Twirling stories

It would seem that Little Girls, in general, do not need any lesson in twirling. Just dress them up in big, colorful, twirly dress/skirt, and off they would go.
Twirl ... twirl ... twirl ... trying to get the skirts up, lost in the excitement.

This Mama? Apart from clicking the camera, this Mama can't help but admiring those toned legs. It shouldn't come as a surprise given the amount of running, jumping, walking and twirling she does.
Yet it was still ... a shock, mingled with pride and wonder.
Wondering what kind of sport would this Little Girl pick up down the line to contain that steady burst of energy.

Jump, and twirl, and jump, and twirl.
Little wonder this Girl LOVES her dresses (she hardly dress up in anything else, nowadays, except for sleeping, that is).

Here's to my happy, twirly Little Girl!

End of Summer Skool

When Mama enrolled Kecil for Summer Skool, we weren't quite sure about taking the longest option.
6 weeks later, however, we have no idea where summer went.
6 weeks? Really? Didn't we just enroll yesterday or something?
Oh well... I guess time flies when you are having fun, and o boy did Kecil have fun in Summer Skool!

As mentioned before, Kecil took up a bit of writing this summer. Starting with simple straight lines, wiggly lines, slanted lines.... by the end of 6 weeks, she was onto tracing her own name! (Still mixing up the order of the letters when no trace is provided).
This Mama was sorting out her papers the other day, and they usually would have her name written on them, when I came across a particular piece with cute, wiggly lettering. So cute!

The summer program was not limited to academic stuff like writing (it was supposed to be fun, remember?). Kecil learned many songs and dances, she learned how to make a few food items (like the pizza from the other day). Some, like the banana split, did not survive until pick up time. But some did. Like the pastillas (milk candy). Oh, she was very proud of 'her' handywork, especially when I told her I did not know how to make it myself.

Yet another important part of the summer school: meeting and playing with friends, both old and new, regardless of age and nationalities.

Not to forget all the posing done on the way home!

Ah.. this Mama would definitely miss Summer Skool for a while. But as usual, I guess it's time to enjoy more time at home, perhaps doing crafts together with the Little One. Regular Skool would commence soon enough in June.

Until then!

Caught on camera

This Mama caught her Little Girl sitting at the backyard the other day, a blank paper in hand, 'reading' a story to the plants.
And so for a moment, this Mama was buoyed by the the hope that she had done pretty well after all in raising the kiddo: reading her stories, as well as sending her to school where stories ARE read regularly.
We'll still see how she turns out.

In the meantime, Kecil caught her Mama and the camera, and stopped 'reading'.

She did, however let me take a picture of two.

She's getting more and more familiar with her Mama and the camera. Just as long as her Mama still play with her after taking the pics, all is good. After all, there are times when she was the one asking Mama to take her pics. Usually after striking a pose.

Yes, something like that.

And yes, like this as well. (But just don't ask me the idea behind the pose. I have no idea, to tell you the truth)

She grows bigger everyday, this Little Girl of mine.

Walkies between best friends

Today's photo for the post is uncharacteristically heavily edited. That's because this Mama is still giddy playing with her new favorite online photo editor, PicMonkey. If you are into photo editing, you should try it. It's fun, it's easy to use, it's jam-packed with features, it's awesome.


Looking through various pics of the two little girls, they look like the model for 'best friends'.
But as you all know, even best friends get into fights, sometimes exactly because they are best friends.

During today's walkie, they fought. Again. For the nth time. For the same old reason(s):
Who gets to use which swing first, A pushes B while on the slide, who gets a bigger stick.... and so on and so forth.
And it can be a bit ridiculous how much importance these little people would place on such seemingly trivial matter (a longer tree branch, really?).
And of course, there is the matter of the fight itself, which can range from simple disagreement (quite easily diffused) to a full blown tantrum by either party (shouting match, tears, the likes).

Yet somehow when the storm has calmed down,
They would be back playing together again, holding hands, sharing things, laughing together ...
And the best part?
The moment we reached our respective front doors, there ensued a lengthy goodbyes which included no little amount of reassurance that we'll have the same walkies together the following day.

I guess that does describe best friends to a 't'.

And someday, when the picture above have really 'gone vintage', perhaps these girls would look back and laugh at their escapades.

Cheers!

Friend from the playground

Our daily walkies had brought us to many friends so far, and I suppose it will continue in the same way as long as we walk around the neighborhood with a friendly dog and a cheerful little girl in tow.
Kecil's newest friend took her for a ride the other day, and they look. so. cute!

It's kind of funny because when they first played together, Kecil actually growled at the Boy. But as they met almost everyday whenever Kecil visited the playground, they learned to play together amicably, despite the slight difference in age.

Later on, Kecil even taught the Boy a thing or two about climbing fearlessly.

Needless to say, they have lots of fun together.

It's always great to see Kecil making new friends wherever she went.  Here's to more friends, all they way until adulthood and beyond!

Not convinced that Kecil was happy about getting a ride? Check out the photoblog (May 19, 2012) to catch her expression.

The China dress

Do you still remember the dress featured above?

This Mama featured the dress the moment we got it from the seamstress, and of course, for the event we had it made for. The dress have been worn a couple of times, not so often, but often enough to make this Mama happy. Indeed, in making the dress, I wanted it to be good for daily wear, not just for the event. Hence the pleated skirt, and the cotton material.

So when Kecil agreed with the particular selection of dress for today's summer school, this Mama was so coming along with the camera in hand!

No pics from Skool, more because I was politely 'asked' to leave by Her Royal Highness herself (more like shouting from across the playroom to remind me that it's time for me to leave. Fiuh!).
But she couldn't run away from me when it was time to go home.

While she cannot be persuaded these days to wear pants or shorts, only dresses (preferably pink, Mama!), she continued with her penchant for climbing, running and jumping around. Well, I guess it's kind of cool to have your skirts and dresses floating around while you twirl and jump and run in the wind.
Besides, I like to console myself by saying that at least we managed to get her wear a proper pair of shoes for doing all those climbing/running/jumping.

In the meantime, we have a cheerful little girl. What do you think? Does she look like a future CEO?
We'll see, we'll see. In the meantime, I'll keep the picture, complete with the stray hair on top. (This Mama is still miffed with Kecil's flat refusal to have her hair tied up/clipped in any manner).

Until next time!

This weekend...

After 5 weeks of summer school (that's 5 weeks of 5 days a week school timetable: waking up 'early', scrambling to get breakfast done, dressed up and showered, with bags properly packed for both Mama and the Kid), it was nice to laze around the house in pajamas during the weekend.

Kecil seemed to agree. She still woke up pretty early, but she went downstairs before taking a shower, sat down at the table, and started practicing her letters (!!!).

The Kiddo! She's starting to write!!
This Mama is so excited. We did chose for her a really good school, one where she managed to enjoy herself while still learning soooo much.

How was your weekend?

Little Artist

Between dinner and her pink Yakult, Kecil managed to slip in some creative moment, in which she drew faces on her fingernails. She just learned how to draw happy and sad faces, you see.
Overall, one can quite call yesterday an artistic day, full of artistic endeavor, which must have been pretty obvious from the state of Kecil's clothing...

... not to mention the floor and her hands..... Sigh.
She must have picked up after the Dog, getting the floor dirty with her footprints like that.

Still, there is always the good side, in the form of a very proud Little Girl (and her Mama too!), proud of her 'accomplishments' (the good one, the drawing she made on her nails, as well as her Rainbow painting - not pictured).

Good thing she was 'only' playing with water colors and washable markers. They can be cleaned off the (white!!!) dress and the floor, hopefully? As for the little girl? We sent her for shower as soon as dinner was done.

*The floor is already clean, as well as the Little girl. The dress.... might have to go through a second cycle in the washing machine. Unfortunately Kecil loves her white dresses, seriously!

Picnic with Totoro

After quite a long hiatus from walkies with Ami, today Mama picked up Kecil from Ami's house only to find TWO little girls very eager to follow me on my walkies.
The walkies, however, was made a little bit more special with the appearance of a familiar, inanimate friend, Totoro.
For those of you who are not familiar with Totoro, he's a cartoon character from the movie "My Neighbor Totoro" by Hayao Miyazaki. It's one of Kecil's favorite movie, and apparently, Ami's as well.

The walkies started as usual, with the little girls deciding on the route, picking up sticks along the way, posing while Mama took pictures ...

And then of course there were swings to play on, once we got to the playground. The Kids continued running around, playing with slides, climbing on the monkey bars, even naming this Mama The Monster while they ran around the playground, screaming on the top of their voices, apparently trying to escape from The Monster.

Until they got tired, that is, and out came all the 'picnic stuff':

Well, granted we only had bottles of juice and water (plus one pink handkerchief), but with good friends, outdoor location, it all can pass as a semi-picnic at least, no?

We all had a good time on our walkies today, even with all the mosquitoes that seem to rise up in great numbers since the beginning of the rainy season. It's a good thing Mama brought the camera today. One can never know when an impromptu picnic is going to happen. Until next time, Ami & Totoro!

More Photobooth stories

Despite Mama's doom and gloom prediction regarding her hard-disk space in relation to the Photobooth application, we are still doing all right, the new harddisk filling up faster with more regular photos than Kecil's experimentations with the app. It might have to do with the tight-fisted control Mama place on the usage of the computer, ha!

Still, Mama rummaged through the disk to find a few gems hiding. Like Kecil taking picture of her fingers above, Kecil eating, and a few others.

There was even a lesson on photo bombing the other night.

(That was Kecil trying to get a solo photo, and Mama kept 'bombing' her pic. Well, she managed in the end, by sitting, literally, on Mama's head)

Well, somebody managed to pick up something on Photo Bombing, and she has four legs!

(Actually there were some thunder that day, and the Dog was absolutely terrified!)

But we did manage to have some honest photobooth fun.

So as Mama said before, we love us our photobooth. All the goofy, stupid things we can do in front of a simple webcam and a computer ... haha... there is no limit to what you can do.

Do you have a web cam at home? What do you use them for?

(Hmm... apparently we use ours to take family picture as well. Time to invest on a photographer for a proper family pic?)