and Lauren share a hug. So far, it's still mainly Natalie hugging Lauren.

Birthday Party

Almost (but not quite!) as good as having your own birthday party is attending one! Lauren's friend Lauren Jang turned one years old a couple weeks ago and invited the whole gang to her party at Rolly Pollies. Thanks Lieny for the invite and the pics (below). We had a great time!

Group photo at the party. Although Lauren is only 1 years old, her big sister Evana also invited her "big girl" friends so Natalie also had other kids to play with at the party.
The two Laurens at the snack table together. Love the little hat on Lauren J.
The Laurens and mums share a photo opp.
There were a lot of activities to do at the party. This big pit of red sponges is great for jumping into!
You can swing from the monkey bars (altho Lauren decided she was too small still).
You can glide down the ramp on the car (or just sit around and watch others do it, like Lauren)
You can sit under the parachute and sing songs as it flutters around.

You can pull yourself up to a standing position by holding the climbing equipment.
And most fun of all, you can swwwiiiiiiinnng yourself on the zip wire into the red sponges pit.

After play time, it's snack time! Even Lauren had a little plate of baby-appropriate treats.
All in all, a great party!