Holiday time always seems to zoom by so fast and before we know it, our Melbourne holiday has come to an end. We arrived late last night. We all managed to sleep a bit on the plane (including Faith) so we weren't too tired this morning. 

​Mummy had craving for local food and we headed for a breakfast of roti prata and teh tarik. Faith has been sharing quite a bit of our table food during our trip and so we gave her some prata to try, including gravy. She took to it rather well and enjoyed breakfast with us.

​We then headed to the library first to borrow some books under the prescribed reading list for the new homeschool unit, since we were early for the PD's appointment at 12pm. Faith is scheduled for her last 2 jabs! Hooray!

After Faith's afternoon nap, we went to visit baby Asher who was born on Valentine's Day. Happy to see the handsome baby. Faith is very excited too! :)

While Faith had her morning nap, mummy tried to complete packing for our upcoming holiday trip. The last time we travelled with Faith was when she was 5 months old and just started on cereal. This trip, she's much older and it seems that more stuff are required. Here are some of the items which mummy has packed.

1. Books - some of her favourites, a new ABC sticker book, our usual devotional book (devotions continue during holidays too) and a new bear notebook for doodling (from Daiso)
2. Toys - her leapfrog laptop (to keep her entertained on long car trips), an erasable drawing board and one of favourite soft toy
3. Snacks - fruit bits and biscuit puffs (just enough for the plane trip as we are going to Australia where we cannot bring in food items)
4. Comfort items - a small pillow and her blanket
5. Accessories - milk bottle, hot flask, bristle brush for bottle cleaning and yes even a baby nail cutter. 

Looking forward to our trip! :)

We always seem to capture such nice shots at the supermarket. Maybe it could be due to the bright lighting there. Papa jokingly said that we may consider our next photo shoot at the supermarket with all the colourful fruits and vegetables! What do you think? :)

Mummy had to work on Sat morning and Daddy surprised mummy with a sweet bouquet as he fetched mummy from work. Feeling loved! :)

Our rest in the afternoon was disturbed by the dragon and lion dance troupe that arrived at our residence. The management committee of our condo had organised a get together CNY dinner. We did not get the tickets for dinner as we have a family CNY visitation cum dinner to attend. But we had a little time to catch the magician in action!

Dinner was at 二姨婆‘s place and we had fun catching up with relatives and Faith enjoyed herself on the swings with other children and a little bee hoon. :)

Sunday - off to church we went in the morning. Mummy wore the floral top that Daddy got as a V-day gift. :)

We also remembered to tithe our CNY red packet blessings. No photos as Faith was napping at the time of offering collection, but mummy did explain to her at the start of the service.

It is Missions Sunday and what a good slogan we found at the lift lobby - just as we are covering the theme of Obedience this month. Let's Go!

After lunch with grandpa, grandma and Gu Pos, we headed to mummy teacher place for CNY visiting - a yearly affair. Mummy remembers him as the teacher who taught her all the 唐诗 and mummy is going to teach her next time.

After a short rest in the afternoon, we headed for another gathering at Uncle Brian and Auntie Agnes' place. Faith had fun playing with all the kor kors and jiejie. :)

And we celebrated Er Yi's birthday today. We had her favourite crabs! :)

Spot Mummy's new hairstyle - a cooler, lighter look! :) Thanks to Julia from Apgujeong @ Bishan J8. Did the Mucota hair treatment too - my second time. Loving the soft texture of my hair now. :)

Faith has been sleeping in the sarong since she was about a month old. With #2 coming, we decided it was time to wean her off the sarong. [She has been weaned off her cot since about 3 months ago and now sleeping on a mattress.] 

We tried to do so yesterday but was rather unsuccessful. After falling asleep in her sarong, we carried her to the mat and she sat up almost immediately. However, today she amazed us by falling asleep rather easily and had such a long nap that we had to wake her up. She needs the sarong cloth as her blanket as you can see from the picture.

What's new for today?

Mummy bought 2 sets of craft from Taobao website and tried one piece today. Faith has a fascination about aeroplanes. We were reading a book today and she pointed to an aeroplane from the book. So mummy picked out the aeroplane set for her today. [Yes, sometimes our activities can be rather random]

We had to pluck out the pieces from a perforated piece and stick them onto the coloured paper plate which was provided in the set. Faith likes to peel off the double sided tape. Mummy had to help her with the smaller pieces though. Love the colourful rainbow and it is now part of our living room display. :)

No lessons for Heguru today due to the CNY break. With the tickets we won through the "lucky draw" yesterday, we headed to the SOTA Drama Theatre in the afternoon to catch the actual show of the Little Red Riding Hood. We've got tickets to rather good seats too. A check of the online prices shows the tickets are valued at more than $200! It is expensive to enjoy the arts in Singapore. We thank God for the opportunity to expose Faith to such shows.

The show starting at 3pm was around Faith's nap time but she managed to stay awake throughout the show and was focused through most part of it. We heard some of the songs which was performed during the session yesterday too. It also brought back memories of when we were in Korea more than a year ago. As a 5-month old baby, Faith was able to sit through the entire Nanta drumming show without any noise at all! She really enjoys music and rhythm!

It was a fantastic show performed by a 3-member cast plus a musician. The performers have strong vocals and was able to captivate the very young audience, including Faith; and even the adults too! All performers worked well together with very coordinated and well-rehearsed movements, songs and music. :)

Mummy signed up for a complimentary Little Red Riding Hood playgroup at the nearby Australian International School (AIS) this morning. Faith was prepared, dressed in Red. There were some colouring and craft activities before the start of the session and we managed to have time to complete one of them - filling up Little Red Riding Hood's basket with food for Grandma.

Mummy had earlier borrowed a board book Little Red Riding Hood by Trixie Belle from the library when we were doing the earlier unit on Red. It was a simple book that touches on the vocabulary like "hood" and "wolf" from the story.

We were ushered into the Junior School library where we sat down to enjoy a story on Little Red Riding Hood. Faith started to enjoy the part that comes after - song and music. As they started to sing a few songs with guitar and keyboard accompaniment, Faith started to sway to the tune. She really has the rhythm in her. It was fun to watch her enjoying herself! :)

And after the session, there was a surprise draw for free tickets to watch the actual Little Red Riding Hood play at Kids Fest 2016. And we were very blessed to have won a set of 4 tickets to the show with Row C seats too! Mummy was a little stunned when mummy's name was called. We had a chance to take photo with the cast of the show too.

Thereafter, we had a chance to go on a tour of the Prechool section of the AIS. We love the spacious classrooms and activity areas of the school. They even have a field for them to run about too! And we can see they have great curriculum and teaching staff but would be too expensive for us to afford. How nice if this could be the standard for all preschools in Singapore. :P

We thank God for a nice and beautiful day. We are blessed with wonderful cool weather with the occasional slight drizzle; not the wet and warm weather as per weather forecast.

We had some learning activity in the morning before Faith takes her early lunch and nap, and we are all ready for our excursion to the Gardens by the Bay!

After dinner, we had a slow stroll to catch the Garden Rhapsody Light Show (Asian Edition) at the Supertree Grove. We reached the venue about 5 minutes before the start of the show at 7.45pm and there was already quite a crowd. [There is a second show at 8.45pm].

We were initially hesitant to stay for the show since Faith missed her afternoon nap and was rather tired already. We did not regret our decision - the show of about 10 minutes was captivating with its display of lights and music and Faith enjoyed parts of it too. She was cooperative on the way back too, despite the crowds and she fell asleep almost immediately once we got into the car.

​p/s: We made the right decision to bring along our DSLR and managed to capture all these wonderful shots! :)

We thank God for the wonderful weather as we do our visitation for CNY. We had a great time gathering with our family. Did you? :)