fashionista

In the past month or so, Jolie has grown to become very conscious of her appearance. We used to be the one to decide what she wears, but now SHE's the boss. Whenever she see us getting dressed up to go out, she would get all excited and yelled, "clothes!" Then she would run to her her cupboard and starts to dig for clothes to wear. But all her dresses are hung up quite high, so she would yell for us and demand that we carry her while she chooses her outfit. Sometimes she would stand on the floor while we show her the choices. "This one? This one? This one?" The little fashionista would then make a serious face and go, "errrrmmmm.... Yi Gor!" Which means "this one!" in Cantonese.

She is such a sporty girl, we were wondering if she would become a classic tomboy. But based on her choice of clothing, she turned out to be a very girly-girl, loving dresses which she calls, "dancing clothes".

Every time she dressed up, she would admire herself in front of the mirror, spin around and strike a pose. And whenever there's a new audience, like upon reaching her grandparent's place, she would strike a pose to show off her outfit first even before going inside the house, fishing for compliments.

Like all fashionistas, some of her fashion choices weren't really logical, like one day she spotted her winter boots that I hid above on top of the cupboard. She insisted on wearing them even though it was freaking hot. We suggested her to wear something light, but she insisted, so we let her wear them. It looks really cute though, very Korean pop.

She seems to really like this sun dress I bought for her from Taiwan. But the halter neck would be a bit too cooling for her if we were going to the shopping centre. So we had to improvise by letting her wear a top underneath.

By the way, she pee-ed in her pants shortly after taking these photos. -_-

Well, not all of her choices are good. One day, she saw my dad keeping the laundry and chased after him. She pointed at a colourful top that belonged to my Mom and put in on. She loved it so much that she wore it for hours!

My little vain pot... :)

Birthday plus Mid-Autumn Festival Party

Tonight brother, sis-in-law and us would be going to my parents place for mid-autumn festival dinner. Before dinner was ready, Jolie took over the camera and started taking photo of everybody, starting with her "gong gong"...

Her goofy "Kau Fu"...

Finally, dinner was ready! Check out Mama's and Papa's feast! I commented that it was as sumptuous as New Year's reunion dinner, and Mom replied that it IS a reunion dinner! A mid-autumn reunion dinner.

After we filled ourselves with dinner, we cleared the table and brought out the cake Cobby bought for me. My durian Birthday cake! Yeah!

Happy Birthday group photo!

May all my wishes come true!

Dad and his wacky antics! Don't know where she learnt that, but Jolie likes to stick out her tongue when she takes photos!

Happy birthday to me!

Thumbs up for the durian cake!

Jolie never had durian before, so we wondered if she would love or hate the fruit or not. But after one bite, we eagerly asked if she liked it, and she nodded "YES!" Haha! It's official! We have a durian lover!

Amazing! 5 adults and 1 child and we polished off the WHOLE 20cm cake!!!

Even more amazing! After the amazing dinner, polishing off the whole cake, we even had space for Mooncake! Haha, but hey, it's mid-autumn festival, it was COMPULSORY. :) This year, we tried my very first attempt in making mooncakes.

It was pretty ok, but of course, it's not as excellent as the ones we bought from Orchard hotel, Huating.

Then Dad brought out the one that Sis bought from Peninsula Hotel, Hong Kong. There was alot of debate on which one tasted the best. Dad liked the one Sis bought, Cobby and I liked the one that I bought, and bro, well, it all tasted the same to him. -_-

Check out the pomelo lantern that dad made!

Cool!

Another compulsory thing to do on mid-autumn festival. Play with lanterns. This year, Jolie got:

A Bee / Butterfly (I don't know what insect was it) lantern from my Mom.

Dancing lady lantern from my Dad.

In case you're wondering why we were laughing like mad, it's because of what Dad said. He was trying to get the dancing lady to face the camera, but dancing lady wouldn't turn, so he cursed in Cantonese, "TURN AROUND YOU @#$%!"

So while we concussed from overeating, Jolie took her bath and put on her brand new Dora pajamas. She's very into Dora now, so she totally loved her new outfit.

What a super fun-filled / food-filled night! We didn't let Jolie play outdoors with her lantern as it was super hot, humid and hazy. But I think she didn't mind. :)

Army Half Marathon 2011

As the title suggest, this entry is not about me, but my darling Cobby's 2011 Army Half Marathon (AHM) Run.

This year, he bought a Nike+ Sportband, so he managed to keep a record of all of his practice runs and the actual marathon itself. Actually, he bought the pair of Nike running shoes at a sale. When he got home, he realised that the model he happened to choose allows the runner to put a sensor inside the shoe. So we went out to get the sportband. Quite cool actually, they would track all the runs, and the pace.

So his camp has been very "on-the-ball" when it comes to this year's AHM. They made it sort of mandatory for the men to go for practice runs around the camp three times a week, each time increasing in distance. I think it was 4km, 8km, 16km, every monday, wednesday and friday. I'm really impressed, as I suck at running.

I blame my secondary school for my phobia of running. Each time I think of running long distance, I'm reminded of my teenage years, running around the track for my 2.4km IPPT. I remember the sweat, the pain in my sides, the breathlessness, trying so hard to suck in air that I want to vomit. All the time I'm thinking...when is it going to end!? And when it's finally over, the PE teacher tells me that I didn't meet the timing and had to do it again next week. Oh... that mixture of pain and frustration and disgust! sob....

Ahem, anyway, back to Coby's run. Below is the route they ran. 21KM! Phew~!

This is the Nike+ record of Cobby's run that day. Quite consistent! Better yet, look at the timing! Less than 3 hours, not bad man!

The online program also lets the runner record down the little details of the day, so here was Cobby's thoughts.

I find it so funny that he would write the comment, "AWESOME" as it seemed very unlike him. When I asked him, he said that there was only a few options to choose from. Ah~ I see... But his note, "VERY TIRED" was definitely his own input. Haha... 2 words says it all right?

Anyway, I was very proud of him and asked him to pose with his medal. But he wasn't very enthusiastic with his medal, as he said that it was a medal of pain and reminded him of how painful the run was. Honestly, I was quite worried, as there was frequently news of healthy men who just drop dead after a run. So I kept reminding him not to push it, relax and take it easy. Thankfully he's fine. The only injury sustained was:
1. One mega blister between his toes
2. skin abrasions between his inner thighs
3. skin abrasion between his arms and the side of his torso
4. pain in his knees for the next few days

Amazingly, he didn't have ANY muscle aches. How is that possible!? If it's me, I would probably have to crawl around for a few days. I guess all the training did helped. Oh, I also made him put hansaplast on his nipples so that there wouldn't be any abrasions. :) You're welcome! Haha... Once again, proud of ya! Maybe next year we could bring Jolie along and go for the fun run.

Happy Teacher's Day 2011

It's teacher's day soon, and I wanted to give Jolie's teachers a gift to thank them for taking care of my baby. So I have been looking around for the right gift. Unfortunately, all the presents are SO LAME! All were crappy fake flowers, cheapo towels and soft toys that weren't even cute. -_-

So I think I would do what I do best, which is to bake something. Practical and yummy! So I made a big batch of almond biscotti, which was perfect with a cup of coffee or tea.

Then I put them into ziplock bags and wrapped them up in coloured tissue paper. These are the ones that clothing shops use to wrap up clothes. They are great as gift wraps, or stuffing into a gift box. Reuse, reduce, recycle! :)

I think Jolie should contribute some to the presents too, so I got her to scribble on some construction paper as background design, and I added the cut out wordings to make the front of the card.

Jolie also helped to decorate the inside of the card.

Before class started, I was talking to some grandparents. One of them said that her 12 year old granddaughter spent the whole night preparing almost 30 gifts for ALL the teachers that has ever taught her, from Primary one to six. It was her last year in primary school, so I guess it was her way to thank all her teachers. I thought that was really impressive, that a 12 year old would have such great personality traits such as generosity, gratitude, determination and perseverance to prepare so many gifts. Of course, I think the parent who had to help her out must have had a hard time too! Haha...

I wonder what kind of child would Jolie grow up to become? Would she be the grateful one? Or would she be the bochup type? Anyway, hope the teachers enjoyed their presents. Happy Teachers Day!