Garden Photos

It's been C.R.A.Z.Y.B.U.S.Y at work. No time for crafts or scrapping of late but here are some shots taken of our vegetable garden about a month ago.

Ladybugs living in our garden. J loves them to bits!

I have no idea what these bugs are, but they don't move. Update: I finally found out that these guys are actually baby ladybugs! Silly me!

'Misai Kuching'.

Errr.... celery?

'Sio Pak Choy'

Spinach

Spinach flowers grow close to the plant stem.

Close-up of the spinach flowers.

Megablocks Mickey & Friends

Let me warn you that this will take LOTS of imagination. These little Megablocks structures are done by J - they are supposed to Megablocks versions of the little figurines next to them. The one at the bottom right corner is supposed to be Daisy Duck (no figurine of Daisy). Imagine.

Vegetable Garden Update

Some time ago, I had posted photos of our container vegetable garden, well, some of the plants have since bloomed, been consumed and/or replanted. So here's an update of what has happened.

Baby spinach seedlings which have newly sprouted.

We replanted our longbean plants too as the old one started deteriorating.

Our grape-tomatoes (if that's indeed the real name for it) finally ripening. But the plant might need replacing soon as it seems to be infested by some cottony-looking insects.

Close-up of the tomato flowers.

Close-up of the tomatoes. Yes. They are seriously THAT yummy looking! And they taste as good as they look too. I'm a little obssessed with the tomatoes, can you tell?

Best Buds

My 2 favourite girls ... this makes me happy!



They are constantly like that - under the dining table, rolling on the floor ... mainly J terrorizing Bubbles. Sigh!

Vegetable Garden

FIL has been revamping our little driveway garden in the past months and I absolutely love that we are now producing bits of vegetables for our meals at home. These cute yet useful plants are all contained in pots and the vegetables are definitely 'sweeter' in taste - they've got that extra zip and zest to them - probably because they are really fresh and pesticide free. I was thinking of suggesting starting a vermicompost, but I think I'd better take things 1 step at a time!

Screwpine leaves which smell fantastic with so many uses for them.

I believe these are called grape-tomatoes - they've got small-ish cute yellow flowers
This is the still green tomato. Will try and post photos of the ripened version later on.

Our longbeans which will probably need replanting soon. They have been harvested many times over and somehow, caterpillars love the taste of the leaves

A little eggplant that just metamorphosised from the flower.

And this is the 'grown-up' version of the eggplant. It's not fully ripened yet I guess, and we are still trying to determine how big it can grow!

We are now hosting a bunch of these little wrigglers on both our longbean plants and eggplant. J claims that she doesn't mind sharing our vege-plot with them as they are her friends ...

Moleskine Entry By J

J got her little artsy hands on my Moleskine 2 days ago and insisted on contributing a page (or two). Of course I relented, I mean, I'm a huge fan of this little artist!

Page 1

So the story goes like this ... J (that's the 'girl' - the human drawing in the middle) with the red hair in pigtails (complete with blue hair clips) is playing with her (imaginary) friend 'Sasa' (with the red & green eyes) on the far left. They are at the playground - as you can see, there is a pink slide on J's right side. Also enjoying the fun is Bubbles, our Miniature Schnauzer (yep, that black drawing with Mickey Mouse ears and tail at the bottom right).

Page 2

Now the story gets complicated ... something to do with Fairytopia ... rainbow-coloured fairy-wings ... and closing doors so that no one gets knocked down by the rainbow-coloured car (at the bottom right) with pink and green wheels. Unfortunately the picture is not clear enough, but somewhere amongst the colourful 'intepretation', it is detailed that the inside of her car is with 3 blue pedals - a clutch, a brake and an accelarator, oh plus a green steering wheel. Somehow, she's got shoes in the car (??). Oh, and she penned her name below her car so that "people will know that this is mine" ... well, no doubt about that!

J's 'Journal'

J's been trying her hand at 'journalling' (if you can call it that) and has written something about herself, Papa and Mummy on this piece. You can sort of make out Ps and Ms around the place.

Here, she's trying to write about Bubbles (our dog). I guess you can vaguely make out some Bs and U along the way, but the rest leaves a lot to the imagination.

So it's not much of a journal, but I guess it has to start somewhere. And her excuse? "But I don't go to school yet!" She always has plenty of excuses on hand, only that this excuse it actually the truth. Yup, sicko Mummy doesn't send J to school ... maybe next year?

ATC = A Travelling Card (?)

Sweet! A couple of my ATCs have been featured in a new blog a dear friend set up. It's no big biggie, but it's still a teeny biggie at that ... haha. Anyway, this fella and this fella have now travelled to this new home - how cool is that! Makes me wish I was an ATC too *wink*.

Do pop by to here to check out what the space is all about, tips, techniques and a whole lot more artsy-creative related stuff.

Ballerina Girl

J started ballet lessons ...

She had been pestering me to let her learn ballet for some time now, but I had been a little hesitant, I mean she's just a wee bit past 3 years old ... So anyway, since I took the day off last Thursday, I decided to let her attend a trial class at Priscilla Ballet. Surprise, surprise, it went wonderfully well - she was actually able to follow instructions and follow the class. I mean I was so afraid that she might disrupt the class with her incessant chatter (which, by the way, was only minimally reduced) And although, her ballerina march still needs work (she was more of a stomping baby elephant!!) the teachers okay-ed her to be 'teach-able' so to say and so, I am now proud mummy to a little ballerina in the making. She has attended 2 classes so far (excluding the trial) and seems to be enjoying them so I finally bought her ballet shoes as she had gone through the earlier sessions barefooted. I had sat in the the trial and 1st class but have since been shoo-ed out by the teachers, but J didn't seem to even notice whether or not I was there.

And the tutu made for her by Aunty Yoonie is being given a real workout now!

Earth Day ~ by J

This is J's take on Earth Day. She actually drew this on her own early this month so I guess it still qualifies as art by a not-quite 3-year-old.

A tree (on the left) with a bird (the spot of red-brown between the V of the branch) sitting on the branch. Next to the tree is the bird-bath (yup, it's that purple-yellow-red thing). That light green gob at the bottom, next to the tree trunk is a bush.

Sorry for the rather poor quality picture as I had accidentally folded her 'masterpiece' and it kind of shows through via the scan.

Happy Birthday, Baby!

My little girl's a year older now - how time just flies by. We had a itty bitty do, but she had a blast all the same. Happy Birthday, J!

Cake!!!

A little crown for my little princess.

My Baby Made This!

Yeah, J did this all by herself. She had refused to follow me to the kitchen to get some stuff done so I left her alone at her changing 'station'. She was awfully quiet for the longest time (which is RARE indeed!) and by the time I reappeared from the kitchen, she presented me with this 'necklace' which she made all by herself, with a length of ribbon and her hair-clips. A simple little gesture which left a huge impression on my heart!



Future scrapbooker or jewellery maker, perhaps?

This Little Piggy

J and I had some fun with paper clay a few weeks back and we made Lil' Piggy and a heart which she wants to wear as a bracelet. As usual, she was the Art Director and I had to execute accordingly, but I must admit we had a blast! The results ...

These little babies are itty-bitty - Piggy's about 6/8" and we actually made it a little house, except that the house has yet to be painted ...




Supplies - Paper Clay, Making Memories Acrylic Paint, Embroidery Floss.

Little Somethings

A little bit of stash - my Valentine's Day present ... which I simply love!

Traditional Chinese New Year Breakfast

This is what our family normally has for breakfast on the 1st day of the Chinese Lunar New Year. I'm not sure if this is a general tradition or just a tradition with G's family, but this yummy dish is made by my MIL - 'mee suah' (rice vermicelli) in chicken broth with huge mushrooms and hard-boiled egg. There are actually 2 versions of the broth but this was the one that J and I had. 'Mee suah' actually symbolises longevity...

Toddler Art

Here are my little partner-in-crime J's works of art. This is the interpretation of a not-quite 3-year-old, so I had to pencil in the translation of her works.

A pink footprint, a purple heart and so-called Thomas The Tank (yeah, that little blob at the bottom right of the page)

A bird's feather - judging by the colour, I'm guessing its from a Crow.

J's favourite Coconut Water (straight from the coconut) drink. That 'thing' sticking out is the straw (in case you are wondering).

The face of a cat - see if you can make out the pink ears and eyes!

And I'm a proud Mummy!!

A Happy Ballerina ...

... thanks to Yoonie who's just amazing at needle-craft (is that what you call it??) This was the beautiful tutu that she made J for Christmas. My apologies for the late posting on this as it was near impossible to capture a photo of J in her tutu as she was always twirling around when she has it on. I kept getting shots of part of an arm or butt as she moves so quickly. So I finally devised a tactic. One day, almost immediately after she got up from her nap, I threw on her tutu, she was still in slow-mode and these shots were what I got ...

The tutu is absolutely gorgeous - a peachy pink colour, with beautiful sequinned band and sequin flowers. Thanks so much Aunty Yoonie, J loves it!

AND in addition to that, Yoonie also made her this cute little Wabbit which is now J's bestest bedtime pal.

Love Is ...

... this.

Me & my baby at Christmas - perfect!

Winter Solstice Festival

This year's Winter Solstice Festival was fun. Fun, as in we had J's participation this time round when the family got together to roll the little colour flour-balls (normally in white and hot pink) which would later be cooked in sugar syrup. And this was what the little apprentice cooked up ...

Hard at work.


The finished product ... well, not exactly round balls, but i guess it's acceptable. In between making balls, we made some snowmen and mice flour-thingies too. FUN! I didn't manage to get photos of the cooked item as all got consumed before I had the chance - maybe next year then.

A Whaat???

Okay. The picture you are about to see is a Caly-bird. Yup, you read it right, it's a Caly-bird. And no, it's not some kind of new bird species, but more like something J made up. She just came up to me one day and asked me, "Mummy, can you please draw me a Caly-bird?" Of course I patiently asked her what that was and what I got back was this look - this duh-helloo-where-have-you-been-living-all-this-while look. So never mind, J proceeded to describe to me in detail what a Caly-bird looked like and this is what I came up with ...

... and believe it or not, J squealed in delight when she saw my finished (err ... I think it's finished) drawing and went, "Yaay, that's Caly-bird!!" So I must have done something right. Oh well, now Caly-bird shares a space above her pillow in bed, her special treasure trove ...