WIP: Celebrations & renovation

Hello, finally! I'm gonna cleared all my backlog of pictures. Today is Anya first day of school (will leave the details on another post) and she just went down for her nap. Arielle has gone to the In-laws' place for some grandparents loving so its all peace and quiet right now. Woots!

In the past one month, all my little pockets of times such as this were eaten up by doing planning / conceptualizing and whatnots related to renovations. While we have a ID helping us but I happen to be quite particular about how the layout of the place should be, how my cabinets should look like, right down to the nitty-gritties of exactly how many drawers, what sizes and where they should be. Actually, I even drew up 2-D pictures of our walk-in wardrobes, TV cabinets and shoe cabinets. Got our ID saying in jest that he ought to frame them up.

Anyways... it's more like MIP (month in pictures) than WIP so this is gonna be a long long post. And here goes:

First, we celebrated Arielle turning one. Its was a small and cosy affair involving our two families over dim sum. We got a client of the Husband to bake a pretty cake themed.. Rabbit. It's was all pink and pretty with a sugar version of rabbit sitting on top. We thought Joanne did a wonderful job replicating Arielle's favourite plush toy. What's a bonus is her prices are really reasonable as compared to a few of her competitors that we checked out.

Rabbit & Rabbit

First taste of cake.

And then, Anya had a date with her cousin, SK, at United Square to catch Barney & friends. Her first of such mascots show.

Transported into Barney's world.

Finally... ...

The keys for our new place came.

In between the last two months, we spent copious amount of time taking walks and going to playgrounds. These days, Little Miss. Mushroom gets to have some action of her own at playgrounds too.

Loves the slide; hates the swing.

Met up with the dear girlfriends. Had a wonderful relaxing two hours catching up with them.

Another nuptial celebration!

This time, its the best friend tying the knot with my JC mate. So so happy for you both!

Renovation has started immediately after we got the keys and is still ongoing...

Every week or other, we hold a meeting with the ID to discuss details on various areas that are going to be done. Occasionally, Anya comes along. Here's how we occupy her...

When the workers saw me taking out my iPad for Anya, they rustled up a little chair for her using cardboard and a toolbox.

Self- feeding has started for Arielle. Like Anya, she suddenly refused to eat at around the time she turned one - their way of demanding more independence at the dining table.

And so, once again, I am going through the phase where I try hard not to cringe as she makes a mess of her radius of one metre during mealtimes.

This night, Anya announced that she wanted to sleep with Arielle. She insisted her way, she got her way. And she has not slept in her own bed at night since.

A substantial amount of our couple / family outings `are spent trawling furniture malls, lighting and fixtures shops etc and lugging home cartons of stuff.

Thankfully, we still managed to squeeze out some time for strolls around our sunny island.

Other than the little strike she put up for a week or two, she really loves her food.

 

And ours.

Christmas came upon us in a jiffy this year. On Christmas eve, we went for a gathering with the Husband's colleagues in the afternoon. With no prior planning, we decided to drop by Epicurious @ Rail Mall near home for a simple quiet dinner.

By 11pm of Christmas eve, the entire household were already sound asleep. Except for me who spent the night reading my novel and doing a bit of QT.

Christmas morning was a joyous one with cheers and shrieks as little girls open up their presents.

There were a quite a bit of wearable gears among baby girl's Christmas presents this last year.

All in all, we had a busy but wonderful and memorable holiday season before wrapping up 2012. Hope you all had an enjoyable time too. Wishing y'all a blessed 2013!