During walkies...

Our main reason for taking daily walks, as you all know, comes on four feet.
As a medium, largish breed, the Dog needs quite a bit of exercise daily, which we provides by taking daily walks around the housing complex.
It has been a good arrangement for everyone involved, with many advantages to each parties.
The Dog got her exercise, Mama and Kecil got their break from the monotony of being cooped up in the house and some exercise.
We also get to meet other dog owners, kids of Kecil's age, new friends, even people who are not so friendly to dogs, etc.
And sometimes, Mama even get some content for her blog from such walkies.
But mainly, I guess Mama is also hoping that Kecil would have a good exposure of the outdoors so that she will grow up loving being out and about.

It would seem that Mama has made some degree of success, with Kecil now often becoming the initiator of our walkies, demanding to be taken out whenever she deem the time/weather appropriate for walkies.
So Mama would grab the leash, some bags for doggie poo, and, sometimes, her camera.
You never know when you would need it!

Indeed! That day, we were happily walking, and Mama was resigned to just a couple of pathetic pics of birds when something shot out one of the houses, making straight for the Dog.
Here's what we found upon closer inspection:

A small boy! Running fearlessly on the road sans supervision, following the Dog, following us further and further from the house where he seemed to have originated.

Kecil was at first somewhat non-plussed with the sudden appearance, but she soon got off her bike to join all the running and going.
Those three soon almost gave Mama a heart attack as they ran off towards the other road with heavier traffic. Mama actually had to abandon Kecil's bike on the road side as she ran to catch her errant 'off spring' before they got into mischief.
Anyway, Mama did caught them on time and we went back (and kept) to the quieter side road where the three had fun running and tumbling around.

Not quite sure with the proper discharging of the Boy from following us around, we ended up staying in the vicinity for a bit while Mama made good use of her camera.
During the process, Mama had to admit to swelling pride:
- for the Boy for getting over his original slight wariness to touch the Dog
- for my Little Girl for readily accept a new friend and play around
- for the Dog for behaving so beautifully even when Kecil taught the Boy how to annoy the Dog by blowing into her ears! I guess the Dog does know that she was not to snap of little people.

Out of the encounter, the Dog actually managed to get the Boy to give her some water, in a paper cup.
We left shortly after as it was getting dark and we finally found the Boy's mother, who prevented the Boy to continue following us around.
We met the Boy once more during walkies the following days, but Kecil sure has been asking to be brought to her new 'Friend's' place MANY times.

Well, we do hope for new friends. In the meantime, Mama got her post for today.
Thank the Dog for all those!
Here's to more friends around the neighborhood!

A Birthday Treat

So... did you get to find the hint hidden in the last post? Just in case you did not, the photo above should be the 'hint' that you see when you move your mouse over the image in that 'hint' post.
This Mama just learned this mouseover HTML trick over the week and the birthday treat presented just THE perfect opportunity to unleash it on you guys (She also managed to write a tutorial on it, just in case you are interested to do a similar trick).

As for Kecil's birthday treat... Yup. We went horseback riding at the nearby uhmm... stable? riding facility? whatever.
You might still remember our holidays in the mountain where we went for a short ride in the rain:

Well... Kecil never got over the experience, apparently. As Skool term rolled on, often we had to take public transport, which sometimes took a detour through the road near the stables.
We would keep our eyes peeled for any sign of the horses.
After her birthday celebration, Mama and Daddy decided that should the weather turn out to be good, we should take her horse riding on Sat. And we did!

Meet Mamas (temporary) horse, the Golden Rafe, Daddy & Kecil's horse, Lady Jane and the very excited Little Girl.
For various reasons, we decided that Kecil would ride with her Daddy while Mama rode alone and took pictures.

Kecil & Daddy with their horse and guide, and Mama riding in front (photo of Mama taken by Mama's guide).
The ride was about 1 hour long, covering a short trek to a nearby waterfall.
After so much rain in the past few months, the trek is not the easiest (or the smoothest) thing to do on earth, but we managed all right.

The stables, the waterfall sign and the muddy trek

We took a break at the waterfall to let the horses rest for a while. For us, we just took a look around since we've been there before, but Mama's horse guide took the opportunity to really cool himself by jumping into the water. (Sorry no pic)

But the best part of the story was ... it seemed that the horse handlers did not tie the horses properly (if they did), and when we got back to the 'landing' area, the horses were nowhere to be found!

It took our guides a few minutes to locate the horses, but it was a good laugh all around, except for a slightly distressed Little Girl.

Mama's guide 'borrowed' Mama's camera on the way back, taking pictures of us and Mama. So, in case you were wondering about Mama's sudden appearances, that's why.

All in all, we had real great fun.

Well... and we very much hope that Kecil did as well, even if she kept putting on her 'worried face' once she was on the horse.

Still, by the amount of excitement that tinge her voice whenever she tried to retell the story of how she rides the horse, I guess she had fun.

Here's hoping that you had a good weekend (and a good start to a new week) as well!

This weekend ...

Saturday rolled in bringing a beautiful hot weather, with sun and clear blue skies, perfect for wandering in picturesque scenes like that above. As such, no post for today, however, trying her newly acquired knowledge, Mama is leaving a hint to Kecil's birthday present from Mama and Daddy somewhere around this post. Have a look around, and take your time (it might take a while to load properly). 

Will return on Monday with the proper coverage of the 'birthday present'. Have a fun weekend!

Hint: Using your mouse would help 'reveal' the hint!

Goofy faces

Being the kid of two mischievous parents, grandkid of two sets of grandparents with equally fantastic sense of humor, I guess this Mama should have seen it coming.
This Kid is going fall not far from the tree.
Oh yeah! Most definitely, from spraying Mama and the Dog indiscriminately using the spray bottle, to gleefully waking a sleepy Mama by tickling Mama's feet, we have ourselves a very mischievous Baby, indeed!

Not just at home, but also in Skool, she's one playful, happy individual.
And we wouldn't have it any other way.
Three years on, she's still a handful, but she's still bringing us so much joy and brighten up our days.
Now if only she can bring it some real sun into our days here, as well. Haha!

Here's some smiles to brighten up your days as well. Enjoy!

Birthday in Skool 3: Scenes

The choice to celebrate Kecil's birthday in Skool was made due to several reason:
- majority of Kecil's friend are from Skool
- the number of these friends had shot up from just 2 last year, to ... uhmm... many?
- the convenience of celebrating in Skool, especially for the parents
- the fact that I can get some help from the Teachers instead of managing a mob of hyper kids all by myself. Ahem.

This Mama thinks that it all worked out for the best. Kecil had great fun. Hopefully the rest of the kids had fun as well.

Hmm.. yeah, I think they had fun. Although some mishap did happen, which resulted a bit of tears.

Which brought about a beautiful collaboration by almost ALL the students to cheer up the poor baby.
She cheered up in no time at all.

This Mama is very happy that everything worked out so well. And the best part of the whole thing came at the end of the celebration:

A framed (in pink!) Birthday greeting, complete with a photo taken barely a few minutes before presentation, from the Skool on behalf of all the teachers and the students!
What a lovely gesture with impeccable timing!

We would like to use this chance to thank EVERYONE involved in Kecil's birthday, especially the wonderful Teachers and Kecil friends, who have made the day extra special for Kecil.
We do hope you managed to enjoy yourselves and had a good time.

Until next time!

(and in a teary Mama moment: Ooo.. my Baby is so not little anymore)

 

Birthday in Skool 2: The Toot War Chief

Although Kecil's class only consist of 6 students, for the celebration we combined the whole of morning session students, from our youngest friends in Toddler, to the Kinder's Big Boys Club, and everyone in between.

 Everybody was on their best behavior, happily eating the food provided.
Then somebody found the party tooters in the loot bag.
The giggles that followed the first TOOT spread like wildfire, and soon everybody was rummaging their loot bag for their own tooters.
And the TOOT wars begin!

Needless to say, Birthday Girl was the Chief Tooter. Yes?

The most honorable, enthusiastic Toot War Chief. Need I say more?

Birthday in Skool: cupcakes & song

(This Mama was happily writing and pasting photographS when she realized that SO many photographs are unlikely to help the blog's loading time. To help our readers with less than optimal internet connection, the coverage will be divided into parts, with hopefully manageable number of photos each. Thank you for understanding!)

Amidst the chaos that was made of many good friends, fantastic (& very helpful) teachers, candies, cupcakes, and one trigger happy Mama, Kecil celebrated her 3rd birthday in Skool yesterday.
An event that has been wildly anticipated by Kecil, it went pretty much without a glitch despite the last minute preparation.
(Kecil already had 2 friends celebrating their birthday in Skool, and she was pretty hyped with the prospect of her 'turn' to celebrate and blow the candles on the cupcake!)

We brought Mama-made cupcakes (with pink icing, of course), some birthday hats, some spaghetti, loot bags with juice and some sweets.
And Kecil readily took on the very serious responsibility of distributing the hats.
The teachers helped getting the rest of the eating utensils distributed, and the kids organized.

Once everybody was roughly settled (everyone had a place at the table with a plate ready for food), we moved on the the most important event: Birthday song and blowing candle!

After a lot of straggling, confusion and encouragement from the teachers, we actually managed a few rounds of Birthday song, and Kecil did manage to blow the candles without any mishap.
Then it was time to eat!

That's all for now. Stay tune for the next part!

pink & healthy

This Mama wonders if perhaps the photo summarizes her feelings 3 years back.
She knew that Kecil was going to be a girl, a pretty healthy one too, from the look of it, but that was really all.
There was no knowing of how the Girl was going to look like, if she would have an easy-going nature, if she was going to inherit any of her parents' quirks, if anything!

Throughout these 3 years, we have found out so many things about this little Girl of ours,
That she has a beautiful, deep dimple that she's just discovering (and got fascinated with)
That she has a loud voice that is always a ready weapon, especially when she's feeling cranky
That she is cheerful, and friendly, and very much attached to her Mama,
That she loves to run and jump and explore and shout and climb all over Daddy
That she is not just exactly what we hope for, but also so much much more....

There are many more years ahead for us to get to know this Little Girl even better
But in the meantime, this Mama will grab this moment to be grateful,
For a lovely, beautiful, tiring, rewarding, roller coaster-y 3 year
With our very own Little Girl ...

Happy 3rd Birthday, Kecil!


from Mama & Daddy