Quick catch up

Tonight our great friends were going through Singapore on the way to their summer holiday in Germany. Oliver has been so excited since he got up this morning to see his friends. It was rather late for the little ones to meet up and get excited but they were in full swing!

Holding hands and zooming around together:

We sat in one of the coffee shops at the terminal to do a quick catch up, well we thought we sat down...

They were too excited to see each other and exchange presents. In the end they got all the toy cars Emil had in his suitcase and raced them everywhere :)

Oliver and Luca both got a nice book each:



And even I got something special!!! - My favourite - fresh orchids :) :) :) thank you Katja!!! You made me smile even more!



Of course it was very difficult for Oliver to understand why he was not going through the departure security with them... tears and tears... poor little man :(

But we really enjoyed seeing you all, and are looking forward to the next catch up.



Have a great holiday Maike & Katja!

Bag Fetish - No 2

When I saw Luca going for bags this afternoon, I remembered this post  I did 2 and 1/2 years ago. Just like his brother, Luca is very very keen for bags!! Lucky we have so many of them :)

Sunday lunch and walk about

This week Matthew worked Monday to Friday. So the weekend really felt like the weekend. It was a lovely day so we decided to walk down to Siglap area to find some lunch place.

We made a special trip to this Vietnamese restaurant last time but it was closed, so when we saw them open we knew where to have lunch :)



Some rice rolls and Vietnamese pancake. We also ordered some Pho noodles for our boys. Asian food always goes down well with our boys - wonder why!?



After a delicious meal we carried on to the Siglap area. Oliver was very curious and looking into the shops. He even tried to trick us to go into McDonald's - cheeky little monkey!!





And we had our coffee on the way home too :)



Oliver is getting very good at taking photos on my iphone.



Luca really enjoyed baby-chino, Oliver not too much this time...



It was a lovely family day out!

Cuddly Giggly Brothers

BBQ Birthday Party

We were invited to our friend's Birthday Party tonight. Somehow whenever Shem puts a BBQ on Matthew has to fly and miss the whole party... Well Matthew was again away - booooooo :(

It started to rain just as we got the BBQ going.



We evacuated under cover for a bit.

Luckily it didn't stick around too long and made the temperature just right for the evening.

Oliver is now so good at riding his scooter and had so much fun zooming around with his friends.





Luca had some water fun with Merryn :)



Shem always puts on a great BBQ. I love the big tasty chunk of NZ beef!



Appetizer - New Zealand green mussels - Yuuum!



They had some sparklers for the kids - here they were patiently queuing up:



Big smile from our gorgeous boy!



Time for the birthday cake - Very kiwi cupcakes :)



It was a very relaxing night out - and the bonus part?
We just had to go up the elevator when it was over :) Nice and easy!

Scooter debut!?

Merryn introduced Luca to Oliver's scooter - and he loved it! Maybe it won't be too long until we have two scooting boys wherever we go :)

Great buy

I bought this play mat for my boys from IKEA yesterday. It's a great hit!





Oliver can be content and spend ages playing his cars - if he can avoid the disturbance from Luca!

Excursion to Little India

The boys enjoyed another public transport excursion today with Merryn and Dennis. This time we got the condo shuttle to the MRT and took trains into Little India. We have been there once but haven't spent much time there. Since Merryn and Dennis knew the area quite well (from their old days) it was an easy shopping day for me!

We went into Mustafas which is a 24 hour shopping complex. We had some things on our shopping list so zoomed around the department store.





We had authentic Indian cuisine for lunch - some masala dosai and lassis, they were so yuuummmy!



We continued our shopping to IKEA after this. Quite a different shopping environment - India to Sweden in Singapore!!

We had an early dinner at IKEA. The boys were exhausted from a whole day shopping and went straight to bed which meant some quiet adult time watching Tour de France and some treats from IKEA :)

Some more presents for our boys

This birthday fiesta never ends for our boys! Merryn and Dennis arrived with some more birthday presents for them - they are so spoiled!!!

Luca got a set of wooden farm animals:



Oliver got a safari animal set:



They each got a cool liquid ornament.



And Luca got these gorgeous handmade place mats from Merryn (Oliver has a matching set) and a pukeko hand puppet from the Fenwick Roses. Luca looks so cute putting the puppet on his tiny hand and trying to move it (I must get a photo for you Kylie!).



Oliver also got a sleeping bag which is matching with all his cousins and a cool puzzle game from the Fenwick Roses.

We really need to find a bigger place to put all these wonderful toys! Running out of space!!

Rainy Zoo visit

Since Matthew got 4 day Perth trip!? while Merryn and Dennis were here and had to leave for work in the evening we decided to do a quick zoo visit.

We used public transport to get there as my boys looooove getting on the buses.

Boys talk on the bus:

On the last few visits we got smarter and organise our lunch before we get to the zoo as there are only limited selections there. So that's what we did again.



When we got there it started to rain a little bit. We thought after our yummy subway lunch the weather might improve - Naaah :( no chance it just got heavier and heavier.
Hence we had to dress in these:

Some of the animals were very happy with the rain and seemed more active:





Especially this Rhino:





It was quite a wet visit but we enjoyed the cool walk thoughout the zoo.And Oliver was pretty proud to show off his local Zoo to Merryn and Dennis.



Of course the rain stopped when we were leaving.

Fun time with grandparents

Merryn and Dennis arrived from NZ last night. I wasn't sure how much of his grandparents Oliver would remember (last time we saw them was 8 months ago in Brunei). Well he was instantly comfortable around them and pulling their arms and showing them his apartment and his new toys.

Matthew had to work all day so we decided to do our neighbourhood exploring as Merryn and Dennis weren't too familiar with the East Coast area even though they used to live in Singapore over 10 years.

We decided to take the boys for a walk and get some lunch along the beach. Oliver was so excited he could show them his dinosaur pizza restaurant and playground. But unfortunately when we got there the dinasaurs were hiding inside the restaurant with its door closed (I didn't know they were closed on weekday lunch time - bugger!)

So we ended up having some McDonald's for lunch which was packed with people!

After a long queuing up and struggle to feed a very tired/sleepy 3 year old we headed back to our condo. To our surprise Oliver woke up 100% and took off on his scooter again. He really wanted to show M&D "the people on the water". We stopped in every shaded spot we could find to watch these water skiers.





We are very happy we could show them our local park :)

Smell of New Zealand

When I was shopping in Japan I found this:



Air freshener which gives you the odour of New Zealand, especially the smell from the South Island.

After a little bit of a tidy up today I used it and results....? Maybee? Japanese people have a very good imagination!