LOAD 514 Week Three

Week Three of LOAD and I got a little behind over the weekend. I did catch up though and was really pleased with the layouts I made. The thing that surprised me most was how few supplies I was using to complete the layouts. I had visions of using up kit after kit but the reality is a kit would last for several layouts - up to a week's worth so my supplies remain largely intact.

 I think the topic was the fashions in your youth but the less said about that the better so I decided to do a layout about the person I know who loves fashion more than most - Miss 4. She loves looking at clothes, trying on clothes and playing dress ups. I used a Dear Lizzy paper that I had been hoarding and some fun plastic thickers. Once again, I used a PL journalling card - I am finding them super useful on standard layouts.

I have let too long a time pass to remember the prompt for this layout but I was keen to use this photo of M4 on her favourite TV watching perch. I used the patterned paper as the driver for all the embellies and lettering on this page.

This layout was inspired by the work of another member of the LOAD group. It remains unfinished as I cannot find the remaining film for my Instax to take a picture of M4 and myself to add to the picture. I like having a little snapshot of what we like at any given time and this is a picture of where we are now. This layout did make a decent dent in my enamel dot collection.

I had a super busy day on this particular day so I grabbed some scrap papers and put together something really simple. I love this photo of us and I wanted to let the image do most of the talking.

I was inspired by a Diana Waite layout that popped up on my Facebook feed. When I went back to the original I realised this was really nothing like it! I took a selection of 6x6 patterned papers and layered them. The journalling from M4 is hidden under the layers. She would like to be a Mummy when she grows up and have six children. It was quite a quick piece but I love the look. I will definitely try this approach again.

 

The prompt for today was about your faith. We are not religious in any way, shape or form so I decided to spin off the idea and look at the role our families play in our lives. I love this picture of my Dad holding M4 just a few hours after she was born.

This layout has made use of some of the oldest printed photos I had on hand. We went to the US a few months before M4 was born and had an amazing trip exploring the California, Nevada and Arizona highways. These photos are from Death Valley as we drove to Las Vegas. It was amazingly hot and dry and the scenery was straight out of an old Western. I am very pleased to have finally recorded some of the lead up to M4s arrival and these photos of a very memorable holiday.

I will share the remaining layouts from LOAD in my next post. I have not done any scrapping since the end of May but I have got some ideas for what I would like to do once I get some more photos printed.

Wordless Wednesday: Adventures with Daddy

We have all been sick for the past week or so. Miss Three was the first to recover so Daddy took her on an adventure by the Singapore River to get her some fresh air and me some much needed sleep.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wordless (ish) Wednesday

On My Walk (urban adventures)

Post walk coffee people watching

A very ungreen green smoothie

Listmania 10 A-Z of Now

It is Monday and it is Listmania time again. This week's challenge is an A - Z of now which I so enjoyed thinking and writing about. It is such a perfect way to see where life is for us right now.

A is for adventure, our word of 2013. It has felt like we have chosen the safe path a bit too often lately and this reminds us to take some risks.

B is for burr grinder - it seemed expensive at the time but this little gem has successfully kept me caffeinated for five years now without missing a beat

C is for Changi Airport. We are off on a little trip later in the week and this airport is truly one of our happy places. So many things to see and do there and the Gold Lounge is always good for fuelling Miss Three if it all gets too much.

D is for diet - not the losing weight kind but the adapting to life without dairy kind. I have found some great resources but it is still really hard to eat anything other than Asian food when we go out and I really miss baked goods that I haven't made myself.

E is for exercise. I need to start getting more of this. The monsoon made me lazy and it was a long one this year. April is going to be my month to walk every day. Just 30 minutes. I know my brain and my body will thank me.

F is for family - hokey maybe but our little family of three is generally a happy healthy little unit

G is for gratitude. We are starting a gratitude handbook in April. My kit has just arrived and we will sit down together and think of something we are each grateful for and record it with a photo or a drawing. It is a habit I want Miss Three to get into and if we use it as a positive family time then so much the better.

H is for the Happiness Project which is in the mail to me now. I have enjoyed following Gretchen Rubin on Facebook for a while and I now want to take a more focused approach to increasing my happiness quota.

I is for independent. Miss Three is increasingly independent and I want to encourage this all the time and not just when it suits me. I need to give her the time to do things herself even if it is slower. She will thank me in the long run.

J is for jewellery. I hardly ever wear any and I want to change that. Scarlett has more broken jewellery than I have jewellery full stop.

the current selection of broken jewellery

K is for Kuala Lumpur. We are off here for a few days and it is a city I haven't been to for years. We have good friends staying there so it will be a good chance to see them before they move to Bangkok.

L is for life coach. I am increasingly at the point where I think I need one - just to help me decide where to from here. I really am at a cross roads and I think someone outside my life might be better placed to help guide me through it.

M is for messy crafts. I need to let this happen more often. She does a lot of messy things at school but it is good to do them with me as well.

N is for nurturing both my self and my family relationships. Life has been busy lately but April is looking much less stressed and rushed for all of us. I want to take the time to spend meaningful moments with hubby and Miss Three, creating memories that we will look back on with fondness.

O is for organised. My craft supplies are semi organised thanks to my sister but there is definitely room for improvement. I want to know exactly what I have and where it is so I get the most use possible out of those supplies.

P is for Poppy, our gorgeous, slightly neglected, Maine Coon. She is becoming a much more affectionate cat in her middle age and our late night nuzzles are a blessing.

Q is for quiet. I often have noise from the tv on just to avoid the silences. I want to use those silent mornings to think more and give myself the relaxation that will enable me to make the most of my afternoons with Miss Three

R is for radio. We don't have the joys of pandora or similar in Singapore but I need to get more online radio and podcasts into my day. I particularly enjoy the National radio broadcasts from back home as it keeps me in the loop with politics and so on. The time difference does make it a little tricky though.

S is for schools and making a decision about where to send Miss Three next year. We have gone round and round on this topic but the time has come to book some school visits and make a decision.

T is for tea. While coffee will always be my poison of choice, I am beginning to appreciate the joys of tea. I have discovered some lovely herb and spice blends and it is nice to have something I can drink at any time of the day.

U is for undecided. I just do not know where to for me next both location wise and job wise. See L is for life coach.

V is for variety. Life has been a bit formulaic of late so I am looking to shake things up.

W is for winter envy. I know most Northern Hemisphere folk are well and truly over their long and hard winter but I really miss cold weather.

X is for eXhaustion - a perennial problem with the parents of toddlers and pre schoolers. We are no exception. I would give a great deal for a few sleep ins.

Y is for yarn. My knitting project is well over half done and I am starting to look at beautiful yarns for my next one.

Z is for the zoo. Miss Three loves it and it has been way too long since we last visited. I am wondering if she might be old enough to try the Night Safari this year.

Head over to Home Life Simplified and see the other lists. It is such a fascinating insight into the lives of the contributors.

Scrapping the tough stuff

There has been a bit of discussion both on the Studio Calico boards and elsewhere lately, on the difficulty of scrapping the tough parts of life. Much of this discussion has been in relation to Project Life but I think it is equally applicable in the broader context of layouts.

I think as scrapbookers we are often guilty of selective memory keeping. It is easier to scrap the good and fun times. Perhaps we are doing ourselves and our families a disservice by painting a much rosier picture of our lives than is really the case. I am absolutely guilty of this. In part, I think it is because I tend not to take photos of the tough times. There are not many photos of the tears that accompanied our journey to have my daughter, or the days after the February quake in Christchurch when we waited for news of missing loved ones. Those events are important and I have not really scrapped them and I need to.

The second anniversary of the quake and tsunami in Japan gave me a push to start recording some of the tougher moments in our lives. We were in Tokyo by chance on the day of the quake. We knew it had been a major event but had no idea of the extent of the damage and destruction further north. We had a fairly intense 24 hours with missing family members, no power or food and our hotel completely over run with refugees. I have quite a few photos from that day and so I have finally started to do something with them.

 

For me the hardest part was keeping calm so that Scarlett wasn't alarmed. She did not get too upset by the frequent aftershocks. I have to say possibly the worst moment of my life was during a very powerful aftershock when we were in a double decker tunnel sort of road. I felt sure the top layer was going to come down on top of us on the bottom level and we would be buried alive. I was very relieved to get onto Odaiba where we were staying just before they shut all access to the island.

This photo was taken by the famous pedestrian crossing in central Tokyo that is beloved of film makers and music video directors everywhere. All public transport had just been shut down as all roads and rail lines had to be checked for safety. This meant hundreds of thousands of people were stranded in the central city unable to reach their homes. People were just starting to realise that this was a major event and news was filtering through that people had died in Tokyo as well as further afield. We were very fortunate to have a car. We had intended to use the train but Tet's brother was running very late so he drove into the city. If he had not, we would have had to spend the night at a school or community hall as there was no way to get to where we were staying.

I used the Layout A Week prompt for week 3 on Studio Calico's site for this layout. It was a recipe using a piece of cardstock and three patterned paper sheets and up to 10 embellies. We also could include our word for the year if we had one. Our word this year is adventure and it sat well with the story here.

Have you scrapped any of the less rosy aspects of life lately? Please link up in the comments and I am definitely looking for inspiration in this area. There are some big stories that need telling even if it will be hard to do so.

Listmania 5 A Day in the Life

Welcome to Week Five of Listmania. This prompt is run by the lovely Deb at Home Life Simplified.

 

In true procrastinator fashion I chose Sunday as my day as we often do a few things that are a bit more interesting than a week day.

One of the great joys of our Miss Nearly Three is that she wakes up very early in the morning. The deal is she has to stay in bed until 6 am but there is a lot of conversation and shenanigans in the time between wake up and get up.

  

Hubby is very good about doing the child organising when he is in town, so while he wrangles food and games I get to hop onto the computer and have a look at the latest news from back home in New Zealand. I rarely look at local news sites but I have a pretty good handle on what is happening at home through friends and the web.

 

I am the official barista at our place so I crank out a couple of flat whites to get hubby and myself as alert as we need to be. After a quick breakfast we need to prepare Miss Nearly Three for the first outing of the day - her weekly ballet class.

Miss NT loves ballet more than anything. She loves wearing her ballet clothing and practising what she has learnt in class. She asks almost everyday if today is ballet day. Today the answer was yes!

 One of the great things about ballet is that there is a Starbucks downstairs and parents are not permitted to stay for class. This is our guaranteed time every week to relax, catch up with each other and plan the week ahead. There was not too much joint planning involved this week as hubby is off to Japan for the week!

Sunday is also our day that we usually do some grocery shopping. I do order a lot of our non perishables on line but I like to go and choose my own produce and meat. We were there at opening time at our first stop - Medi-Ya which is the Japanese supermarket in Singapore. You can see the staff lined up at the door greeting customers as they enter for the day. It is a very nice touch.

Pickles

We are finding we are buying more food at this supermarket since my food intolerance issues were diagnosed as there is a lot of dairy free food here. They also have regular food fairs from the various regions of Japan. We tend to eat Japanese food out rather than at home but it is nice to pick up some sweets and treats there.

Second supermarket stop of the day at one of the local Cold Storage outlets. I did not used to shop there that often but they are the only supermarket that stocks lactose free milk near us so they have become a bit of a lifeline. We tend to turn the trolley round the other way so MNT thinks she is driving - it makes for fewer tantrums in the supermarket.

After a brief stop at home to unpack all our purchases we were out in the car again. We no longer have our own car after a change in policy by hubby's work but we have access to a pool of company cars and we use one most weekends. It is a bit of a pain with the car seat but other than that it works quite well. Our next destination is a trial Yogabugs class.

MNT loved the class, in spite of being the only child there. The teachers were very happy with her so we have signed her up for a ten week block of classes. It will make Sunday a very activity filled day but she does not do anything other than pre school during the week so I think it all balances out.

After yoga we head to a new to us Japanese restaurant in the same complex. They have a really great range of kids meals so Miss NT is keen to choose the best one.

 

This was what she went for. Sushi, udon noodles, some battered fish and a yakult. I swiped the biscuits for a treat later in the week if she is crabby when we are out and about.

As always, MNT fell asleep in the car in the way home. Tet had a nap in the car with her and I went up to have a nap in my comfy bed. Sadly Miss NT's nap was too short and I only managed a 25 minute lie down. Still it was better than nothing.

The consequences of not enough nap were quickly visible. After a mega tanty about why she needed to at least put some underpants on peace was restored with the provision of her weekly treat - a cupcake.

Yes she only eats the icing

The rest of the afternoon passed peacefully as MNT watched Beauty and the Beast while dressed as Cinderella. I got on with making a very standard Sunday night dinner of sausages with mash and veges.

Daddy and Miss NT sit down for dinner.

Our cat Poppy has not been very well the last few days. She has had a few hairballs and they upset her. We found her comfortably resting in Miss NT's dolly bed at bed time. The poor dolls  will have to sleep on the floor tonight.

Scarlett wound down with a story app on the iPad before we all settled into my bed with a chapter of the Wizard of Oz. We have been reading it at bedtime for a couple of weeks and she has really enjoyed it. I am now on the look out for another good chapter book to start when we finish this one. I am thinking Roald Dahl's The Twits at this stage.

Sadly, I got a little bit careless with reading my labels last night and managed to eat some butter in my veges. My plans of doing some scrapbooking were instead replaced with some long hours in the bathroom followed by a big sleep.

What a way to end the weekend!

The Toddler and the SEA Aquarium

We have been meaning to visit the new SEA aquarium at Sentosa since it opened last month. Scarlett has always enjoyed visiting Underwater World on Sentosa and is madly in love with the sole survivor of the great fish giveaway, who she has dubbed Daisy. A wet and gloomy Saturday morning seemed like a great opportunity to spend some time indoors.

Sentosa is super easy to get to both by car and public transport. We opted for a bus, MRT combo and then caught the Sentosa Express from VivoCity across to the island. We took a while to work out exactly where the Oceanarium was but once we found an updated map we were in business and a short covered walk later we were queueing to enter.

Children under four are free to enter the Oceanarium. Adults are $29, Seniors and children aged 4 - 12 are $20. They also have some excellent value annual passes. I would say this is pretty good value as, even with a toddler who raced through the Oceanarium at a fair clip, we spent a good ninety minutes in there. If I had been on my own I would probably have spent an extra hour!

I was not entirely sure what to expect and was pleasantly surprised by the scale of the exhibits. Upon entering the complex you are greeted by an enormous Chinese junk in full sail.

 It is used as a cinema of sorts which seemed very popular but we decided not to risk with Miss Nearly Three. We carried on through a really engaging and interactive series of exhibits sharing the wares and lifestyle of the various ports on the main sailing route between Palembang in Indonesia all the way through to Muscat and beyond.

Admiring the camel trader

One of the major goods traded on the route was rugs

Trying out the drums

 There are interactive stations at each stop along the route. Children can be issued with a passport and collect stamps as they move through the souk. There are also lots of fun making and colouring activities including making a junk, an Indonesian shadow puppet and a variety of other fun activities. With a primary school aged child you could spend a good chunk of time in this display without even needing to see the Oceanarium proper.

The junk making sheet - pre-punched and made of fairly sturdy card

The Oceanarium is billed as the largest in the world and we were not disappointed. The initial entrance way into a traditional tunnel tube with pretty fish swimming around was probably the least inspiring part of the entire complex. We were soon moving onto much bigger and brighter things though.

One of the first large aquariums

 The first half of the Oceanarium is a collection of aquarium after aquarium showing sea life in various habitats ranging from the local mangrove Eco systems to the deep ocean. One of the highlights for me was that almost all the fish were local species to the South East or East Asian region. It is nice to think that such beautiful creatures really are in our backyard.

Schools of fish moving as one

Beautiful undersea landscapes with stunning plants, fish and corals

The fish came in all colours of the rainbow

Giant Japanese Crabs

 Miss Nearly Three enjoyed looking at all the different fish in the different displays. The brighter coloured fish and the scary ones definitely got more interest from her.

Starfish in the touch tank

 One of Miss S's favourite experiences of the day was the touch tank. This was well supervised with the staff quickly stopping any rough or inappropriate behaviour. It is interesting that the children were never the culprits, rather older women seemed to cause the majority of the issues. The starfish were interesting to touch and the way they have adapted to cling onto rocks was really interesting. There were other sea creatures in the tank but this was a very popular stop and we moved on rather than battle the crowds to try and handle some other creatures.

Further into the Oceanarium we came to what may be my favourite section - the jellyfish. They were displayed in a range of large and small aquariums to show off the beautiful colours and shapes. I took a lot of photos in this area and have been quite restrained just sharing a handful here.

 I still cannot believe how well some of these photos turned out as I just took them using my iPhone 4s through the Camera+ app. It worked really well in some very low light situations without me using a flash.

After viewing all these amazing aquariums I was not sure what would come next. I stepped through a doorway and my breath was taken away. Inside was an enormous floor to ceiling aquarium. Unfortunately, my photos from this room were not as good as I had hoped.

The largest display

 This photo was an attempt to show the scale. There are multi levelled viewing areas in front of the tank and then smaller windows all along the sides and back so you can get up very close and personal with the animals inside.

The star of the aquarium

Stingray with his entourage of smaller fish

 The stingray shown above was very popular with the crowd. He swam surrounded by a school of smaller fish and they really were spectacular to watch. I could have happily sat and watched this environment and its inhabitants for hours but Miss S had other ideas.

Tropical fish and coral

Miss S loved the pink fish

The shark tank

We continued through the complex enjoying tank after tank of stunning brightly coloured fish. The final display tank is the shark tank and the sharks are keen to come and have a look at the visitors so it is worth the wait. 

There are several food outlets scattered throughout the complex including a sit down restaurant, a gelato counter and a soon to be opened Garrett's popcorn stand. There is also a large shop selling t shirts and other Oceanarium related merchandise. I usually avoid these like the plague as so often they are overpriced. We were pleasantly surprised by the reasonably priced merchandise especially the tshirts and soft toys. These were under $10 each which means you don't have to steer the children away from the shop for fear of being ripped off.

We spotted Din Tai Fung on our way into the complex and decided to have dim sum for lunch. I think the experience really deserves a post of its own and will share it later in the week.

Thanks for reading to the end. It has turned into a bit of a mega post. We had such a lovely time there and I am sure we will be back soon as it is a fun, educational outing for all three of us.


I ticked over the 10000 page view milestone yesterday thanks to all those who joined the Listmania fun. Thanks to all those regular readers who have supported me and welcome to all my new visitors.  I would love to do a giveaway to celebrate and am puzzling over something that would work worldwide. If you have a good idea please pop it in the comments!

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