Beach lovers

The other day we just could not resist going down to Pantai Muara, it was such a beautiful evening. Oliver loooooooves going to the beach.

To our surprise there were quite a few people there:



Oliver didn't give up on biking even though it was very hard work:







Luca was pretty happy being on a bumpy ride:



The best activity on the beach - Matthew and Oliver chased the waves for a long long time:



Beautiful sunset:





The fresh sea breeze made us all hungry and we all slept well that night. We just love our beach walks so much!

Special coffee morning

I was invited to a coffee morning hosted by the Japanese ambassador's wife Mrs. Hirose. Luca came along too. He was sound asleep until we sat down and were ready to eat - of course!

Yoshimi and Luca:



The table was beautifully set in the traditional Japanese way.





Lots of yummy food:



Saeko and Miho:



Even though I couldn't enjoy as much talk as I would like to because of my noisy little boy, I thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience. I don't think these things could happen at many other places, it is so nice the Brunei Japanese community is close and small :)

Flashback

Luca turned 6 months today. The time just flew and now I have a big baby (not a little one anymore). He is growing healthy and happily. Here are some photos from the past 6 months.

Day1:



1 month:



2 months:



3 months:



4 months:



5 months:



And today. How amazing he can sit up by himself and is already crawling!!







I am so enjoying seeing my boys grow every day. It is a great pleasure being a mum : )

Green, Red, or White colour day

It was another Junior School Colour Day today – students were encouraged to wear red, green, white or Christmas clothes! (the last Colour Day was to wear yellow to celebrate Deepavali).

We got ready slightly earlier than usual so that there was a chance to take some photos before heading out to school.

Here is Oliver in his favourite Christmas t-shirt (DEAR SANTA DEFINE GOOD):



Of course I dressed Luca in his Christmas colours too, here are the boys with L&L:



It's nice Luca's back is strong enough so that Lucas and Linnea can hold him by themselves:





When we got to school the Unicorn classroom was decorated in Christmas themes:





Some of the mothers from Oliver's class were very organised and gave Christmas presents to everyone so that they can take them home to put under their Christmas tree. How thoughtful is that!



Christmas is almost here. The excitement is definitely building up!

The Christmas Cookie Club

I spend my Tuesday mornings being creative and crafty with the "Creative Crew". It has been so lovely since we started in May this year.

One of our crew suggested we do Christmas Cookie Exchange this week. I had no idea what it was about and how to go about it. So I did a little research and found out about this novel "The Christmas Cookie Club".



The book description goes like this:
"Every year Marnie and her friends get together for a cookie party. Each member of the cookie club has to bake thirteen dozen cookies, which also need to be beautifully and unusually wrapped. They give the cookies to each other and also donate to a local hospice. Each cookie comes with a story, which is emblematic of the year that has just passed....."

So on Monday night I baked and baked my cookies for the girls (I don't think I have made so many cookies at once before). There are 7 of us in the "Creative Crew" so I baked enough for 8 batches of which one of them goes to charity.

Baking wasn't so hard but the problem was that I hadn't decided fully what I was going to do with the wrapping. It needed to be creative and Christmasy... I thought about it lots and lots, and finally at 9 o'clock at night I came up with this idea!



I used Christmas fabric to wrap the cookies in the traditional Japanese way (furoshiki style) so they look like Santa's present sack. I took the photo for this blog post and then! My creativeness finally kicked in!! I needed little Santas to complete the decoration.

So I got my origami paper out and made some Santas. I used red ribbon to attach the Santa to the sack.
Taaaaddaaaaa my cookies are completed!



Here are my 8 little Santas ready to deliver the cookies!



I was very happy with my cookies but I got extra happy when I saw all these cookies and getting each of them as a gift to me!



So exciting to open each one, there was Swedish saffron biscotti, gingerbread houses, shortbread cookies, cranberry orange cookies, peanut butter balls and you can see these beautifully wrapped cookies closely in Boel's blog. Not to mention they were all very very yummy!

All of us together:



What a wonderful craft session/mission we had. Thank you ladies for a lovely morning!

Guess who spotted the cookies when coming back from school?



yum yum yummmy!

Our little conductor

This is how Oliver entertains Luca sometimes.

Same baby??

Christmas cups

During the month of December we use our Christmas cups for a cuppa.



Oliver is now big enough to use his special Christmas cup too! I bought them last year but he was too little then. It is a pity he doesn't drink warm drinks here in Brunei. If we were in Japan we would be having some milo or hot milk.

Christmas tree

I love decorating our Christmas tree, it makes me feel so festive and excited. It was extra fun this year as Oliver was very keen in taking part in putting up the decorations.

He chose very carefully which decorations to hang. No no no! you cannot help - he wanted to do it all by himself!



He was very keen on putting them higher and higher (can you see his little tip toes?)



We had so much fun but it never ended. Oliver kept taking them off and putting them up again and again and again...
Finally, we managed to turn the lights on (It was nice and dark by then).



New light behind our bar is up too.



Oliver was so excited to find his "star light" in his bedroom : )



Our house is now looking very Christmasy. With lots of Santas, lights and candles. I wish December can last longer... Only 20 days till Christmas.

Teddy bear's picnic

On Friday Oliver had a teddy bear's picnic. He has done this twice (earlier this year and the year before) while he was at Geckos but this was the first time for him as a school activity. All the children from Nursery to Year 2 were involved. They have divided each year group into 4 different house colours.

Oliver is in blue house. It was lucky his teddy bear was blue so we didn't need to dress him especially.

Ready for a fun filled day!





He was very proud of his teddy coming to school with him. Whoever walked passed us was shown the teddy with a big smile and "Look at my teddy!". So cute!

Time to go home

After a fab 4 days in Singapore we returned to Brunei. It was just so nice to get out of the bubble and expose ourselves to something different.

Oliver was most impressed with lots of Santas and reindeer and special lights during our stay.