Kieona is 5 years old!

Time really flies and it does seem like just yesterday we found out that I was pregnant with our first little baby. Many months of being with the kids at home as a SAHM, now up and running with my business, which took off from being a home-based online one to a full-fledged babywearing specialist shop with online presence and a retail boutique. And still enjoying each an every precious moment I have with my kids. Now there are two!!!! And Kieona is 5 years old!

Little big princess has requested to not celebrate her birthday with her friends in school, so she got her wish granted. Mommy thought that was a wierd request, but we respected her wishes anyway. Perhaps she didn't feel it was necessary. Perhaps she just wanted more time with me (and she probably thought that having a celebration in school will take away the celebration at home or time away from me?).

Sunday, 1st March 2009 was the exact day of her fifth birthday. We didn't exactly have any celebrations with a bang, since there was their usual Sunday Chinese Speech & Drama class at Hokkien Huay Kuan in Toa Payoh. It wasn't my intention or will it seem any wiser for us to skip it, since they both really enjoy their classes very much. So that pretty much burnt up our morning and early afternoon. We had sushi at IRAS building though, but it does seem strange that Kieona didn't eat a lot. After that we let her choose a toy of her choice at Toys R'Us in United Square and she decided on a pretend play set which consists of a pair of girly heels. She's been at it everyday since. :)

Nap time and the rest of the afternoon would have been off, but a series of events prevented that from happening. Eugene & family came by to give Kieona an ang pow for her birthday and they stayed for a little while. Eugene was so happy and refused to go home after. We missed him, and the feeling is mutual.... but I guess as the Chinese saying goes, "Tian1 Xia4 Wu2 Bu4 San4 De4 Yan4 Xi2". Perhaps we could have sleepovers when the kids are a little bigger.

The girls had an hour to rest so I did all I could to keep the sleep area comfortable and quiet. They didn't sleep, although Kierra did seem extremely tired earlier on. Then the skies poured, as if to deter us from heading out for dinner. But there wasn't much of a choice, since Kieona's birthday was the same as Ah Gong's birthday. We had to drag ourselves out and tried to skip in the rain, finding fun at the downpour. Dinner at Bottle Tree Park wasn't exactly fantastic, since the standard seem to have dropped by leaps and bounds. Then again, it was just a family dinner so I guess the food quality wasn't the most important ingredient. Ah Gong's side of the family came from Malaysia too. I suppose he should be happy.

Uncle Tien Jie's family bought a Mango birthday cake which oops, melted. There was a electrical trip-up at home and the cake wasn't frozen the way it was intended to, but it still tasted pretty good anyway. Anyone looking for good Mango cakes, try out the one from Emicakes, pretty good even by Mommy's standards.

Kieona told me that was Ah Gong's birthday cake and I asked if she wanted one for herself. She said she didn't want to share. I supposed that is something quite expected. I wouldn't like it either as a child. Even Kierra's reaction was (just this morning), "Mommy, Ah Gong cake all melted. Why Jie Jie don't have birthday cake?". Then Kieona asked me at the breakfast table, "Mommy, can you buy a cake for me and we celeberate at home?" I asked if she wanted to invite any other persons not at our home. She said no and she wanted just us.

Kieona is all grown up. The little girl who is always so strong in her opinions has now decided that she can choose to live her life the way she wants and she is now expecting her decisions to be expected and carried out the way she wants it. And she articulates that clearly. My little girl is now one year older and I hope, wiser. :)

Kieona & Kierra posing with the cake Kieona chose

The cake.....The cake-cutting...

Kieona's 4th Birthday in March

School celebration - are you nervous, Kieona?

Kieona ordered this cake herself - she requested for full chocolate and edible figurines

Had some of these shots the teachers at Skoolhouse took of Kieona's birthday party in school. We almost forgot about it as it was shot using one of our older digital still cameras. Well, it was still a Sony - so it will remain our property for a while.

Kieona's 4th Birthday

Kieona's birthday cake at Wai Gong's house
Kieona and Ah Gong's birthday cake

Kieona sure is one lucky girl. Apart from the mega-huge birthday cake she had in school (a whopping 3kg chocolate cake with triple chocolate), she had two other birthday cakes - one which she said was a must at Wai Gong's house and another at Ah Gong's house as Ah Gong and Kieona share the same birthday. We've got pictures of the two smaller cakes and it's unfortunate we didn't manage to get any on the cake Kieona chose for her own celebration in school.

Kierra's 2nd Birthday

Kierra celebrated her birthday in school on Sep 28 as Oct 1 was a school holiday. Sep 28, a Friday, also happened to be when the school had planned for a Children's Day celebration so we did a fair bit of planning to ensure she can celebrate it on that same day in school.

It was rather eventful, as the day before Prima-Deli in Ang Mo Kio where we ordered the cake called to ask if we can have it collected later. Mommy said no, because we had already told them earlier we needed to collect it at 9am so that I can make it to the school and not have their schedules for the celebration disrupted. It was a lot of hoo-ha and Daddy was clearly not pleased with the way they handled it. On the fateful morning, Mommy had to collect the cake herself and asked Grandpa to send the cake since Mommy doesn't have transport and Daddy was out for his Friday morning meetings.

When I got there, they gave a 1kg cake and I nearly flipped. Then after that they told me the cake is not delivered yet. I was about to rail at them when a supposedly superior took the cake out from another fridge. Argh! So unprofessional!

Fortunately we got the cake there without a glitch. Since we were unable to join in the celebration, I got the school teachers who helped us take some photos of Kierra's birthday party. See pictures below.

On Oct 1, Kierra's actual birthday, Daddy was kind enough to bring us out to the Sentosa Underwater World. The kids sure had lots of fun watching the huge fishes, although Kierra did fall asleep somewhere in-between. We ended the day with a small chocolate birthday cake which we got from Dino which really tasted yummy.....

Kieona is 3 years old!

It has been a hectic few weeks, with the usual shopping spree with Chinese New Year just close to two weeks past and the preparation for Kieona's thrid birthday. Yes! Can you imagine that Kieona is now three years old? Just not too lond ago, we remember celebrating her birth and getting all confused on how to change, feed and bathe her.

Apart from having to get busy with business and shopping for the Chinese New Year, visiting relatives and so on, Mommy really was also rather stressed out with answering Kieona's constant questions about preparation of her goodies bags for her birthday. Now that she is bigger and having been through so many of her friends' parties in school, she definitely knows what she wants for her birthday - from the kind of cake (she wants chocolate with "Friends of the Zoo" cake) to the bags we use to put the goodies for her friends in school. The list is just endless and Mommy ran around town, the market and also searched the web before getting ready all her goodies.

All the hard work was worth it, as we could see how happy she was yesterday when she woke up to see her birthday present from daddy and mommy (a bright pink bicycle), and the mini celebration in school she had with her friends where our family attended as well. Below are some pictures of Kieona's third birthday (mostly taken courtesy of daddy).