Splashy birthday party

Olivia was invited to a 5 year old boy's birthday party today. You must be wondering...5 years old!! Well, you see the boy has a younger sister who is Olivia's age and we are friendly with the parents. They live a few houses down the road from us.

So, what do you get a 5 year old boy as a present? I was browsing the toy store and was looking at some toys that require some brain power and then I thought, I'm not the parents, I will get him something fun! This is what I got.


The party is at a local town pool and the kids had fun playing in the children's wading pool. Look at Olivia in the pool. Last year, she won't even step into the pool but look at her now. She even refused to come and have lunch.


Lunch was a very yummy salad with balsamic vinegar, meatballs and mac n cheese.

Olivia with her cute outfit before leaving for the party.

Daily Blogger Award

Thank you, beachlover for awarding me this lovely award.

"This award is to be given to blogs that have at least 3 posts per week. I appreciate their kindness and generousity of sharing their wonderful recipes with us rain or shine". Quoted jthorge

Before my latest blogger block, I did indeed have 3 posts per week. Therefore, I guess I qualify. :)

I would like to spread the love to:

1. Jamy

2. Wuching

3. AndrewJune

4. Ann

Where did we go?

My mom has been here with us for over 6 weeks and she stays home during the week when I'm at work. When my parents visited me end of 2006 before the birth of Olivia, they have already done all the sightseeing and things tourists are supposed to do.

The main purpose of this visit is to see Olivia but if you stay at home day in day out, also bored, right??

So, last week, I took my mom to this place. I'm not going to tell you where, you'll have to guess and with the photos, I'm sure it will be an easy guess.

First, we had lunch at the Garden Terrace, which is on the top floor of the building has a great view of the ?????.


After lunch, we went to the sitting area to take in the views. It was a gorgeous day.

Then, we went to the viewing area to look at the 'products'.

Right below we left, I took a picture of my mom at the grand main entrance.

So, can you guess where we went?

I have been absent

I have not been updating my blog for the past 1 week. Not sure why....just no mood and feeling lethargic from getting over a respiratory infection. I guess I'm having blogger's block. :)

Please bear with me...I will be back in a few days.

Special Father's Day meal

I usually don't cook anything special for Father's Day because we normally spend it with my in-laws and either we go out for dinner or bring something in.

However, this year, I decided to make crab cakes from a recipe that I obtained from an online board. I have not made crab cakes before and the recipe looked very simple. I paired it with roasted asparagus and sweet potato fries.


The crab cakes didn't come out that great. I was disappointed as the recipe is from a chef. Oh well, at least hubby appreciated the effort.

Oooh, this is the card that Olivia made for her daddy. The wordings are:

Daddy, daddy I have made, Prints of my little hands

Then you can remember when, I was so small and sweet

I will grow and baby days will all be in the past,

But you know my love for you, Daddy will always last.

"Mommy" "Daddy"

I finally understood why some people with children call their spouses 'mommy' or 'daddy'. In their toddler years, kids are like sponges. They absorbed everything they see and imitate everything that you say.

So, if you call your hubby, Eric...your toddler would most likely call his/her daddy Eric.

This morning, I was trying to change Olivia's poopy diaper and she was not coorperating. So I called out to hubby to help me. After her diaper was changed, she ran to where her daddy was, in another room, and said "Hubby".

I almost died from laughing too hard!

One, two or more

Recently, I read in the papers that people who are financially secured have more children nowadays. Decades ago, families who are not financially well off would have more children because this would translate into more labor power.

As the cost of raising children become more expensive, people with less financial capabilities are having fewer kids. However, if someone is financially well off and cost of education is not a concerned, then they tend to have more children. This seems to be the trend now.

With shrinking income and higher cost of living, it's getting harder and harder to make ends meet or have a better quality of life. So, how many children are you having or have? :)

1st hair cut

Hhhmmm.....there seems to be a lot of first in my recent posts. Anyway, I had only trimmed Olivia's bangs whenever they got too long but have never taken her to a formal place to get her hair cut.

Her hair was getting long, especially at the back and it was becoming unkempt with curls shooting out from the side. Hubby wanted her hair cut to make it look cleaner. So, last week, my in-laws and my mom took Olivia for her first haircut.

This is the BEFORE look.

When I got home, *GASPS*.....the first words out of my mouth were "So short".

The AFTER look. What do you think?

Hubby didn't like that it's so short and I told him it's all his fault. He's the one who wanted to have her hair cut.

1st swimming lesson

I'll let you in on an unknown fact about myself - I'm afraid of water. My parents never send me for any swimming lessons when I was younger, so I can't swim until I was 19. Can you imagine living on an island and can't swim?

I don't know if my fear of water was because I can't swim or if I can't swim because of water phobia. Anyway, I did learn to swim when I was 19 but failed miserably at treading water.

I was determined not to let Olivia have this phobia and since she likes to splash around the bath tub, I signed her up for swimming lessons.

The class requires a parent to be in the pool with the child....guess who went in with Olivia....that's right, her daddy.

I was so relieved that she loves the water. She was a little upset when water splashed on her face but other than that, she enjoyed it.

Olivia in her little pink bikini.

Dilemna

We haven't gone on vacation, just the two of us, since 2005. Last year, we took Olivia with us on a mini 3 night holiday to a beach town on the east end of Long Island. Unfortunately, she got sick and we had to come back a day earlier.

In addition, it wasn't really a vacation for me because I'm still looking after Olivia while we were there. The only difference is the location.

So, this year, we are planning to go back to the same beach town, only this time, without Olivia. My in-laws will be taking care of her.

I know that hubby and I needed the break and have some time to ourselves. However, I feel extremely guilty about leaving Olivia behind.

What to do? What to do? Take her or don't take her......or take her for part of the vacation....

Her very own swing set

Olivia loves to go to the local playgound and climb on the jungle gym, slide and sit on the swing. So, we thought it would be a good idea to get her a swing set in the backyard. We have a large backyard, so the swing set would fit in nicely.


When hubby was a little tot, he also had a swing set which he enjoyed, and he wanted the same thing for Olivia. I did some research and was shocked at how much a wooden swing set costs!! However, hubby is adamant and felt that the swing set would last for many many years.

So, we got a play set with a 3 position swing beam/monkey bar, a wave slide, a rock wall, end ladder, access ladder and picnic table. I'm so glad that Olivia loves the set. She wants to go on the swing all the time. Whenever she sees the set through the window, she would say 'shwing shwing'.



In fact, I like to go on the swing as well. :-) Each swing holds 350lbs. I'm glad we got this set as we can just go to the backyard and play. Wanna come over?