beloved bel

You might wonder how I am spending most of my time these days since coming back from Singapore, and with an ever growing belly. I felt the true impact of how life would be alone with Izzy when K's dad left.  I had to start cooking meals again after such a long time (dating back to before our SG trip), drop Isabelle to the childminder's and picking her up in the evening for 3 days a week.  Housework, house admin duties call, not to mention our gutters were clogged up once more, and a part was leaking.  We were also trying to find the source of a mysterious leak outside our house which had been going on for about two weeks.  Damp walls are always a worry because you don't want wet and damaged walls.  I also had to look for a new gardener to help us maintain our garden because the last one we had simply disappeared during our time in Singapore.  And it didn't help that K was putting in long hours at work and it felt like I was shouldering the entire household and child r

I wondered if most mums throw a baby shower for their second or subsequent babies.  In my mind, I would love to spend an afternoon with some close girlfriends before I lose all my freedom once the new baby arrives.  I had an elaborate and girly one thrown for me by my best friend Gabby here two years ago at my place, and even had my special guest Priscilla flying all the way from Germany to attend.  It was such a special afternoon in my heart.  I knew I didn't need to outdo that one, so just a simple affair for the second one sounded like a plan in my head.  In fact one of my friends said for the second baby it's referred to as a Baby Sprinkle in America.  lol Right I shall have a baby sprinkle then! This time round I organised it by setting a date and inviting once again, 8 girls over on Sunday afternoon.  I ordered a cake, a sandwich platter, some sausage rolls, a pizza, and a bowl of salad pasta.  Which was actually more than enough for all of us.  

Izzy's grandpa spent 12 days in the UK in total, it was too short we all thought :). It was nice to see the two spending time together, especially in the early mornings.  Grandpa wakes up at 5ish every morning and when Izzy wakes up at 7ish, she will go to the stairs and peer down and call for " ah gong ".  Then he will bring her downstairs and feed her some breakfast and play with her.  Or Izzy would be running around him while he built her toy kitchen.  And mummy can sleep in.. ahh bliss. Toy Kitchen Ah yes, this home project which I had envisioned doing in my head for the longest time.  If you haven't heard or seen, there are so many Pinterest posts about the IKEA kids kitchen hack - where parents buy the Ikea Duktig play kitchen and modify it to suit their own colour theme.  I was very inspired by this blogger Katie Lamb's kitchen hack that I saved it in my phone for the longest time.  I even managed to convince two other mum friends to buy the

We had a special guest a couple of weeks ago - Izzy's grandpa came to visit!  It was exciting as we haven't had any guests for some time, and it's his first visit since K moved to the UK more than 10 years ago. It was nice for K to be able to show his dad our way of life here, and for little Izzy to spend some time with ah gong . K was very excited and planned a 3D 2N weekend getaway to the Peak District for us and rented a little cottage near the town of Bakewell.  We had just came back from Singapore and a few days later we were packing again.  It was about a 5h drive each way and Isabelle did really well on both ways.  She didn't cry or fuss, but sat patiently with grandpa at the back of the car, either looking out, or talking, or napping.  What a little champion! A weekend with nature It was a beautiful sunny day on our first day - bright blue skies, windy though, and we even saw two guys doing paragliding from a cliff.  We stopped at two spots for