Dayre holds such an important place in my heart.

When my little girl (now N2) showed tremendous interest in writing (namely numerals and simple chinese characters) recentlu ,
able to grasp hold of a pencil correctly (as of dec ‘17, her way of holding was digital grasp),
First time drawing a house…

My first thought was to pin them down in dayre.

It just feels different posting in Instagram. (I’m too lazy to try wordpress for now, but I will when March arrives. )

Anyway, here’s a mini progress for jiejie.

She has learnt how to do addition with carryover using yellow/golden beads.

Has also Started on tens and ones.
(Numbers Below 20)

She’s on to doing grammer worksheets. Not too difficult, although there can be improvements.

Her school is touching on vocabulary now.

Hope I don’t sound like a tiger mum. I don’t send my girls to any enrichment (studies related). Just do some simple homeschooling on wkdays.

At their age, they can pick up things rather fast. 🙂

And her official chinese spelling starts this thursday ! She just had her english spelling today.

English spelling seems to be easier compared to mandarin. But I think it will get harder in the next term.
Oh well…

That’s all ! I do hope there will be a miracle soon ! 8 more days to go ! #dayremummies

辛苦你了 @/sgbudgetbabe !

Hello there ! If you like to keep in touch,

Instagram : iluvccy

WordPress : iluvccy / iluvccy.wordpress.com
(Had this account since 2016 and going to activate it again )

(Oops, talking to air cos I don’t really have followers! Hehe)

And since all the updates in dayre are so depressing, let me update mine ..
And also because I haven’t done so this year !

Hello USS ! You have been missed by my girls !

Must learn from my girls how to pose !

Their favourite ride !

CNY deco at USS.

Went for a day trip with my cousins ! We had So much fun being a taitai for a day !

Eat, massage, hair,

And nails !
Please remind me how much I dislike them removing my cuticles! 🤪

And eat again !

My first post on clothes ! Nice? But didn’t buy as I thought my chest area looks kind of weird. But i still love this colour !

Another in Pink. Really inexperienced in taking selfies. Didn’t push the price tag away 🧐 love this ! But I got a similar one for CNY already.

Meimei is in N2! Got school homework already ! Just simple tracing of alphabets, recognising beginnings sounds, matching numbers , joining number dots.

Meimei is sooo sweet to feed jiejie salmon fish. She has been picking up rather fast this year! She has recently learnt to scoop food with both fork and spoon properly , inform me that she needs to wash her hands after meal and proceed to do the “many” steps hand wash. Learnt all these from school!

And Jiejie can cycle ! Tried for abt 10 min and she succeeded ! Yay !

I didn’t pin much hopes initially as the bike was a little too big for her, but yay yay yay !

And she has now pass on her balance bicycle to meimei (who has another smaller one ). The happiness on her face 😍😍😍

Soooo proud of meimei ! She drew this !!! Got body and legs and hair !

. Cheesy toast

They can pose better than me. ANYTIME.

Meimei is learning how to write her numbers !

Jiejie has learnt how to write her numbers from 1-20. Yay 🙂

However, she still makes some mistakes (twelve, eleven) at times.

#dayremummies

Weaning off at 3yr8mths

Can’t help feeling bit upset tonight.
Has it been 2 weeks ? Or 3 weeks ? Since my younger one wean off me.
She’s 3 years and 8 months now.
Technically for the past 1 year plus, my supply has dipped to such that she only needs it for her aftn nap and before she sleeps. On top of that, plenty of fresh milk.

I was the one who told her in dec ‘17 that she is going to be N2 this year. Big girl already, so cannot suck mama milk anymore.

It started with once every 2 nights, once every 3 nights, to

Once weekly. This has been the longest .. should be about 2-3 weeks since she last latched on me.
The first time she attempted to wean off, I felt Engroment twice. I took out my trusty old pump, but surprise! My bre**ts hurts ! And after 15 min, nothing came out. Not even a drop of milk. So I allowed her to latch once every few nights. It’s for me.

Last night, I felt soreness on them. So, i asked my girl to try suckle to check if there’s any milk. She just put her mouth on my nip, and made

No attempt to suck. Then she suddenly looked up at me and said “mama, i’m in N2 now, i do not know how to drink ur milk milk anymore”
I asked her to try, and she did , but the feeling wasn’t there anymore. And she told me no milk either.

My girl has grown up. She doesn’t need me that much anymore. Should be a happy thing, but I feel sad at the same time.

Not many of my friends and relatives know that I’m still partially latching. I see no reason to inform them. So now, I have no one to confide in. The only space here for Me to pen down my thoughts. Life of a #dayremummies .

I probably get over it by tomorrow morning, I hope.. and hopefully the soreness goes off soon.

December fun !

At Sentosa slappy pancake. Meimei requested to make pancakes (not mama's de- meaning not at home). So here we are !

Wearing my sunglasses. So cuteee ! My current wallpaper on my hp 🙂

We Played some simple games and were certified as elves, so can take a photo with santa 🙂 – At USS

Gingerbread girl is sooo cute !

Always happy on the bus !
A day out with mama only !

Brought them to watch Chicken Little !

Jiejie enjoyed the show, but meimei , halfway thru the show kept asking me …"when is the show going to be over."

And after that, she can still tell me she enjoy the show . Haha ..

After we watched Chicken Little, we headed to ion for a quick lunch and then to..

Forum to watch Santa show. And I didn't know about the free crafts activities they had ! Was meant for older kids, but the lady allowed my kids to join in. Made a dreamcatcher and snowglobe !

Grandma joined in the fun !

Making paper bags. It was fun and meimei brought one of it out to shop 😂 told her it will tear easily.

At ECP on a sunny morning. And i meant really sunny. When we headed home, it started to pour. What a drastic change of weather !

Meimei playing with my hp

Brought their grandma to USS ! She has the most fun ! And we didn't even comb the whole of USS. Should have sign up the season pass for her. Deep regrets..

This was the 3rd time we are there in dec … and the longest ! We normally stay for 2hrs odd , but with grandma , it was like 11-5! Wooh ! The girls were dead tired !

Brought grandma to indoor playground too ! It was fun !

A x'mas gathering with girlfriends. Nice cafe. Nice atmosphere. 23 yrs of friendship and still counting.

An hr of archery lesson . Think they will get arm muscle aches the next day 😅

Playground fun again ! Cos is the holidays ! 🙂

Cough / Flu natural remedy

Reminder to myself . Otherwise , I always tend to forget. I try not to rely too much on medicine if it is mild cough/ flu

Cough / flu natural remedies for the kids :

1) One tbs of homemade elderberry syrup

2) To place cut onions in the room when they are asleep at night.

3) Or To diffuse essential oil (cypress or fir needle, lavender and orange) (These are safe EOs for kids. Thieves are not. )

4) Feed apple/ pear soup continuously for few days.

5) Always wear socks to bed

6) Steam onion and feed the juice from the steaming

7) To make Elderberry gummy (so far tried once only)

8) Apply little bit of baby vicks on the back (never near the nose ! )

Food to avoid

– chicken
– egg
– fruits
– biscuits (that's a given)

Apple/ Pear soup

– Water (1.3/4 bowls)
– cut fruit into slices
– 1x white snow fungus (soak it)
– 1 x honey date
– 3 x dried figs
– chuan bei
– nan bei xing

– Boil for 45 mins and transfer to thermal pot to let it continue to cook
– Strain it after few hours or whenever ready to drink.

Onion Syrup

1) Slice 1-2 onions (medium size)
2) Place it in SS bowl. Steam for 30 min.
3) Strain it and drink it once slightly cooled down.

(1 onion can yield 15-20ml syrup, little but probably is good enough. )

(So far, only tried yellow onions)

Elderberry Syrup

– 83.3ml dried elderberries
– 437.5ml water -> 680ml water edited
– 100ml raw honey

1) Pour water and elderberries and bring to boil.
Cover and reduce to simmer. 45min-1hr, until liquid reduce to half.
(Note to self: to add more water while simmering based on experience)

2) Remove from heat and let it be cool enough to be handled

3) pour through strainer into glass bowl, discard elderberries

4) Add honey and stir. Store in glass bottle and fridge.

Disclaimer: my kids are okay with

With the taste of syrup. I think I have made 4 bottles so far. It can get a bit too sweet, so probably can reduce the honey)

Essential Oils

– Used to have a recipe to mix the various EO, but got too lazy and now I simply drip 3-4 drops each into the diffuser. Fir needle, Cypress, sweet orange , lavender.

Disclaimer: Am no expert in EOs. This is the supposely safe EO for children. And no Eo is safe for babies under 1. You can read more from http://www.usingeossafely.com
I research a fair bit before committing to these few EOS.
Please do your own research as well if you want to try out EO.

If any #dayremummies has anything to add on, do let me know.

Jiejie tends to get cough easily (mild cough that takes a fair bit to recover) That's why I'm reluctant to keep feeding medicine till she totally recovers. I only feed med when her cough is quite bad and yes, we do still visit the dr to make sure her lungs are clear. That's important.

Nov & Dec activities ! Play and Play !

Their expression ! So priceless !
(When they experience "snow" at changi airport) 😍

My lovely girls

A family photo 😊

Making olaf ornaments and colouring a x'mas card as part of the activity organised by a shopping mall

The first X'mas activity !

The second !

Happy with their x'mas tree

The third and fourth. Rain clouds and ice cream made of cupcake liners

The fifth .
That's all for now 😆

Their painting activity. I should really buy from taobao and save up the money. But
1. i have no oven at home
2. It always feels nicer to do any activities outside the house. Why? I also don't know

Mini trampoline playground. Can you spot jiejie dd rock climbing? Meimei is busy jumping.

Had initially wanted to bring them to trampoline park. But.. My fb newsfeed pop out an article from a mum who caution against bringing small kids to trampoline park. So Make do with this tiny trampoline playground . At least it is small and not too many kids

Our mini trip to Legoland. The last time we went was more than a year ago. At that time, meimei can only sit the train ride. This time round, she has grown much taller ! Even sat the kids spaceshot (up down up down ride) with us!

And she can ride a car now! Both got their physical legoland driving licence! Guess who's the happiest?
Meimei !
But this jiejie got to pour hot water and says she has 2 driving licenses now !
And meimei started to feel a bit sad and say she only has one.

Oh well….

We stayed in legoland hotel! There was a treasure box and jiejie was mildly disappointed with the lego treasures inside. Lol.

But they both played for a long time on the bunk bed.

Got the legoland annual pass since it makes more sense to do so than to pay another entrance fee the next day.

This is jiejie n meimei colouring on the tablecloth (or rather table paper ) . Specially for the kids. Interesting as it kept them occupied for a short while

Shape of a heart – by jiejie

And this is what I meant by activities outside the house is more fun ! We have so many legos at home but they seldom play with it (so i do hide them and take it out occasionally)

Supposed to be some sky tower – by jiejie

Another heart shape

Present – by meimei

The girls were queuing up for car ride. I was waiting outside when I noticed meimei hiding behind jiejie. On closer look, she was hugging jiejie from the back!

Oh my gosh ! So sweet !!!! Immediately whipped out my hp and took a pic of them quietly. 😍😍😍

Room service for dinner. Bad choice.. food was good but we waited far too long. Oh well.. we won't be staying here again anyway. Probably stick back to our usual jb hotel.

It was pure holiday week for us, so we only "studied" for a short 20-30min ? While meimei was napping yest, jiejie
– Revised number bonds.
– Revised Multiples of 2
– Read a green series book from school
– Revised vccv words, "est", "-ful"
– Snake and ladder for "a-e" words

Wanted to go through some chinese book and sight words, but meimei woke up. Got to entertain her 😅

At garden by the bay ! Sitting the ever so expensive teacup. The happy silly girls who love to get giddy.

Playing with cotton wool (snow) on the floor.

Hello 🎅 !

And another giddy ride they like. I remembered I used to like this when I went genting theme park. Not anymore though 😖

The pretty view from the skywalk. Look at meimei unhappy face.
Think she wanted to play the carnival rides. But we brought her up here. Haha.

Now's the time to spend lots and lots of time with them . My elder cousin is now always going out with her hb. Her kids (2 in sec sch and 1 in pri) seldom follow her already. So is best to treasure our time with them. I think I will feel lost when the time comes.
Pray hard it doesn't comes too fast though! 😧

Jiejie made this octopus earlier. One of the loots from treasure box

The 2nd loot from treasure box. Boy camping and saw a snake near the diamond.

3rd loot. A keychain which both shows no interest 😅

Got these legos free from participating in a dance at the lobby. Not bad at all 😀

Nov activities for my girls (๑˃̵ᴗ˂̵)

End year concert performance ! They did so well ! So proud of them ! And they learnt all the dance movement for the whole cohort somehow. Bug me to play the songs all the time and start dancing non stop. 😃

Mini kidzania event at a shopping mall. They got to be a photographer (their favourite!), sales asst at 7-11, soup asst, dentist asst.

Meimei learnt how to write the number 2. And so the whole of last week, we see her writing 2 everywhere 😅 she's learning how to write number 6 at the moment. But she can only write a mirror image of it for now.

Jiejie drew a whole lot of clams, some ice creams and use markers to colour them and finally cut them up.

Jiejie painting. Canvas gifted by her classmate

Got them to do some drawing after dinner .

Left: meimei's drawing
Right : jiejie's drawing

Sharing a cup of sour orange juice. They are really so sweet when they don't fight 😙

Meimei's helping to vacuum!

Jiejie's also helping out 😀

Jiejie helping me to fold the laundry while meimei was having her nap 😊

Playing playdough while I cook

Serving me her dough cookies

Managed to persuade jiejie to cut her super long hair. Ended up longer than We discussed , but so much neater now.

Signed up a gymnastics class for both girls.
Have been asking jiejie to learn swimming, but she tells me she wants to learn gymnastics. We went for 2 different trials classes and I can see her beaming every second for this one.
Signed up for meimei as well after she had her trial class. One year ago, she went for a parent accompanied gym class at forum mall and she loved it. This time round, am sure she's going to enjoy as well 😊

I'm happy when my kids love sports.

Left : jiejie
Right : mei

At kallang wave mall. Jiejie got a new bike ! Gifted by her ah gong. She chose it herself and requested for a basket . Haha. The bike is a little too big for her. Got to wait till she grow a little taller before I attempt to remove the two tiny wheels.

At kallang for HPB activities. Meimei got an elmo balloon and elmo hand painting. Jiejie got a heart shaped balloon and rainbow hand painting

First time on the bridge. Nice view 😊

Got jiejie to practice her writing..

Currently reading ladybird lvl 3 & 4, and robin lvl 3.
Got some of the ladybird "peter and jane" series but I personally feel bored with the story line. Jiejie too. She rather read ladybird/ robin fairytales books, so will get her to read few pages of "peter and jane" once a week only.

Jiejie's drawing. Can you see that she is copying the pictures as below ?

The rabbit, the tortoise, the squirrel and front view of rabbit.
Love her drawings!

Jiejie has been bugging me to bring her to do rock climbing ever since she saw it at kallang. So googled a little and here we are! Signed up meimei as well.

They did quite well !
It took few attempts before meimei managed to climb all the way up by herself ! It took more attempts for her to come down by herself (eventually she learnt to hold the ropes n use her legs to kick the wall to come down after long time)

Jiejie was quite good ! She managed to complete 9 out of 12 challenges they had. The remaining 3 was too difficult for her. She attempted the 10th once and gave up.
Too tired too i guess 😀

Both of them ! Different kind of sports for them and glad they love it, although jiejie said it is hard to climb when we were home.

Last pic. Meimei. 3.5 yrs old. Proud of her achievement ! She got 2 stars out of 12 for the challenge but I'm already very happy as I did think she might give up at the very beginning.😍

Left : meimei
Right: jiejie

Oct activities with the girls ( ◠‿◠ )

Octoburst – at esplanade. Listened to 3 short Chinese stories from Berries, answered questions and get some stickers

Octoburst – "In search of the rain"
A play held in the library. The girls were very "ON" which surprised me. They asked for volunteers to help out and these two raised their hands all the time 😅

Octoburst- playing with dough

Octoburst- grow a garden.

After doing some painting of an umbrella and a cloud, she decided to do some drawings

Drawing 1: Mickey and Minnie and baby

Drawing 2

Drawing 3: she said it's a card for mama 🙂

Drawing 4

Meimei's drawing now. Got a nose already!

And the string is not a balloon string! Is a slide. She says papa mama jiejie sit the slide down 🙂

Meimei's drawing 2 – I love love love her cute drawing !

Addition with beads – hundreds, tens and units.

Jiejie made a house for Elsa (frozen) with pipes. Hb went to buy pipes for the girls to connect after seeing similar ones at octoburst.

Meimei requested for funnel. She saw me using it and wants to try out herself.
Happily obliged and rushed to cook dinner. Lasted her for about 10min. Good enough.

Jiejie wanted to play too, but I only have one funnel, so passed her some droppers to play instead

Every time I bring them out by myself, they will be the best of friends. Like this

See meimei window shopping.. still try it out on jiejie 🙂 so sweet right?

The other day, I brought them out to buy skirts and shoes by myself. They really have their own opinions what they like and want to buy 😄

Our late night supper . Just the three of us 😊 okay not too late. It was 7plus and the girls had finished mama's dinner and requested to go out

About to throw away the shoebox when I suddenly remembered this Chinese story book. The little boy loves drawing on the shoebox.
Causally asked jiejie if she wanted to draw some pictures on the shoebox and if she remembered the story book, her face immediately brightened up and rushed to find the book.

Thought she will draw her castle/ princesses , but she followed the cover page pic and drew xmas trees 🌲
🙂🙂🙂

( oh meimei was having her nap. Lucky.. as I only have one available box)

Rock painting again. This is jiejie concentrating very hard

I love jiejie's rainbow ! And meimei's molten lava rock 🤣

At goodman arts centre. The girls were fooling around pretending it was a stage.

Story telling. And both girls were very participative ! So proud of them 🙂

Sep & Oct Activities for the kids (๑˃̵ᴗ˂̵)

Family day event for all at Kallang. Happened to chance upon it and the girls had a blasting fun time. Can u spot meimei all alone by herself climbing? Jiejie is waiting for her at the top

This is the small version of the "climb"

Cycling (2 weeks back) .. and Mr. looked around for the mouse coin. Although we knew it would not be here.

A 2D1N trip to JB. Jiejie loves the hotel room so much that she told her form teacher all about it and her teacher asked me where did we go. 😂We happen to book a bigger room, so it came with a very nice bathtub that they spent some time playing in there

We were too tired and lazy to get out of the hotel for dinner. So room service it shall be. And because meimei missed her aftn nap, she slept early that night!

(Normally if she does miss her aftn nap, we will see her tantrums all the way till she sleep, but because she is happy she is staying out that day, she showed her best behaviour throughout!)

Meimei asked me the night before "what other activities?" "Something fun" , but I have nothing on hand. So googled around and this is what they played the next day.
Mindless game though.
put a rope in a straight line and then use your elbow, knee, foot, etc to move the ball to end point

I think this is supposed to be – using a paper plate and fan the crushed tissue to the goal (which in this case is under the blue chair). Don't know where's her paper plate though

Hide a coin under one of the cup and shuffle the 3 cups around. Both were quite alert. Managed to tell me where the coin is.
I tried to play cheat and take the coin out from the cup but jiejie caught me.

At kallang again..
one loves to cycle, one loves to skate.

Meimei is tall and strong enough to sit the bicycle meant for jiejie . So got to get a new bicycle for jiejie soon. Told her to try pedal and balance with 2 wheels soon. She should have enough practice with her balance bike at home.

A lazy day. Just got meimei to sort out the bears according to colours.

To use tongs to transfer, followed by a spoon.

Jiejie made a sunglass and crown while i took a short break after teaching her (basically just surf hp on the sofa ..oops)

Learning addition.

Had a parent teacher's meeting last week. Jiejie has just started on green series. Her teacher mentioned she is one of the fastest in her group now. Most are still on blue series.

It is such a big relief!
It was such a far cry when she was still stuck in pink series at the start of this year. I still remembered I panic ! I did not realised at that time she was lacking behind actually.

All the hard work we did together at home daily really helps! So glad !

But.. I'm not sure if she is supposed to be good in spelling as well? Got her to write few words several times and she doesn't remember. Hmm… ok a step at a time.

Anyway, this was what jiejie presented to me. Food I ordered . Nice presentation 🙂

Painting session starts 🙂

Meimei chooses all black. Weird as normally she likes rainbow colour. Hope is not a sign that she's unhappy.

Did a sample to show the girls and they coloured half of the rest..

And they played this ! It's quite fun ! Jump and follow the footprints ! Jiejie loved it! Meimei? After trying twice, she went on to play her balance bike.

Ta-dah ! Is rock painting season !
Jiejie is very proud of the scary girl. She says is Elsa (frozen), although it look nothing like it at all. Hehe..

But I wonder why yellow and white doesn't seem to come off nicely? I tried on paper and it was okay. Already using acrylic paint. Do i need a base ?

Aug & Sep Activities (๑˃̵ᴗ˂̵)

Playing snakes and ladders

Revising..

Mermaids swimming in a pool with snowflakes

"Ee", "oo"

Reading "At the market selling "E""

Jiejie and her chopsticks

Hmm Rapunzel?

What's your name ? And do some silly poses according to the card .

Next was Scavenger Hunt ! The kids enjoy ! Think I forgot to take a photo of the printout.

Jiejie was reading this chinese book 爸爸是国王 and she decided to follow what the little boy was doing. Draw and cut out a crown! She made like 6 in total. So enthusiastic. Lol

At garden by the bay. Down the slide they go ! And i think the slide is so dirty. Full of sand 😂 I didn't sit though

Jiejie drew a castle !

And a sandcastle !

Papa pampering them at arcade 🤣

Meimei pretending to read "Ugly Ducklings"

Meimei hard at work: doing counting in a rod.

When I first bought it, I didnt realise it was so tiny ! Expected a bigger one 🤣

Jigsaw puzzle

Painting …

A sunflower and a star!

Board game of "a-e" . The silent E .
She loves the game ! But still making mistakes when reading story book . Need more practice

Stylo milo

A little gift for their loving teachers

And Flower prints all done up ! All ready to give to their teachers!

Playing hop-scotch at the playground.

Managed to capture her jumping up 😆

Trampoline… jump jump jump

Meimei 2nd attempt at painting and she did very well! Able to control the amount of paint to squeeze out unlike the first time she did few mths back.

Jiejie's mermaid. She's so pleased with her artwork

At the artground. They had a fun time pulling the caterpillar about up and down the stage, drawing with chalk, running around and playing hide and seek.

At changi airport. Mini carnival for the girls !
Merry go round,
Train ride,
This aeroplane ride,
Egg catcher (clawing machine),
Throwing the hoop,
Throwing ball to clown's mouth.

Quite fun and they managed to play every game